Queensland’s government has denied using the “cover” of Tropical Cyclone Alfred to cancel a long-running review of the way objections to mining leases are handled by the state land court.
The Queensland Law Reform Commission had been conducting the independent review since June 2023, with recommendations due on 30 June.
On 4 March, with the cyclone bearing down on the state, the attorney general, Deb Frecklington, cancelled its reference, ending the process.
The opposition leader, Steven Miles, accused the government of “sneaking through these changes while the south-east is bunkered down under the cover of a cyclone warning”.
“That this is a calculated manoeuvre by the attorney general and the LNP to govern in secret,” he said on Wednesday.
Frecklington denied she had done so, saying she’d had “a conversation with the chair of QLRC” on 25 February, to arrange a date to cancel the review.
The independent law reform body will be replaced by the cabinet resources committee, which is made up of senior members of the LNP government.
It is made up of government ministers for resources Dale Last, environment Andrew Powell plus treasurer David Janetzki and deputy premier Jarrod Bleijie.
According to the minister’s letter cancelling the review, the new committee will consider initiatives designed to “improve the competitiveness of Queensland’s resources sector and the value of its supply chain”, such as by reducing delays and improving approval timeframes.
The QLRC had been commissioned with designing amendments that would provide “the fairness, efficiency and effectiveness of the objections processes” and “providing opportunities for community participation, including access to justice and the cost of participating” among others.
Labor has also accused the government of using the “cover” of the cyclone to “secretly” sack an advisory body designed to respond to youth crime.
The deputy opposition leader, Cameron Dick, said the premier, David Crisafulli, had “cynically used the cover of Cyclone Alfred to pop the dirty laundry out as cyclone Alfred approached the Queensland coast”.
Frecklington said “Labor’s Independent Ministerial Advisory Committee” would be replaced by their minister for victims and a new advisory body, and its members had been offered positions elsewhere in government. It was advised of its closure on 25 February.
Community action group Lock the Gate Alliance said they were “shocked” at the “unprecedented step” to cancel the independent review of mining lease objections, which they claimed was done in order to prevent the release of its findings.
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They compared the move with legislation passed by the government of Campbell Newman to reduce standing for objectors to resource projects.
“We can only conclude that the LNP government has intervened because the findings were not popular with the mining industry,” the Lock the Gate Alliance national coordinator, Ellen Roberts, said.
According to a list of draft recommendations, QLRC was considering recommending amending legislation to facilitate independent expert advice and requiring decision makers to consider “any independent expect advice received”.
It was also recommending “requiring decision-makers to consider the rights of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples when deciding a mining lease application and associated environmental authority”.
Andrew Kwan, managing lawyer at the Environmental Defenders Office in Queensland, said the resources cabinet committee didn’t allow for input by “Queenslanders adversely affected by mining who made submissions to the Qlrc”.
He said the move “devalues the work of not just QLRC staff but the hundreds of community and industry stakeholders who earnestly participated in this extensive review”.
The LNP also plans to increase regulation on renewables projects, keep the state’s coal plants operating longer and repeal its renewables target.
“Although disappointed we cannot finalise this work, we respect this is a matter for the Attorney-General,” Qlrc chair, Fleur Kingham, said.