This proceeding involves an application by The Wilderness Society Inc. (The Wilderness Society) made under ss 5 and 6 of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth) and s 39B of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth) to review two decisions made by the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Water Resources (Minister). The two decisions were made by the Minister during the assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC Act) of a proposed action, being the proposal by Gunns Limited to construct and operate a pulp mill at Bell Bay in Tasmania. The first decision was to designate the action as a controlled action subject to certain controlling provisions. The second decision was that the relevant impacts of the proposed action be assessed on preliminary documentation under Division 4 of Part 8 of the EPBC Act. This proceeding does not involve any judgment by the Court on whether it is appropriate or not that a pulp mill be constructed at Bell Bay. The Wilderness Society made the following allegations: there is no valid referral of the proposal to support either decision; in making the first decision, the Minister misconstrued s 75(2B) of the EPBC Act, failed to take into account a relevant consideration, being the potential adverse impact on matters of national environmental significance of sourcing timber from Tasmanian forests to supply the pulp mill, or took into account an irrelevant consideration; in making the first decision, the Minister failed to consider whether the pulp mill would have or is likely to have a significant impact on the environment on Commonwealth land and thereby failed to take into account a relevant consideration; the Minister misconstrued and/or misapplied s 87(5) of the EPBC Act in making the second decision; in making the second decision, the Minister denied The Wilderness Society, and other members of the public interested in the assessment of the proposed action, procedural fairness; the second decision is invalid because it is affected by apprehended bias in the Minister; the second decision involved an improper exercise of power by the Minister; and the second decision was manifestly unreasonable. The Court has rejected all grounds of review raised by The Wilderness Society. While the court made some important findings in relation to the exclusion of some forestry impacts from assessment under the EPBC Act, the court made a number of findings of more general application to project proponents. In particular, the court found: the Department of Environment and Water Resources, in its role of aiding proponents throughout the assessment process, is not acting improperly by meeting with, and providing information to, project proponents ;a proponent can lawfully withdraw a referral and submit a later referral for substantially the same project, and procedural fairness entitlements of third party opponents to a project are limited by the EPBC Act itself. The Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) sets out the arrangements between the Commonwealth and Tasmanian Governments to regulate the harvesting of native forests in Tasmania. Gunns has committed to sourcing all of the native forest for the pulp mill from forests managed in accordance with the RFA. Forestry operations that are undertaken in accordance with the RFA are excluded by section 38 from the referral, assessment and approval procedures contained in the EPBC Act. In February 2007 the EPBC Act was amended to include section 75(2B), which provides that, when assessing whether an action is a controlled action for the purposes of the Act, the minister must not consider the adverse impacts of certain forestry operations conducted under a RFA. The Wilderness Society submitted that section 75(2B) only applies where the action being assessed is itself a forestry operation, and therefore does not apply to the assessment and approval of forestry operations that will be undertaken to supply feedstock to the proposed pulp mill. The minister and Gunns responded by arguing that section 75(2B) excludes consideration of forestry operations undertaken in accordance with an RFA, even where such operations are related to another action (in this case, a pulp mill. The court found that: the applicants’ interpretation would deprive section 75(2B) of any purpose, forestry operations undertaken in accordance with an RFA are exempt by section 38, and as such, it cannot be said that section 75(2B) only applies where the proposed action is forestry operations and does not apply where forestry operations are related to another action.