Australia's top court blocked a coal mine's growth. Now a law may let it dig more.
On 19 October Chris Minns, premier of the Australian state of New South Wales, said he will bring a law to let the Mount Pleasant coal mine grow.
What happened
The Minns government says it will introduce special legislation to allow a mine in the New South Wales Hunter Valley that was the subject of high court proceedings to increase its coal production by 32% per year.
On Australia’s highest court ruled that the permit to expand the Mount Pleasant coal mine was not valid. The judges split 3 to 2. The majority found that the planning commission of New South Wales had not looked at ways to cut the pollution from the mine’s coal when it is burned abroad. The expansion would have doubled output to 21 million tonnes a year until 2048.
On the state premier, Chris Minns, said his government will bring a special law in the next two sitting weeks. It lets the owner, MACH Energy, dig 16.5 million tonnes a year until 2032, 4 million more than its other permit allows. Minns said 400 jobs would go before Christmas without the law. The company agreed to keep its permanent workers until 2032, and the law takes effect only after it signs that promise.
On Minns had said his government had no plans to change the law after the ruling. Now the lawyer Geoffrey Watson and the former judge Anthony Whealy say the law overturns the High Court. Whealy said the law ends the chance to settle the case in a lower court, the Land and Environment Court. The Greens oppose the law.
The law needs both chambers of the state parliament. By the bill had not been brought in, and the upper chamber, the Legislative Council, broke on until . Both chambers are set to sit on 10 to 12 and 17 to , with spare days on 24 to and no sittings in December. In the Legislative Council the government does not have a majority.
The Minns Labor Government will introduce legislation in the next sitting fortnight to protect 400 jobs at MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coal mine in the Hunter.
NSW Government, 19 October 2026
Sources: theguardian.com
The Pattern
We looked for cases where a court in Australia or New Zealand cancelled the permit for one named project, and the government then asked parliament for a law to give that permit back. We found four such laws since 1982: in New Zealand, twice in New South Wales and in the Northern Territory. Parliament passed all four.
Show the other 2 cases
The Read
Each of the four past laws came from the government, and each passed. In 1996 the opposition backed the Bengalla law, and the Legislative Council turned down every change that smaller parties put forward. In 2003 the main opposition first backed the Clyde law and then voted against it, and the Legislative Council still passed it by 17 votes to 15 with the help of smaller parties.
There are reasons for doubt. The bill was not in parliament by , and a bill brought in on has 16 days until , as long as the slowest of the three past laws with a known start. The government has no majority in the Legislative Council, where more than 20 of its bills were stuck in May. In all four past laws the ruling could still be appealed or the dispute was going back for a new hearing. This time the ruling came from the highest court in Australia, so no appeal is left, and the dispute is due back in the Land and Environment Court. Two of the four laws came from the same New South Wales government, seven years apart.
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