Legislation introduced in hope of saving Queensland mining town

The Queensland government has introduced legislation in parliament designed to safeguard the future of a small mining town.

The town of Glenden, about 160 kilometres west of Mackay, was established by Mount Isa Mines in the 1980s to accommodate workers for the Newlands mine, but was taken over by Swiss miner Glencore in 2013.

The mine has stopped producing coal and will cease operating entirely in the next few years.

The looming closure left the future of the town in limbo and sparked fears among residents that their homes would be demolished.

But today Police Minister Mark Ryan introduced legislation, as a part of a wide range of other amendments, that would link Glenden with the proposed Byerwen mining project being developed 20km away.

“It is proposed to grant the mining lease legislatively, with conditions to transition the Byerwen workforce into Glenden over a five-year period,” he said.

“Further of the workers accommodated in Glenden, 30 per cent will have to be housed in residential dwellings.

“This transitional approach has been consulted on with relevant stakeholders and supports a balanced approach.

“These amendments will ensure that Glenden benefits from the nearby Byerwen mine and that the mine can remain open and operating, supporting hundreds of jobs.”

How will it work?

Residents were looking to a new mining company to take over the lease on the privately-owned town and hoped the Byerwen mine would revitalise the town.

But QCoal, the company responsible for the mine, opted to house workers at an onsite camp.

The proposed legislation requires some workers to be housed in Glenden.

Mr Ryan moved that urgent amendments be made to the Mineral Resources Act 1989, which outlines the criteria that the proposed mining lease application must be decided against.

He said that when the Byerwen mine was first approved in 2017, assertions were made that some workers would be accommodated in Glenden.

“A consideration for the approval of the Byerwen mine was a representation by the mine proponent in its environmental impact statement, in terms of how they prefer to accommodate their workers, which included an assertion that a proportion of the workforce would want to reside in Glenden,” Mr Ryan said.

He said those assertions underpinned the government’s approval but ultimately were unenforceable.

“This [criteria in the Mineral Resources Act] does not currently allow the minister for resources to impose conditions that would require Byerwen to move its workforce to Glenden, which today would be a consideration of the social impact assessment under the Strong and Sustainable Resource Communities Act,” Mr Ryan said.

QCoal has been contacted for comment.