Skip to content
The Climate Litigation Database

Phosphate Resources Ltd. v. The Commonwealth

Geography
🇦🇺 Australia
Date
2001
Document type
Litigation

About this case

Filing year
2001
Status
Decided
Geography
Court/admin entity
Australia → Federal Court of Australia
Case category
Suits against governments → Environmental assessment and permitting → Utilities
Principal law
Australia → Utilities and Services Ordinance 1996 (cth)
At issue
Whether the determination of the fees, upon which the charges to it were based, was invalid. As an interlocutory measure it has sought extensive discovery going to the costs of supplying electricity in the Territory. The question whether such discovery should be ordered depends ultimately upon the construction of the Ordinance. In particular it depends upon whether it is necessary in deciding upon the validity of the determination, to know what were the actual costs of supply to the relevant users in the period for which charges based upon that determination were raised.

Documents

Filing Date
Type
Summary
Document
03/11/2004
Decision
–
View

Summary

An Australian federal court upheld a Determination by the Administrator of Christmas Island setting the fees chargeable for use of electricity on the Island. Phosphate Resources, a major user of electricity on the Island challenged one of the purposes of the Determination – compelling large users of electricity such as Phosphate to examine alternative options for power generation as part of an effort to minimize greenhouse gas emissions. The court held that if the Administrator expressly took into account the reduction of GHG emissions as a factor in setting the electricity fees on the Island, it is a legitimate public policy objective.