Miners condemn ‘vague’ Queensland reforms

Queensland’s environment department would have the right to immediately reject proposals to build new mines for ‘absurdly vague reasons’, according to the mining lobby.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Tertius Pickard

Queensland’s environment department would have the right to immediately reject proposals to build new mines for “absurdly vague reasons” such as the project adversely impacting a place of technological significance to past or future generations, the mining lobby says.

Resources, aquaculture, gas and legal sector advocates have raised concerns about the Palaszczuk government’s proposed Environmental Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill, which if passed would tighten green regulation in the state and give more power to the regulator.

Conservationists have accused the mining lobby of a “hysterical over-reaction” to an early, secret draft of the bill, which forced the government to axe key reforms from the proposed legislation before it even reached parliament.

In August, The Australian revealed the state’s environment ­department forced industry stake­holders to sign unprecedented confidentiality deeds before they could see the EPOLA Bill exposure draft.

At the time, high-level sources said the draft bill as circulated would give a senior bureaucrat the power to retrospectively wind back existing environmental approvals, licences and permits, to slash production capacity.

When the environment department was contacted, it said it had scrapped any retrospective powers.

A revised version of the legislation is before parliament now, but the Queensland Resources Council opposes the early refusal of projects – before the terms of reference stage of the environmental impact statement process – for “absurdly vague reasons”.

In its submission, the lobby group said the grounds for refusal were misleading and ambiguous, including for “an unacceptable adverse impact on an area of cultural heritage significance”.

This was defined as an area or place of Indigenous cultural significance or “aesthetic, architectural, historical, scientific, social or technological significance to the present generation or past or ­future generations”.

The QRC submission asked: “What does the department consider to be an area of social significance to the ‘future generations’?

“Is this a location where there might be a township in another century?”

The environment department’s Geoff Robson said that was “just an example” of the legal reasons a mining project could be refused early and the definition was taken from the existing Transport Infrastructure Act.

Lock the Gate Alliance’s Ellie Smith criticised the mining lobby’s “hysterical over-reaction” to the early version of the ­legislation.

“We see the mining industry chuck a tantrum every time substantive changes are proposed, and this bill was no exception. As a result, the mining lobby has successfully kneecapped some much-needed reforms,” Ms Smith said.

The Queensland Law Society criticised the department’s “concerning” and “highly confidential” consultation process.