New Acland faces new appeal

Coal miner New Hope Group is seeking a meeting with the Queensland government over the next few days to discuss the future of its Stage 3 expansion at the New Acland mine, after the High Court of Australia granted community group Oakey Coal Action Alliance (OCAA) special leave to appeal an earlier ruling on the mine’s expansion.

The Queensland Court of Appeal in 2019 ruled against OCAA, finding that a Land Court decision in 2017 against the expansion of the mine had been affected by apprehended bias.