Correct. The aim was not to overturn the decision on the appeal, because even if the full sitting of the Federal Court finds that Justice Tracey made an error or two in deciding against the first appeal, it doesn't follow that they are obligated to overturn his judgement against the appeal.
Further, even in the unlikely event that they did find that the judge's errors in law were so substantive as to warrant an overturning of his rejection of the appeal (therefore upholding the initial appeal made by TNC against the legal form of the Minister's approval of Riley Creek), this would only require that the Minister remake his approval in a legal form with special care to avoid the legal errors that were the subject of the court case, which could be done in a matter of days (as it was in the Shree case).
As such, the only logical reason for TNC/STT's continuing action was to delay the mine and discourage further investment in VMS, a goal they have achieved.
However, that's not the end of the story. I have always maintained that this would be a Pyrrhic victory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrrhic_victory), as it is a one-time-only strategy that (a) drains their financial resources (b) destroys their social capital with moderate observers; and (c) prohibits them from employing the same strategy again in the courts, as they will exhaust grounds on which to appeal the minister's approvals (since every new Ministerial approval will be made with specific care not to contravene any legal requirements that were the subject of previous appeals).
The medium to long-term game for Venture revolves around the price of tin (and to a much lesser extent, the price of iron ore). If you believe that the price will recover in the medium term, in response to the well-documented retraint on supply, then the whole Scott Jordan saga is a mere piece of phlegm to be expectorated.
