10 AusTRAlIAN QuARTeRlY OCT–DEC 2017

Battlers win when

the law is fair

ARTICle BY: stepHen keim sC anD

alex mCkean

a

s well as a significant

win for this community,

the Acland case is a

real life enactment of

the cherished trope of

the little Aussie battler, an archetype

that has been placed under significant

challenge in recent years. Big mining

interests and politicians have sought to

recast the Kerrigans and Beutels of this

world as perpetrators of ‘green lawfare’ –

an alleged abuse of the courts to delay

projects.

In Queensland, despite there being

no ruling or evidence of this feared

abuse, former Newman lNP Mines

Minister, Andrew Cripps sought to slay

this imaginary demon in September

2014 by moving midnight amendments

to strip away the rights of landholders

to object to large mining projects.

Readers of The Australian may recall

our article on that high point in the

anti-democratic abuse of parliamentary

process on 25 September 2014 (Clouds

over sunshine state).^2

As part of the humiliating first term

defeat of the QlD lNP, the AlP was

elected on a platform of restoring these

community objection rights. When

labor Mines Minister, Anthony lynham,

implemented that election promise on

17 July 2015,3 the lNP, in opposition,

continued to run a line that objection

rights would enable ‘anti-everything

groups to frustrate’ economic

development.

Those industry myths were oblit-

erated on 31 May this year when, in the

first hearing triggered by those restored

When the Kerrigans won

their legal battle in the

High Court, preventing the

compulsory acquisition of

the family home to expand

Melbourne airport, Australians

revelled in the image of the

battler achieving victory

against the faceless forces of big

business and government.

A victory has just been

achieved on Queensland’s

Darling Downs by the last man

in Acland, Glen Beutel, which,

the Court remarked, exceeded

the fiction of The Castle.^1