New Laws on Rehabilitation of Mines
The rehabilitation of mining sites in Queensland is estimated to cost billions of dollars with the state responsible for maintaining about 120 abandoned mines. However, new legislation has been passed in Queensland that requires the state’s resource companies to financially contribute to the rehabilitation of abandoned mines.
Rather than a site by site approach, the legislation forces companies to contribute an amount into a pool of money that will be put towards rehabilitating future sites. This means that even if a new mine fails and the owner goes bust, the funds will be used to cover the cost to rehabilitate the site, ensuring resource companies foot the bill rather than Queensland taxpayers.
However, the laws will not be applied retrospectively; this means that past and existing mines that have not been backfilled do not need to be paid for by resource companies.
Greens MP Michael Berkman joined us on The Daily to discuss these new laws.
