Pulp Mill Back in Court

The hearing of the legal challenge to the Federal government approval of Gunns’ controversial Tamar Valley pulp mill began in the Federal Court in Melbourne on 18 June 2008. The challenge, brought by the community group, Lawyers for Forests (LFF) is seeking to overturn the former Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull’s approval of the mill on 9 grounds. Click here for LFF’s summary of the case, (PDF 96Kb)

Most grounds relate to the Minister approving the mill before the environmental impacts of marine effluent were known. In approving the mill, the Minister imposed conditions requiring further testing of the impacts of the effluent, but LFF are arguing that this should have been part of the original assessment and the results known before the minister approved the mill.

Lawyers for Forests are also seeking to argue that there was no evidence to justify the Minister using a Canadian guideline from freshwater studies to regulate effluent in marine (salt) water environments as the chemical processes involved are quite different.

If the challenge is successful, the decision approving the mill would be set aside and Minister Garrett would have to consider and decide the matter again.

This case is different from the earlier legal challenge to the mill brought by The Wilderness Society. That challenge related to the process used to assess the mill, while the LFF case challenges the actual decision to approve the mill.

The Wilderness Society has welcomed the LFF legal challenge and believes that, as well as being a crucial test of the decision making around the pulp mill, it will be a further test of Australia’s environment laws – the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act. If the Act fails again to protect Tasmania’s forests (as it did in the previous pulp mill case) then it will be a clear sign that the Act is in need of a major overhaul.