The amendments support ongoing reforms to financial assurance and mine rehabilitation. They address some of the recommendations made in the Queensland Treasury Corporation’s Review of Queensland’s financial assurance framework (PDF, 1.5MB) released in April 2017, as well as feedback received from consultations.

The amendments include:

• increased scrutiny of the financial capability of a resource authority holder when there is a change in ownership
• increased oversight of resource sites that enter care and maintenance by requiring significant mineral mining lease holders to submit plans on their proposed activities
• broadening the government’s authorised person powers for abandoned mines and abandoned operating plant to make them safe, durable, secure and enable productive land uses.

The Act also includes the following financial assurance reforms:

• disqualification criteria for tenure applicants to strengthen the government’s ability to assess their suitability to hold tenure in Queensland
• tendering areas for a mining lease application, which will allow the targeted release of sites that have been abandoned if an opportunity to commercialise a potentially economic mineral resource exists.

These amendments will start at a future date to be confirmed.