Miners will no longer be allowed to start projects on Queensland farmland if they can’t strike a deal with a landholder within 40 days under proposed laws.
The laws, due to be passed by parliament on Thursday, allow individual landholders to independently deal with miners seeking to start projects on their properties.
But Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney says, if a deal can’t be reached within 40 days, miners will no longer be allowed to start a project while their application is before the Planning and Environment Court.
“It provides an incentive for the resources industry to negotiate with landholders, and it puts landholders in a much more powerful position,” Mr Seeney told the house.
“It ensures that some of the horrendous practices that we saw in the early days of the last decade … those practices that revolved around the land court 40-day rule can no longer be used to leverage landholders.”
The deputy premier said the new laws also set out priority agricultural areas, living areas, strategic cropping areas and strategic environmental areas, bringing regional planning rules in line with urban areas.
“We have mirrored this planning process on the one that is well and truly tried and tested,” Mr Seeney said.
“It does not ban development but it controls development, and that is the approach that should have been taken across regional Queensland for the last decade.”
