Regis Resources says minister must redetermine heritage application
The Federal Court has overturned a rare protection order issued by former environment minister Tanya Plibersek that stalled a controversial goldmine in central west New South Wales, ruling the declaration legally invalid. Justice James Stellios handed down the decision on Wednesday, with written reasons to follow on Friday.
The ruling sets aside the protection order at Blayney but leaves the underlying question of whether the Belubula River headwaters warrant Indigenous heritage protection for the current environment minister, Murray Watt, to reconsider.
Regis Resources challenged the order at a three-day hearing last year, arguing that the company had been denied procedural fairness and that the government made errors in the process before issuing the declaration. The order had been made in August 2024 under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.
In a statement, Regis’s managing director Jim Beyer called the ruling “a significant and welcome step forward for the McPhillamys Gold Project.” “The judgment finding that the Section 10 Declaration is legally invalid vindicates the position we have held since the Declaration was made in August 2024, and we are extremely pleased the Court has agreed,” he said.
Among the arguments Regis made at the hearing was the late introduction of a blue-banded bee Dreaming story into the government’s deliberations. Regis’s lawyer, Perry Herzfeld SC, argued that the story, which influenced the government’s decision to protect the area, was not raised until two years after the initial application for a section 10 order was made.
According to the ABC, Stellios said on Wednesday the court’s decision and his reasons “say nothing about the merits of the claim … whether it’s a significant area or under threat of injury or desecration … those are matters within the authority of the minister … not the jurisdiction of this court.”
The protection order had blocked the company from building a tailings dam in the headwaters of the Belubula River, a restriction Regis had argued made the project unviable even though the order affected only part of the site and not the area the company intended to mine. The Wiradyuri Traditional Owners Central West Aboriginal Corporation had applied for the order to protect the headwaters and the springs of the Belubula River, which the corporation described as a site central to creation stories.
In a statement, Regis said it anticipated that Watt, the current environment minister, “will be required to redetermine the application for a Section 10 Declaration, having regard to the relevant findings made by Justice Stellios in the judgment.”
The company added that, because any redetermination process could be protracted or produce an outcome not in Regis’s favour, it was still pursuing an alternative approach to the development. That plan involves co-disposal of filtered processed ore and waste rock into a single facility, referred to as an Integrated Waste Landform, which the company said “entirely avoids the area impacted by the declaration.”
“After considerable delay and uncertainty, and more than two years of time lost, we are eager to move forward,” Beyer said. “We look forward to engaging constructively with the Department through the redetermination process, and to advance one of Australia’s largest undeveloped gold projects — one with the potential to deliver lasting economic and social benefits to the Central New South Wales region and our broader stakeholder community,” he said.
Comment was sought from Watt.