Ms Scheuerle has been a dairy farmer for two decades, but the past six years of ongoing drought has forced her and her husband, Steven, to move across to cattle and grain. The couple shifted from Acland to the growing town of Kulpi three decades ago as the New Acland mine moved forward and the Acland township was relocated. “I grew up in Acland actually," Ms Scheuerle said. "There’s still a few houses there, but most of the people have been relocated now.” Ms Scheuerle said Kulpi, the closest town to the New Acland mine, was actually growing.

New Acland’s Stage Three expansion will move southwards away from Kulpi. “We’ve had a couple of young families come into our district,” she said. “It was a one-teacher school and we were about to close, but were up to more than 20 students now.” Ms Scheuerle said Tuesday’s decision to reject New Hope’s water modelling was hurtful and would force people to look for work elsewhere. “You can see the stress in people’s faces already,” she said.

Ms Scheuerle says moving to "fly-in, fly-out" mine work elsewhere in Queensland did not suit young families and did not suit older mine workers with roots in Oakey. She said Toowoomba’s Second Range Crossing project was “not employing locals” and local abattoir work was drying up with the drought. Ms Scheuerle also doubted the New Hope’s New Acland Mine expansion, despite its massive scale, would have a significant impact on the local groundwater. New Hope's New Acland coal mine outside Toowoomba. Credit:Glenn Hunt “The circumstances around some of those claims are a little bit loose, I think,” she said.

Ms Scheuerle said it was not true the entire area was “prime agricultural land”. “There are portions that are great for agriculture, but a fair portion of it is pretty average," she said. "It’s not like the Liverpool Plains, so to speak.” In the Liverpool Plains, the New South Wales government was forced in 2017 to buy back half of the rich fertile land lying over coal reserves that was bought by the Chinese coal company, Shenhua Group. Ms Tierney, the president of Oakey’s Chamber of Commerce, was horrified at suggestions New Hope’s coal mine expansion was over.

“Oh god, I hope not,” Ms Tierney said. “Look I’m just gutted. I honestly did not think this government would do this to us,” she said of her town, Oakey, which now has a population of 4500. “I think there is still fight there, because we still have the hope of the (New Hope’s) judicial review. “I think Oakey and the mine’s supporters, which is most of Oakey, will look to New Hope for some leadership here.” Ms Tierney said one way to gauge the mine support among locals was a recent call for locals to be in a photograph to promote the mine’s expansion.

“With 24 hours notice they got 500 people to support them, in a town of 4500," she said. "The point is they do support it and they need it.” Queensland State Development Minister Anthony Lynham was waiting for New Hope’s appeal because he needed an “environmental authority” from the environment department before he could issue a licence for the mine to operate. The project is genuinely in limbo. Environmentalists have long argued against the mine expansion and in 2016 and 2017 the Environmental Defenders Office represented many farmers and landowners who opposed the mine.