In allowing coal expansion in the Hunter

The high court found NSW is responsible for emissions from burning exported coal. What message does it send when the government can step in and bypass the law? Led by two retired science teachers, Wendy Wales and Tony Lonergan, the Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group took on a massive coal corporation and won.

As a fellow schoolteacher, I felt a particular sense of pride seeing these ordinary… Despite a landmark high court decision, NSW premier Chris Minns announced plans to introduce special legislation that will allow MACH Energy to increase production at its Mount Pleasant coalmine by nearly a third. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian In allowing coal expansion in the Hunter, Chris Minns is pouring fuel on the climate fire.

His decision will come back to hurt us all Jack Egan The high court found NSW is responsible for emissions from burning exported coal. As a fellow schoolteacher, I felt a particular sense of pride seeing these ordinary Australians act on their care for their community and future generations. In their four-year fight against MACH Energy’s Mount Pleasant coalmine in Muswellbrook, they argued it is no longer OK for big mining corporations to dig up coal and bank piles of cash while pretending the climate pollution from burning that coal is someone else’s problem.

The high court agreed that conditions aimed at reducing the climate pollution from burning Australian coal overseas had not been properly considered when the rosily named “Mount Pleasant Optimisation Project” received New South Wales approval. ‘A real-life moment from The Castle’: the retired Australian couple who took on a coal giant and won. Well, of course it is.

But only to the wrong kind of investment – the kind that brings us all more frequent, worse and very costly climate-driven disasters. Now, less than two weeks later, the NSW premier, Chris Minns, announced plans to introduce special legislation that will allow the very same coal company to increase production at Mount Pleasant by nearly a third, bypassing the state’s usual planning approval process and scrutiny by the courts.

Minns says this is necessary to protect 400 jobs. But the mine already has approval to operate until 2032.

What message does it send when ordinary Australians fight for years to uphold the law, win in the highest court in the land and then watch our government step in to change the rules? The premier tells us he has agonised over the environment versus jobs dilemma.

Both, he says, are important. A just transition for workers into new, good, climate-positive jobs is a core principle of thorough climate action.

Two brave, retired science teachers have shown what ordinary Australians can achieve when they act on the science and stand up. The Minns government must look beyond the next election and the demands of powerful fossil fuel lobbyists, search its own conscience and respect the rule of law.

Even the big coal corporations need to play by the same rules as the rest of us. View image in fullscreen Tony Lonergan (left) and Wendy Wales (middle) speak to media following their win in the high court of Australia on 7 October.

Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP On New Year’s Eve 2019, my partner Cath and I saw our home go up in flames before being separated. The fearful feeling of not knowing if each other had made it out alive is a memory that will never fully leave us.

Nor will the widespread devastation we witnessed across our NSW coastal community. I knew then that an awful climate future had crashed right through into our present.

It was a huge wake-up call. And yet Australian governments have continued to approve new coal and gas mines, pouring more fuel on to the climate fire.

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