Mineral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016

On 23 February 2016, the Queensland Parliament introduced the Mineral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016 into its Legislative Assembly. The Bill will amend the current Mineral and Energy Resources (Common Provisions) Act 2014 to, among other things, repeal uncommenced provisions which limits notification and objection rights for mining projects as well as repealing proposed changes that would have allowed mining leases to be granted over restricted land where issues of consent and compensation have not been agreed upon.

Background to th Amendments

The Principal Act was introduced by the former Queensland Government and the majority of its provisions have yet to commence. The Act provided for a common act for resource tenures but also introduced a number of changes and additional policy objectives that were strongly opposed by environment, agriculture and landholder groups.

The current Government made a number of promises during its election campaign in favour of non-mining stakeholders that would see the changes abolished. Primarily, the Government promised to reinstate public notification and community objection rights to proposed mining projects as well as protect key agricultural infrastructure under the restricted land framework. It also promised to repeal changes that would allow the mining Minister to grant a mining lease over restricted land prior to compensation being agreed upon with the landholder. It will also repeal changes that allowed the Minister to extinguish restricted land where the Minister considers that the activities carried out on the restricted land cannot coexist with authorised activities under the proposed mining lease.

The Bill

The current Bill sets out to give effect to these promises. Additionally, according to the explanatory notes to the Bill, it will also clarify the intended operations of some provisions including:

• the new overlapping tenure framework for coal and coal seam gas;
• transitional arrangements for restricted land;
• the requirements for entry to land to identify proposed mine boundaries without a mining tenement; and
• other minor amendments.

According to Minister Dr. Anthony Lynham in his second reading speech:

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 Mineral and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016, Bill, Explanatory Note, and Explanatory Speech as published on TimeBase LawOne