Environment

A class action by property owners near a GrainCorp factory in rural Victoria has defeated the company's bid for security for costs, with a judge finding the orders would "stultify" the proceedings.

A class action by property owners near a GrainCorp factory in rural Victoria has defeated the company's bid for security for costs, with a judge finding the orders would stultify the proceedings.

In a landmark decision, the Forestry Corporation of NSW has been ordered to pay $450,000 to the Yurrungga Aboriginal Corporation after pleading guilty of cutting down nine culturally and environmentally significant trees in the Wild Cattle Creek State Forest in the state's mid-north coast.

The NSW Valuer General has lost its appeal of a decision upholding a challenge to eight land value determinations, with an appeals court finding that the Valuation of Land Act does not require the use of any specific method to determine land value.

An activist group has amended its challenge to Woodside's North West Shelf gas project to allege the Environment Minister delayed publishing his reasons for approving the project in order to limit challenges, with the court hearing the dispute will likely wind up at the High Court. 

A court has backed the NSW Central Coast Council’s decision to block the construction of a 118-lot residential development, after the developer failed to adequately offset the impacts on the swift parrot and squirrel glider. 

A judge has refused an activist group’s bid for an injunction against the Hills Shire Council over its plans to build a rugby sports field on Fred Caterson Reserve.

Avalon Airport in Geelong has lost its appeal of a decision ordering the release 13 documents that detail its correspondence with Victoria's EPA about PFAS contamination, after unsafe levels of the chemical were found in airport drinking water.

The state of Victoria has been hit with a $500,000 judgment after three public servants were found negligent for failing to advertise Crown leases over Gabo Island and Tullaberga Island, a failure which has shut abalone fishers out of the area since 2019. 

A Centennial Coal unit that operates an underground coal mine bordering the Blue Mountains National Park has been hit with $630,000 in penalties after pleading guilty to five environmental offences for failing to properly manage runoff from the mine.