⏩ Issue 24: Whitehaven Coal

Last week we looked at Liontown and the renewable power station the company uses but doesn’t own. This week, a bill in the Queensland Parliament and a coal project waiting on a judgment.

Some background first. In Queensland, when someone objects to a mining lease application, the objection goes automatically to the Land Court. The court hears the evidence, and makes a recommendation to the Minister on whether the lease should be granted.

On 15 September the Queensland Government introduced the Mineral Resources Objections Reform and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. The bill would essentially limit objections to mining projects from landholders, local governments and people within 125km of the lease boundary. More information here.

Whitehaven Coal’s 2026 Annual Report is just out. Its Winchester South project has seen significant community and environmental objections, and Whitehaven is now waiting on the Land Court's judgment, with closing submissions heard in December 2025.

A word before we go on. I was a councillor for the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) for three years and the ACF is one of the two objectors in the Winchester South case.

I have spent much of my mining career on the company side of approvals.

This week’s question: With Queensland making it harder to object to a mining project (and therefore streamlining the approvals process), does the environmental and community risk increase or decrease?

- Bronwyn

Source: Whitehaven Coal Annual Report 2026 (161pp) · Dated 19 August 2026 · Reporting period 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 · Sustainability Report at pages 54 to 98, climate-related disclosures only, prepared under AASB S2 · People, Environment & Communities Report to be released separately with the Annual General Meeting materials · Limited assurance review of selected climate disclosures by EY.

Whitehaven mines coal in the Gunnedah Basin in New South Wales, and in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, where it bought the Blackwater and Daunia mines from BHP and Mitsubishi in April 2024. Revenue for FY26 was $5.4 billion.

Winchester South is a proposed metallurgical coal mine next to Daunia, near Moranbah. Queensland has approved the draft environmental authority and the Commonwealth environmental approval “is progressing”. Objections from ACF and the Mackay Conservation Group were heard in the Land Court between July and December 2025. The report says “Judgement has been reserved” (page 24).

This passage sits in the mandatory climate disclosures, in a table of transition risks, not in the project update.

Approvals for coal projects have become much harder to get, because of climate law and policy.

But even after approvals are worked through and granted, they can still be challenged by environmental groups, which can add significant delay and cost. Winchester South is the live example.

The passage tells you objections cost time which is what the new bill is seeking to curb.

This section is written under AASB S2, Australia’s mandatory climate standard, which asks about risks to the company. Whitehaven’s communities report is due to come out later, with the Annual General Meeting materials.

Native title is Commonwealth law, and a Queensland (state) bill won’t impact an agreement negotiated under it. Landholder agreements are negotiated property by property. The people who live near the project are inside the 125km line so they keep the right to object.

What they would lose is the guarantee of a hearing, though, because that now becomes the Minister’s call.

So, if Queensland makes it harder to object to a mine, does the environmental and community risk to the project increase or decrease?

On what this report shows, neither.

The bill would probably shorten one stage of one approval but Whitehaven’s report demonstrates that climate law and policy, native title, landholder agreements and the people who live near the project remain key stakeholders to progressing development.

None of this is an argument for or against the bill. Miners say approvals take far too long. Conservation groups say a Land Court hearing is the one place a company’s studies are tested by someone independent. Both things are true.

On the face of it, the bill takes national conservation groups out of the Land Court process for a project like this one. Is that a good thing? I'll let you decide.

Two practical takeaways for anyone who reads approval risk in an annual report:

Land Court of Queensland.

A specialist court that hears objections to mining lease and environmental authority applications. It does not grant or refuse the lease. It listens to the evidence and makes a recommendation to the Minister, who then decides.

Mining lease and environmental authority.

The two Queensland approvals a mine needs. The mining lease is the right to mine the ground. The environmental authority sets the environmental conditions. Winchester South has an approved draft environmental authority, and neither approval is final.

Transition risk.

Under AASB S2, a risk to the company that comes from the shift to a lower-carbon economy: new laws, changing markets, lenders pulling back, legal action. Whitehaven classes project approvals as a transition risk.

Judgment reserved.

The hearing is finished and the court has gone away to write its decision. There is no deadline. Winchester South has been in this state since December 2025.

This week at CFS - Social Risk Assessment

A Social Risk Assessment is the work that sits behind a list like the one in Passage 2: who is affected, what they are worried about, and what it could do to the schedule. If that is a conversation worth having for your project, get in touch by emailing Bronwyn directly at [email protected].