Hume Coal’s mine and rail project applications have been referred back to the Independent Planning Commission for a public hearing and determination within 12 weeks.

Federal Water Minister Keith Pitt says the government remains determined to build new dams in the Murray-Darling Basin, rejecting comments from a leading researcher that climate change would reduce the likelihood that they would fill. 

The options, from building levees to dredging the Hawkesbury-Nepean River or releasing water ahead of big rain events, were detailed in submissions developed in 2014 and 2015 and provided to cabinet, according to internal documents.

Calling itself Blockade Australia, the group claims to be concerned not just about climate change but about the “colonial and extractive systems of Australia”.

More than 30 mayors and councillors across Australia say they are “exhausted by the immediate costs and challenges” of recent natural disasters and have written to the government calling for stronger climate action.