Friends of the Gelorup Corridor Inc v Minister for the Environment and Water

Friends of the Gelorup Corridor Inc applied for an interlocutory injunction against the Minister for the Environment and Water to challenge the validity of the approval for freeway works by the Commissioner for Main Roads. The proposed freeway works involve the clearing of habitat for endangered and critically endangered species, including the Western Ringtail Possum. The applicant sought an injunction to halt the works, arguing that the approval was invalid due to various reasons, including the alleged lack of authority of the approving delegate and the deferral of the Minister's deliberative task. The court had to decide whether the decision to approve the plans was validly made by the delegate, whether the conditions to the approval impermissibly deferred the Minister's deliberative task, and whether the balance of convenience favoured the grant of relief.

The court concluded that there was little merit in the claim that the decision to approve the plans had been made by a person without the required delegated authority. The involvement of different decision-makers for the approval of the controlled action and the plans did not have significance if some part of the deliberative task was deferred until after the decision to approve the controlled action. The decision to approve the plans was a separate and subsequent decision to be guided by the terms of the condition. On the balance of convenience, the court considered that the works that would affect the habitat of the Western Ringtail Possum would be completed within a week or so and that continuation of the interim injunction even for a short period would risk substantial delay to the freeway works.

The interlocutory application was dismissed. The costs of and incidental to the interlocutory application were reserved, and a first case management hearing in the proceeding was ordered.