Green groups facing off against Rinehart

Green groups are challenging billionaire Gina Rinehart in Queensland's highest court in a bid to stop a mega coal mine.

Ms Rinehart's Hancock Coal and Indian mining giant GVK was given conditional approval in April to develop the multi-billion dollar Alpha coal mine in the Galilee Basin.

The Land Court recommended the state government either refuse the project or allow it to proceed with strict groundwater conditions.

But green group Coast and Country Association of Queensland has taken the matter to the Supreme Court.

The Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) of Queensland, which is handling the case, is seeking a judicial review of that Land Court decision, arguing the proposal should be rejected outright on climate change and groundwater grounds.

"It affects how all these future mines should be assessed in relation to the climate change impacts," EDO senior solicitor Sean Ryan told AAP.

The EDO is facing off against the GVK-Hancock consortium at a directions hearing in Brisbane on Wednesday.

The Alpha project, 360km south-west of Mackay in central Queensland, is 79 per cent owned by GVK and 21 per cent owned by Ms Rinehart's Hancock Coal.

Justice Philip McMurdo adjourned the case until October 13 for a trial.