{"id":844265,"date":"2026-08-05T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T10:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/844265\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T10:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T10:00:10","slug":"high-court-blocks-plan-to-extract-two-sydney-harbours-worth-of-groundwater-from-the-desert-indigenous-australians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/844265\/","title":{"rendered":"High court blocks plan to extract two Sydney Harbours\u2019 worth of groundwater from the desert | Indigenous Australians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Native title holders have won a high court appeal, overturning the largest groundwater licence ever granted in the Northern Territory<\/a>, which would have allowed an agricultural company to extract 40 gigalitres of groundwater \u2013 equivalent to draining Sydney Harbour twice \u2013 every year for 30 years.<\/p>\n

The massive water allocation was granted to Fortune Agribusiness for free by the NT government, to support a plan to grow fruit and vegetables in Singleton Station in the central desert.<\/p>\n

The Mpwerempwer Aboriginal Corporation challenged whether the NT government had lawfully granted the decades-long water licence, arguing the project threatened sacred sites, cultural survival and a fragile desert water system<\/a>, and claiming it had failed to consider the cultural impact.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email <\/a><\/p>\n

That argument failed in the NT supreme court and the territory\u2019s court of appeal.<\/p>\n

The NT government said the courts had already correctly identified the law did not impose an obligation on a government minister to consider the impact on Aboriginal cultural values.<\/p>\n

But the high court on Wednesday ordered the water licence to be quashed, referring the water licence application back to NT decision makers, who will have to consider environmental approvals.<\/p>\n

The court ruled the relevant NT minister did not address special circumstances to justify the water licence for an extended period of 30 years.<\/p>\n

It ruled the minister also did not form a \u201cstate of satisfaction\u201d that such special circumstances existed.<\/p>\n

The decision \u201ccontravened express and implied limitations on the decision-making authority conferred on the delegate minister,\u201d the court ruled.<\/p>\n

The making of the decision should have included the Aboriginal corporation being given notice of proposed conditions and an opportunity to be heard in a written submission, they said.<\/p>\n

However it ruled it was given \u201cno such notice and no such opportunity\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Mpwerempwer Aboriginal Corporation argued the water licence risked permanently damaging an ancient aquifer, at least 40 groundwater-dependent sacred sites and community water supplies.<\/p>\n

In a statement released by the Central Land Council on behalf of the Mpwerempwer Aboriginal Corporation, native title holder Valerie Curtis said it had \u201cbeen a really long journey for us mob\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wasn\u2019t going to give up. We was gonna continue to fight, but I\u2019m glad that we did get a really good outcome from the High Court, and we\u2019re really happy,\u201d she said. \u201cThose elders that have passed on, they would be really happy and proud of what we have achieved for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Native title holders have won a high court appeal, overturning the largest groundwater licence ever granted in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-844265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844265","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=844265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}