FARMERS' rights to protest development has become the centre of the debate over the Abbott government's proposed changes to the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act.
When court action stalled Indian coal miner Adani's proposed mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin the government reacted angrily and labelled the legal challenge environmental "lawfare".
The government proposed to repeal the entire section 487 of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.
The EPBC relates to designated 'matters of national environmental significance, such as wetlands, threatened species and water resources.
Last week, the Senate referred changes to the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications, which is set to report its findings on October 12.
Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce backed the changes but the National Farmers Federation and the Environment Defenders Office which was behind the Adani challenge, said farmers' right to challenge large projects could be significantly limited.
Mr Joyce (pictured) said the proposed changes would not affect local agricultural producers with a stake in the productivity and health of land impacted by a development.
He said farmers "can be assured their voices will be heard and the courts will be available for the protection of their rights".
"Farming groups can still use their organisation and resources - such as those employed on occasion by the NFF, through their fighting fund - to support individuals affected by decisions," he said.
However, Environment Defenders Office principal solicitor Sue Higginson said the amendments would remove the EPBC Act's extended standing provisions and raise the bar on who could lodge legal action as well as limit the scope of individuals to challenge matters relating to broad, landscape scale impacts.
"Aggrieved farmers will initially have to argue why they should be allowed to enforce the national laws and challenge under the EPBC on the basis that their own interests are impacted.
"The difficulty any change to the law will create is that the national environmental laws are about significant impacts on matters of national environmental significance not private interests," Ms Higginson said.
"The laws currently say any member of the community who has worked to protect or research the environment for the past two years has a right to bring proceedings to uphold the law.
"The government's changes attempt to polarise these laws and it may prevent the proper harmonious application of these laws."
NFF president Brent Finlay told The Guardian Australia changes should be delayed until the impacts are understood.
"It is critical that farmers have access to the court system to ensure their interests are fully considered during the EPBC assessment process. It is impossible to understand how the standing of farmers and their representative bodies will be impacted under these changes without seeing the proposed changes," he said.
Ms Higginson said "by saying only those directly impacted can enforce these laws and hold decisions to account is a misunderstanding of the proper operation of these laws.
The reason a farmer might be concerned about a mine on the Liverpool Plains could be for all sorts of reasons - degraded water resources, changes to the natural environment and so on.
"Farmers, like every landholder, have a right to expect the proper application of Commonwealth laws.
"If there is an identified error then farmers and the community should have a right to access the courts to ensure the most thorough environmental approval has been granted. Not one that suffers from error."
Debate in parliament turned to Shenhua's Watermark mine at Breeza on the Liverpool Plains, in Mr Joyce's New England electorate.
Mr Joyce has been an outspoken critic of that mine plan, but supports Adani's coal project citing its location as more suited to mining and its benefits from job creation.
Opposition agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon asked Mr Joyce if his support for Australian mining jobs applied to projects in his own backyard.
"There are certain places where it's extremely important to have coal mining and Adani is supported by Central Queenslanders," Mr Joyce said.
