Coal giants 'target battlers'

OPPONENTS of mining say coal companies are ganging up on them to reopen an Ipswich mine.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner is heading the campaign against the Ebenezer mine reopening and a legal challenge was launched yesterday in the Supreme Court in Brisbane.

Lawyers for community groups opposed to the mine submit Mines Minister Stirling Hinchliffe had no legal right to renew Zedemar Holdings' lease on the mine.

Zedemar is in the process of selling the 675-hectare Ebenezer mine and the nearby 9202ha Bremer View coal project to OGL Resources, which plans to reactivate the mine.

Legal representatives for OGL and Zedemar yesterday sought to be respondents to the application to stop the mine before Justice Anthe Philippides.

Justice Philippides will decide whether the two companies can be co-respondents at a hearing on February 17, while a hearing on the application to stop the mine has been scheduled for March 8.

Mr Turner said the wealthy mining companies were "combining against a community made up mostly of battlers, retirees and small farmers".

"These two companies are now siding with the government and taking on the communities of Amberley, Ebenezer and Rosewood, which will be adversely affected by the coal mining," Mr Turner said.

"We believe it's illegal to renew a mining lease when the mine hasn't been operating for almost a decade and there was no community consultation before the Minister made his decision."