Last-ditch attempt to stop $1.25bn ring road dismissed

Main Roads has been given the green light to resume clearing for the $1.25 billion Bunbury Outer Ring Road after the Federal Court dismissed an 11th-hour bid to halt the works on environmental grounds.

The state roads authority was forced to drop its tools on Friday after the court granted a temporary injunction restraining work on the road’s southern arm.

The lawsuit was brought by the Friends of the Gelorup Corridor, a community action group that has spent years lobbying against the plan to clear more than 60 hectares of land and build a 10.5-kilometre dual carriageway bisecting the suburb of Gelorup.

Over the course of the past two days, the lobby group’s legal team has been advancing the case on the basis that federal ministerial approval was issued unlawfully.

FOTGC's lawyer Angel Aleksov argued the approval of the project and the mitigation plans the approval hinged on being reviewed by two separate people was "legally impermissible" under federal environmental law.

Further, he claimed much of the mitigation action would incur a time delay, by which point it may be too late for endangered species, including the western ringtail possum, disputing whether the approval conditions would adequately limit that impact.

But Main Roads’ lawyer Joshua Thomson insisted considerable steps had been taken to address the potential impact and submitted that the last-minute argument advanced was without merit.

This morning, Federal Court Justice Craig Colvin dismissed the application, telling the court he was not satisfied the argument advanced had sufficient legal merit.

Justice Colvin reiterated that it was not for him to decide whether the approval should have been granted, but rather whether the approval and the subsequent conditions applied were appropriate.

The decision came after the state’s legal team warned that any delay to the project could cost taxpayers more than $10 million and extend for seven months, with the breeding season for the western ringtail possum set to begin in a matter of weeks.

The costs of the application were reserved, with the matter now expected to head to a case management hearing.

During a press conference this afternoon, Premier Mark McGowan defended the project, insisting it went through stringent approvals processes and would save countless lives.

“The project itself is a big employer and it's been talked about for four decades now,” Mr McGowan said.

“It will save countless lives on the road through Bunbury.

“We put in place a huge amount of environmental offsets, and spent tens of millions of dollars on various initiatives to improve the environment. 

“And I might add, we're stopping the logging of our forests, we're doing more to preserve the environment than any other government in the history of the state.

“There are both relocation and rehabilitation programs as part of the offset program for this project. 

“This project has been through two environmental assessments and has been found to be acceptable environmentally on both occasions.”

The lawsuit follows the arrest of several protestors for trespassing to halt land clearing for the project, which was given federal environmental approval back in June.

That followed recommendations to strengthen the conditions placed on the project by the EPA by the appeals convenor, recommendations that were accepted by Environment Minister Reece Whitby.

The infrastructure project, the largest undertaken in the region, was bolstered by additional funding from both the state and federal government after costs blew out to almost double initial projections.