A Queensland landholder has been awarded more than $50 million in compensation for a coal mine expansion that will drastically reduce the size of his cattle properties.<\/p>\n
James Gorman challenged a Land Court ruling that ordered Bowen Basin miner Pembroke Olive Downs Pty Ltd to compensate him $34.8 million for the Olive Downs open-cut mine expansion on two of his properties.<\/p>\n
In a judgement handed down on Tuesday, Justice Graeme Crow of the Land Appeals Court allowed the appeal and ordered the compensation to be increased to more than $52.8 million.<\/p>\n
In the judgement, Justice Crow found the calculations used to determine the original compensation did not consider all the variable costs of running and maintaining a sizeable cattle property.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Isaac River, which fronts a large section of the Vermont Park property. (ABC News: Christopher Gillette)<\/p>\n
The two properties, Vermont Park and Seloh Nolem, span more than 25,000 hectares south-west of Moranbah.<\/p>\n
The land is used for cattle breeding and is owned by companies of which Mr Gorman is the sole director.<\/p>\n
The judgement reasoned that metrics such as the property’s cattle-carrying capacity and its susceptibility to floods were erroneously used in the original December judgement to determine the value of the properties.<\/p>\n
It also highlighted the irregular shape the property would assume if the mining lease was approved.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The area of the lease proposed by Pembroke Resources. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
But the judgement upheld an earlier rejection of Mr Gorman’s attempt to include the cost of agistment into the final compensation figure.<\/p>\n
Justice Crow recognised that “all but certain a high premium” would need to be paid to find replacement land for the cattle while mining occurred on the property, given there was little suitable available land in the region.<\/p>\n
Queensland Resources Minister Dale Last said the judgement reflected the need for miners to comply with the conditions of their existing leases.<\/p>\n
He said rehabilitation technology had improved in recent years.<\/p>\n
“I make this point regularly \u2014 they’re pulling this resource from the ground and, by the same token, when they’re finished, we want that land returned to its natural state,” Mr Last said.<\/p>\n
Queensland Resources Council said in a statement that the sector had “a long history of constructively engaging with landholders to ensure the best outcomes for all parties”.<\/p>\n
Both parties will make submissions about the cost of the appeal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Queensland landholder has been awarded more than $50 million in compensation for a coal mine expansion that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,1783,44157,92092,92093,92095,92096,12336,44,92094,92091,29958,92098,92097],"class_list":["post-133042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-compensation","tag-dale-last","tag-dysart","tag-james-gorman","tag-justice-graeme-crow","tag-land-appeals-court","tag-moranbah","tag-news","tag-olive-downs","tag-pembroke","tag-queensland-resources-council","tag-seloh-nolem","tag-vermont-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}