The world is moving away from coal, but here in the NT the Tri-Star Energy Pedirka Project is moving ahead.
In August 2016, hours before the Giles Country Liberal Party Government went into caretaker mode, 15 000km2 of land on the southern border of the NT was packaged and essentially given to a private family company, Tri-star Petroleum as ‘general reserved land’ for ‘coal’.
In September 2017, ALEC represented by the Environmental Defenders Office NT (EDONT) lodged a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Primary Industries and Resources ‘seeking any correspondence which details the type of activities TRI-STAR ENERGY intends to undertake in their Northern Territory tenements’. ALEC has concerns about the nature of this project and suspects it may be a proposed coal-to-gas or coal-to-liquids project which is highly experimental and greenhouse gas intensive.
The request was challenged by Tri-Star and it was eventually referred to the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner found in ALEC's favour and recommended that the 224 pages of information be handed to ALEC in the public interest. On February 28 2019, lawyers representing Tri-Star Energy have appealed this decision and it is now referred to the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal (NTCAT) for consideration next week on May 2nd.
ALEC will be represented by the EDONT at the hearing. We are hopeful we will win the rights to the information, but if unsuccessful ALEC will need to urgently fundraise to cover the legal costs.
In the interests of protecting our climate new coal projects must be stopped, and we urge ALEC supporters to get behind the No Desert Coal Campaign. Sign up here.
If you can chip in towards the fighting fund against the Tri-Star Energy Coal Project please donate here.