The Minns Government has introduced a dangerous new bill that will make it easier for destructive coal and heavy metal mines to get approved without proper environmental and community impact assessments.

The Environment Planning and Assessment Amendment (State Significant Development) Bill 2024 gives the Planning Secretary the power to break down major projects, like new mines, into smaller parts and assess them separately. This could mean that crucial elements, like clearing land for transmission lines, might be assessed later—or not at all.

This Bill was introduced after the NSW Court of Appeal ruled that the approval of the Bowdens lead and silver mine near Mudgee was invalid because it didn’t consider the impacts of the transmission line needed to power the mine. Thankfully, the Bill won’t overturn the Court’s decision, but it will remove the precedent that requires all parts of a project to be assessed together.

If this Bill passes, Bowdens could simply reapply without accounting for the environmental damage caused by its transmission line—on top of the mine’s devastating impacts on local waterways, a nearby school, and critically endangered ecosystems, including koala habitat.

This is yet another example of the Minns Government siding with the mining industry and weakening our planning laws to push ahead with destructive projects at any cost.

This Bill is likely to be debated this week, and we need your help to stop it.

Take action now – send an email to the Members of Parliament and tell them to oppose this Bill. Let’s stop this dangerous attack on our planning laws before it’s too late!