Coal Mining

This bill requires large mining and gas projects in Queensland to share the benefits with the regional towns near them. It bans future projects from staffing their entire operational workforce as fly-in fly-out (FIFO), makes it illegal to discriminate against local residents when hiring, and requires every project to do a social impact assessment. It also permanently bans underground coal gasification (UCG), a controversial gas-extraction method.

This bill strengthens safety and health laws for Queensland mines in response to the re-emergence of black lung disease. It delivers 15 improvements including higher penalties, proactive duties on company directors, a new civil penalty regime, mandatory safety systems for small opal and gem mines, and broader inspector powers.

This bill establishes Resources Safety and Health Queensland (RSHQ) as an independent statutory body to regulate safety and health across Queensland's coal mining, mineral mining, quarrying, explosives, and petroleum and gas industries. It separates the safety regulator from the department that promotes industry growth, responding to the coal workers' pneumoconiosis (black lung disease) inquiry that found the regulator lacked independence. The bill also creates an independent Commissioner for Resources Safety and Health and gives the Work Health and Safety prosecutor responsibility for prosecuting serious safety offences.

This bill changes 67 Queensland Acts so they line up with a proposed new planning system (the Planning and Development Bill 2015 and Planning and Environment Court Bill 2015) that would have replaced the Sustainable Planning Act 2009. Most changes are technical — swapping old planning terms for new ones — but the bill also streamlines environmental approvals for major coordinated projects and clarifies the Coordinator-General's power to authorise entry onto land in State Development Areas such as the Galilee Basin.

This bill makes wide-ranging changes to Queensland's resources, energy, and water laws. It introduces industrial manslaughter offences for the mining and resources sector, reforms how the State manages mine rehabilitation and abandoned mines, tightens scrutiny of who can hold resource authorities, extends energy consumer protections, and increases transparency of water infrastructure charges in South East Queensland.

This Greens private member's bill would have banned all coal mining in Queensland's Galilee Basin, including terminating Adani's existing mining leases for the Carmichael mine without compensation. It was based on the 2018 IPCC Special Report finding that coal must be almost entirely phased out of global electricity by 2050 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. The bill lapsed and did not become law.

This bill protects the Great Barrier Reef by tightly controlling port development along the Queensland coast. It confines new port facilities and capital dredging to four priority ports (Abbot Point, Gladstone, Hay Point/Mackay and Townsville) and bans sea dumping of port dredge spoil in the World Heritage Area. Each priority port must have a long-term master plan and a port overlay that sets consistent rules across local planning schemes.

This bill reforms the governance of Queensland's mining and resources safety regulator (RSHQ), expands the Land Access Ombudsman's dispute resolution role while keeping it government-funded, and streamlines mining tenement administration. It responds to a 2025 independent review that found gaps in RSHQ's oversight, accountability and enforcement.

This bill reverses 2013 changes that had extended sand mining on North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah) out to 2035, restoring the original plan to end mining substantially by 2019. It also creates a new power for former mine operators across Queensland to re-enter land to finish rehabilitation after their mining leases expire.

This bill creates a new pooled Financial Provisioning Scheme that makes mining companies share the cost of protecting Queensland from unrehabilitated mine sites. It also requires every mine to prepare a binding Progressive Rehabilitation and Closure Plan with enforceable milestones, audited every three years.

This bill creates the legal framework for Queensland's shift from coal-fired to renewable electricity generation. It sets legislated renewable energy targets (50% by 2030, 70% by 2032, 80% by 2035), establishes new infrastructure frameworks to build transmission lines and Renewable Energy Zones, commits to public ownership of energy assets, and creates a $150 million fund to support coal-fired power station workers through the transition.

This bill locks in Queensland's progressive coal royalty rates by preventing any future government from lowering them through regulation alone. It was introduced after the then Leader of the Opposition signalled at a Queensland Resources Council event that coal royalties could be changed, prompting the government to require that any reduction must be debated and passed as legislation through Parliament.

This bill sets up a new independent Land Access Ombudsman to help landholders and resource companies resolve disputes about the agreements that govern mining, petroleum and gas activity on private land. It also gives the Land Court power to decide these disputes and preserves technical mining rules that were due to expire.

This bill reverses a set of yet-to-commence changes to Queensland's resource laws that would have reduced the public's right to object to mining projects and weakened protections for farmers and rural landholders. It restores community objection rights in the Land Court, writes protections for homes, schools and key farm infrastructure into primary legislation, and removes ministerial powers to grant mining leases over land without the landholder's consent.

This bill reshapes how Queensland landholders and resource companies resolve disputes over mining and gas activity on private land, and modernises water planning laws to address climate change, First Nations cultural values, and urgent water quality emergencies. It bundles these changes with a large set of streamlining amendments to eight resource and water Acts.

This bill implements a range of revenue measures from the 2021-22 and 2022-23 Queensland State Budgets. It introduces a new mental health levy on large employers, reforms land tax to account for interstate property holdings, increases coal royalty rates during periods of high prices, and provides tax relief for small businesses, apprentice employers, and retirement visa holders.

This bill strengthens safety and health protections for workers in Queensland's coal mining, quarrying, and metalliferous mining sectors. Prompted by the re-identification of coal workers' pneumoconiosis (black lung disease), it increases penalties for safety breaches, introduces civil penalties for corporations, requires company directors to proactively ensure safety compliance, and improves disease reporting and health surveillance for current and former mine workers.

This bill overhauls safety and health laws for Queensland's mining, quarrying, petroleum and gas, and explosives industries. It responds to the Brady Review of fatal mining accidents and the Coal Mining Board of Inquiry by introducing critical control requirements, mandatory professional development for safety roles, stronger enforcement tools, and clearer industrial manslaughter liability for labour hire and contractor arrangements.

This bill updates a range of land and resource management laws within the Queensland Resources portfolio. It streamlines lease conversions and renewals, modernises stock route management, updates surveying rules, improves vegetation management administration, and enables coal mining lease transfers under the Central Queensland Coal Associates Agreement.

This bill restores the right of community members to formally object to mining projects' environmental authorities, even when the Coordinator-General has already set the conditions. It also clarifies that Land Court judges, registrars, lawyers and witnesses have full legal immunity when handling mining objection matters, fixing uncertainty caused by a recent Supreme Court decision.

This bill updates Queensland's rules for when businesses can access major infrastructure like rail networks, coal terminals, and ports. It aligns the state's access regime with national competition standards following reviews by the Productivity Commission and the federal Competition Policy Review, and makes the Queensland Competition Authority more accountable when processing applications.

This bill creates a new Financial Provisioning Scheme for Queensland's mining and energy sector, replacing the old financial assurance system. It establishes a pooled fund where companies pay risk-based contributions, and introduces enforceable Progressive Rehabilitation and Closure Plans to ensure mined land is progressively restored during and after mining operations.

This bill makes wide-ranging amendments to Queensland's mineral resources, petroleum, and water laws. It reforms how landholders and resource companies resolve compensation disputes, requires climate change and Indigenous cultural values to be formally considered in water planning, creates temporary access to strategic water reserves, and gives the government emergency powers to address urgent water quality threats.

This bill updates multiple regulatory frameworks within Queensland's Natural Resources, Mines and Energy portfolio. It strengthens explosives safety and security, protects Cape York Peninsula heritage land from mining, modernises State land compliance powers, facilitates electronic conveyancing, improves gas safety regulation, and enhances Indigenous land management options.

This bill improves workers' compensation for Queensland coal miners and others with dust-related lung diseases, sets up a committee so families of workers killed or seriously injured at work have a formal voice, and strengthens electrical licensing safety rules. It responds to the re-identification of coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) in Queensland.

This bill tightens the environmental assessment of underground water taken by mining and petroleum projects, improves protections for landholders whose water bores are damaged by resource activities, and fixes gaps in how local councils enforce heritage laws. It also creates a transitional 'associated water licence' process for mining projects that were partway through approval when Queensland's 2014 water reforms commenced.

This bill makes wide-ranging amendments to health and retirement village legislation. It repeals Queensland's separate medicinal cannabis approval system in favour of the Commonwealth framework, creates a mandatory register for occupational dust lung diseases like black lung and silicosis, gives Queensland Health new powers to issue public pollution notices, streamlines radiation safety licensing, modernises tissue donation laws for research, and requires retirement village operators to buy back unsold freehold units within 18 months.

This bill creates a dedicated Mining and Resources Coroner who must investigate and hold mandatory public inquests into all accidental deaths at coal mines, mines, quarries, and petroleum and gas sites in Queensland. It implements the government's election commitment to increase oversight of mining-related fatalities and ensure families receive answers about how their loved ones died.

This bill amends coal mining safety laws and several resources Acts. It provides practical exceptions to the requirement that safety-critical position holders at coal mines must be directly employed by the mine operator, and creates a rent deferral scheme for critical minerals mining leases.

This bill undoes several water law changes that the previous government passed in 2014 but which had not yet taken effect. It puts ecologically sustainable development principles back into the purpose of the Water Act 2000, removes 'water development options' that would have given large infrastructure proponents an early exclusive claim over water, and removes the ability to declare 'designated watercourses' where a water licence would not be needed. It also fixes a 2005 technical mistake in setting up the Lower Herbert Water Management Authority and confirms that existing river improvement trusts continue to operate.

This bill is an omnibus package that makes changes across nine Queensland laws in the natural resources and mines portfolio. It strengthens explosives security, modernises gas safety, protects two Cape York properties from mining, gives Indigenous communities more flexibility over land and social housing, and updates state land compliance powers and property titling.