WATER licenses will be firmly in the judicial spotlight when the Northern Territory government faces off against the Environment Centre NT in the Darwin Supreme Court on December 16.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Environmental Defender’s Office, which is representing the Environment Centre NT, successfully applied to have its claim heard on October 31.
The ECNT has claimed that Land Resource Management Minister Willem Westra van Holthe signed off on water licences which had over-allocated both the Ooloo and Tindall aquifers.
The minister told the Katherine Times the allegations were “vexatious” and that they would be virulently defended, adding that he did not believe the aquifers were over-allocated.
“[The ECNT is] well-known to have opposed all of these licences,” Mr Westra van Holthe said last week.
“This whole claim made by the Environment Centre is nothing but a rein on taxpayer money.”
Principal lawyer for the Environmental Defender’s Office, David Morris, said on Monday week that the ECNT believed the minister misunderstood the task required by him under the Northern Territory Water Act.
“In reviewing the water controller’s decisions, he simply assessed what the controller did and found no error with it,” Mr Morris explained.
“We say that he should have undergone to make a new decision and consider the evidence before him.”
The ECNT’s claim involves the issuing of 18 licences.
