MEDIA RELEASE
Department directs waste able to be recycled by NuGrow to landfill despite Planning and Environment Court decision
Swanbank, Ipswich, Queensland – 6 October 2026
NuGrow Ipswich Pty Ltd today confirmed that the Planning and Environment Court has extended the date by which its in-vessel composting system must be in place to 21 January 2027, and that it has written to the Minister for the Environment and Tourism and Minister for Science and Innovation, the Hon Andrew Powell MP, seeking an independent review of the conduct of the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation towards its Swanbank operations. This is the continuation of the $29m development of the In-Vessel System at NuGrow Ipswich, of which is over 80% completed.
Despite NuGrow’s success in the Planning and Environment Court and with current odour control measures, the Department has written to NuGrow’s customers to advise them not to send certain listed wastes to NuGrow and other specific operators in Ipswich. That waste will now likely be sent to landfill or transported to regional Queensland. The NuGrow Ipswich business supports the wider NuGrow Group that processes organics in Gold Coast, Western Downs, Bundaberg, and Rockhampton.
“Our communities are already swapping food for rent, they do not need to be slugged with more landfill tax in a time of need” Mr Jacob Wilson, Executive General Manager, of NuGrow said.
Respect for the courts and the rule of law
NuGrow respects the role of each arm of government under the separation of powers. The rule of law is not something NuGrow takes for granted, and the company has respected the law throughout all proceedings with the Department.
NuGrow has been respectful of the court’s processes at every stage. It has not provided, and will not provide, a running commentary on each matter before the courts. It makes this statement now because the Department has publicly characterised the position, and because NuGrow’s customers, staff and the Ipswich community are entitled to the full picture.
Business as usual for NuGrow Ipswich customers
The Department did not produce any evidence that the current interim odour treatment system was not working. NuGrow will exhaust every available opportunity to maintain business as usual, in accordance with the decisions of the Courts, for the customers of its Ipswich operations.
The Department is correct that on 30 September 2026 the Planning and Environment Court ruled in favour of NuGrow’s application to extend the compliance date under the court-ordered restraint, so that NuGrow must now have its In-vessel System in place by 21 January 2027. His Honour Judge Williamson KC made the order with reasons to follow.
The order also introduces fortnightly construction reporting, monthly cost and programme reporting, immediate exception reporting to the Department. NuGrow proposed those conditions itself. The Department told the court it would support them if the extension were granted, and it did not oppose the additional condition imposed by the court for a review of the matter in December 2026.
The In-vessel System was originally required by 2028. NuGrow volunteered to bring that forward to 2026, two years early, by skipping an intermediate step. The extension to January 2027 remains well inside the original timetable.
Despite the court’s order, the Department has advised NuGrow that it will not amend the corresponding date in NuGrow’s environmental authority. The Department has amended the authority to match every previous extension. As recently as 8 September 2026, the Department told NuGrow in writing that it was prepared to work constructively to expedite any consequential amendment by agreement. Then on 17 September 2026, three days after the Supreme Court dismissed the Department’s application against NuGrow in separate proceedings, the Department changed its position and refused to amend the environmental authority to match the Court orders.
“The court has set a date and a reporting regime. We proposed the reporting, we will meet it, and we will keep servicing our customers,” Mr Wilson said. “What we cannot explain to our community and customers is why the regulator, having supported every earlier extension, has now chosen not to align its own paperwork with an order of the court.”
What the Department’s own witnesses told the court
On 10 September 2026, at NuGrow’s invitation, the Department’s odour expert and the director responsible for the Department’s “Swanbank Project” visited the NuGrow site. Both gave evidence in the Planning and Environment Court on 28 September 2026.
The Department’s expert, accepted under cross-examination that there was no putrid, pungent compost odour at the NuGrow site while he was there, even though his colleagues surveying nearby that day reported such an odour and attributed it to NuGrow. He agreed the Swanbank area has a number of other potential odour sources, that the attribution of odour characters to NuGrow rested on a single visit to neighbouring sites in 2023, and that his survey was a “snapshot in time” and limited in its range. The Department’s expert also accepted that NuGrow’s independent environmental expert, had attended the site 51 times without finding composting, putrid or pungent odours.
The Department’s Swanbank Project Director told the court she detected some odour during the visit but could not say what it related to. She confirmed that the Swanbank Project monitors only six selected sites and excludes the landfills, and government-owned corporations and statutory bodies such as sewer and wastewater network providers. She confirmed that immediately next door to NuGrow Ipswich, is a landfill facility which operates a newly installed open windrow composting operation, a landfill leachate evaporation unit that discharges unlimited ammonia to the atmosphere, and that its environmental authority contains no odour or ammonia limits.
The Director also confirmed that after the restraint order was made, odour complaints to the Department fell by more than half and stayed low, including after the order was vacated in July 2025.
“The Department’s own expert stood on our site and smelled nothing. Its own Director cannot tell the court what she smelled or where it came from. The facility next door has no odour limit and no ammonia limit at all, and it sits outside the Swanbank Projects remit, the Department on our observations has and continues to mislead the community on what emissions exist and have no desire to provide a full picture. The Department’s action will result in beneficial, compostable material being sent to landfill or required to be transported elsewhere in regional Queensland.” Mr Wilson said.
The Department’s failed prosecution
The Department’s prosecution of NuGrow over its Transitional Environmental Program has failed in two courts.
In May 2024 the Department charged NuGrow with two offences of wilfully contravening the program. On 21 March 2025 the Ipswich Magistrates Court dismissed the complaint finding that the Department’s investigator had no evidence, and no reasonable grounds for believing, that any contravention was wilful. On 14 September 2026 the Supreme Court of Queensland refused the Department’s application to overturn that decision and ordered that the Department should pay NuGrow’s legal costs (Chief Executive of the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation v Magistrate Kahlert & another [2026] QSC 217).
The Supreme Court recorded that the investigator who laid the charges did not read any relevant file, did not review the history, did not look at any correspondence between NuGrow and the Department, and did not know that NuGrow had told the Department of difficulties in meeting the deadlines, including the February 2022 Ipswich floods. He accepted he could not point to a single investigation or piece of evidence to suggest the contravention was wilful, and confirmed that the majority of the investigation was conducted by others. Justice Ryan found that the Department and its investigator appeared to have confused a wilful state of mind with a merely willed act, and that the Department’s argument unreasonably attempted to stretch the authority it relied on.
NuGrow wrote to the Minister and Director General to provide its position before the application was mentioned, where it stated that there is no public interest in a Judicial Review of an investigator failing to do their job and even understand what it is charging.
“Two courts have now found that the Department laid indictable charges against a Queensland business without evidence of the key element of the offence, and without its investigator having read the file”…. “That is public money and public credibility spent on a case that should never have been brought.” Mr Wilson stated.
The current odour nuisance charges
NuGrow is defending 11 charges of odour nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1994. It will defend each of them. Because those proceedings are before the court, NuGrow will not comment on the evidence.
NuGrow has, however, raised serious concerns with the Department about the way the prosecution has been conducted. Those concerns include the Department’s repeated failure to disclose required material consistently with its model litigant obligations; the manner in which the Department’s expert witnesses have been briefed and instructed; and the way in which data sets provided to independent experts have been compiled. NuGrow has asked that those matters be examined by someone independent of the Department.
Request for an independent review
NuGrow has written to the Hon Andrew Powell MP, Minister for the Environment and Tourism and Minister for Science and Innovation, requesting an independent review of the Department’s conduct towards NuGrow Ipswich.
NuGrow has asked the Minister to examine whether the Department’s conduct has appropriately accounted for the public interest and the responsible use for public funds, including in relation to:
- unsuccessful Transitional Environmental Program prosecution and Judicial Review proceedings;
- the expenditure of public funds in the current Planning and Environment Court matter,
- the Department’s refusal to align NuGrow’s environmental authority with the orders of the Planning and Environment Court; and
- the inconsistencies in the monitoring of odour sources within the Swanbank industrial area.
Mr Wilson states that “NuGrow is investing in an in-vessel system two years ahead of the original timetable. Complaints have fallen and stayed down. The Department’s own witnesses cannot attribute odour to us. The Department has lost in the Magistrates Court and the Supreme Court. Abusive of power and regulation of this kind is not delivering for Queensland, for the Ipswich community or for the public purse, and it deserves independent scrutiny.”
Media contact
Jacob Wilson – Executive General Manager
hello@nugrow.com.au – 0417178080
Notes to editors
- NuGrow Ipswich Pty Ltd operates a waste recycling and compost manufacturing facility at Swanbank, Ipswich, under an environmental authority issued under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld).
- Planning and Environment Court proceeding no. 3527 of 2023: order of 30 September 2026 (Court Document 228) extending the in-vessel system date to 21 January 2027; review listed 3 December 2026.
- Supreme Court of Queensland: Chief Executive of the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation v Magistrate Kahlert & another [2026] QSC 217, delivered 14 September 2026.
- Ipswich Magistrates Court: Green v NuGrow Ipswich Pty Ltd [2025] QMC, 21 March 2025.
