The Turnbull government is pushing ahead with Tony Abbott’s controversial “lawfare’ changes to remove the legal standing of conservation groups to mount environmental court cases, with a Senate committee dominated by Coalition members recommending they proceed without holding any public hearings.



Labor accused the government of using its numbers to cancel public hearings and bring forward the report, and said it proved the “radical right” of the Liberal party still called the shots, despite the change of prime minister to Malcolm Turnbull.

After Turnbull took over, the government’s rhetoric against the alleged legal “sabotage” by green groups appeared to cool, and the committee considering the proposed legislation deferred its reporting date until February.

But on Wednesday it unexpectedly issued a report, with Coalition senators recommending the bill be passed. Both Labor and Green senators said the bill should be rejected, leaving its fate in the hands of the crossbench.

The government announced in August it would remove the right of most environmental organisations to challenge developments under federal laws unless they could show they were “directly affected” – in response to a federal court decision that environment minister Greg Hunt had not properly considered all advice in his approval of Adani’s $16.6bn Carmichael coalmine.

Former prime minister Abbott accused environmental groups of engaging in “sabotage” of investment and jobs and the government dubbed the use of the courts to challenge mining projects as “lawfare”.

In October, Hunt approved the Carmichael mine for a second time, but then in November the Australian Conservation Foundation launched more legal action – this time on the grounds that Hunt failed to consider its impact on climate change and therefore on the Great Barrier Reef.

Hunt insists the project has been approved in accordance with the law, and that 36 strict conditions have been imposed, including on groundwater monitoring, protecting local fauna and funding research for conservation in the Galilee Basin.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act requires the minister to consider the principles of ecologically sustainable development when assessing projects of national environmental significance, but it is not clear whether this could include the consideration of the climate change impact on the reef of the emissions from the coal when exported and burnt.

The chances of the government getting the bill through the Senate suffered a setback last month when the National Farmers’ Federation (NFF) confirmed its opposition – because of fears it would also deny farm groups the ability to mount legal challenges.

“The NFF ... cannot support the proposed amendment to remove s487 from the EPBC Act due to the risk of denying farming groups and individual farmers the right to appeal against government decisions that they believe are going to adversely affect farming communities or individual operations,” it said in a submission to the Senate committee.

Tasmanian Labor senator Anne Urquhart said the government used its voting numbers in the committee to cancel public hearings and change the reporting date to a non-parliamentary sitting day to avoid scrutiny.

“The government has shown absolute contempt for due process and for the more than 20,000 individuals, organisations and academic experts who took the time to raise their very legitimate concerns about the EPBC bill,” Urquhart said.

“The Turnbull government has wantonly trampled on key democratic principles by trying to dodge accountability and remove fundamental rights of appeal, and then shutting down a legitimate inquiry before a single hearing has been held.



“While we might have a new prime minister, this debacle shows the Abbott-era anti-environment policy continues unabated with the radical right of the Liberal party still calling the shots.”

Greens senator Larissa Waters said the government was ignoring community opposition, scientific evidence and legal advice.

“Traditional owners, farmers, lawyers, environmentalists and ordinary Australians are standing up for their rights to enforce our national environment law and the Turnbull government is ignoring them in favour of its big mining buddies,” she said.

The chief executive of the ACF, Kelly O’Shanassy, said: “The vast majority of the 292 submissions to this inquiry – submissions from lawyers, scientists, health professionals, unions, environment groups and plenty of individual Australians – opposed any change to the law.



“The few submissions that advocated changing the law to restrict environment groups’ rights were unsurprisingly from groups that have a vested interest in profit-making from new coalmines, like the Business Council and the Minerals Council.

“Once again our government is doing the bidding of the big polluters, serving their interests over the interests of Australians who depend on a healthy environment.”

The Lock the Gate Alliance said it was “disappointed” the government appeared to be “pressing ahead with its agenda to take away access to the courts for farmers whose livelihoods depend on a healthy environment.”