On Tuesday 12 May 2026 I gave a speech on the Government's Resources Safety and Health Queensland and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. You can read my full speech below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard).
I rise to make a relatively brief contribution on this Resources Safety and Health Queensland and Other Legislation Amendment Bill. At the outset I will make the point, as others have said, that there was an absurdly short turnaround for submissions—just nine business days. If the government are actually going to point to the committee process as being the substance of their engagement and consultation with the community, let us not pretend that nine days for submissions is anything of the sort.
It is the case that this bill takes some steps towards implementing recommendations from the Review of the Queensland Resources Safety and Health Regulatory Model. However, to be frank, as we see all too often, this is really a cynical way of introducing quite far-reaching administrative changes that not only were not recommended by that review but also actually run counter to it and serve to quite directly undermine the independence and integrity of some key regulatory bodies around Queensland's resource system. It does so putting workers safety at risk.
I will start with the resources safety changes. This bill removes the independent Commissioner for Resources Safety and Health and transfers all of those statutory functions to the newly created Resources Safety & Health Queensland board. The CEO of the RSHQ will be appointed by the Governor in Council and can be removed for any or no reason. This is a manoeuvre that has become quite familiar under the LNP government. None of us have forgotten the recent changes that provided for a similarly simple dismissal of board members who served on our hospital and health service boards. Clearly, having important regulatory roles like this where key figures can be removed for any or no reason puts at risk their independence and the independence of the advice they are going to provide and the work they are going to do.
The 2025 Review of the Queensland Resources Safety and Health Regulatory Model recommended maintaining the commissioner's role with a more clearly defined scope. It did not recommend that board members who hold similar functions should be able to be dismissed at the whim of the government of the day. Instead of following that recommendation, the LNP simply abolished the role and handed strategic direction to a board that is appointed at the recommendation of the minister but will also be subject to the minister's written performance expectations—and that is on top of the insecurity of tenure.
Turning to the Land Access Ombudsman, this is a body that plays an important role in mitigating at least some of the extraordinary power imbalance that exists between landholders and resource companies. The Land Access Ombudsman provides a free, independent service for resolving disputes in relation to conduct and compensation agreements and make-good agreements. The scope of the LAO's work is fundamentally quite limited though, in that it is prevented from helping landholders who are seeking support or dispute resolution advice when they are entering into agreements. Anyone with any familiarity about make-good agreements or conduct and compensation agreements knows that the point of negotiating and entering the agreement is the key moment where the power imbalance plays out. That is where landholders are left at the whim of these massive, extraordinarily well-resourced companies with their banks of lawyers standing in the wings. That is when these landholders, wind farmers and folk that the LNP purports to represent need the assistance.
Changes to the Land Access Ombudsman's scope were set to commence on 19 June this year. We would have seen the ombudsman's role given power to engage in dispute resolution at the stage of negotiating agreements, and importantly it would have introduced an industry funded model to cover the costs of this service. What about that is not just plain sensible? It would have improved those powers so that landholders can get assistance when it is most consequential and it would have got the industry to cover the costs of it. That sounds incredibly sensible.
Instead, the LNP has just folded to its fossil fuel donors once again and it will repeal the industry levy before it even commences and the Land Access Ombudsman will be collapsed into Coexistence Queensland. As others have said, this is a body that exists to facilitate resource expansion. Coexistence Queensland is something of a misnomer in a regulatory scheme where landholders still do not have basic rights to say no to resource companies entering private property. Coexistence Queensland is about facilitating that incursion of resource projects onto private landholders.
I think it is really important to pinpoint again how obsessed this government is with subsidising the resources sector. This is a massive industry that can clearly afford the quite meagre $600,000 that is allocated to the Land Access Ombudsman in the next budget. It is entirely appropriate that this cost is covered by the sector itself. However, instead of these multibillion dollar companies that profit from Queensland's resources footing the bill and covering the basic support services for landholders and farmers, it is now going to fall to the Queensland taxpayer to foot the bill.
This is where it gets really twisted. Apparently, they say that, because this is now a public expense, they have to cut costs by reducing the independence of the Land Access Ombudsman. The industry supposedly cannot afford to pay for the scheme, so rather than just paying for it and keeping it functioning as well as possible, we are going to bring it within Coexistence Queensland—which is a body with a completely different mandate which cannot be expected to serve the function that the Land Access Ombudsman is supposed to. The department has even accepted that these conflicting roles within Coexistence Queensland might cause conflicts of interest and raise questions around independence.
Once more, just to bring us back around as I finish, on top of that, with the Land Access Ombudsman now being the CEO of Coexistence Queensland, existing provisions apply to that function, which means that the Governor in Council can remove the Land Access Ombudsman for any reason or no reason whatsoever. It seems in any circumstance where this government feels it might be at risk of getting advice that it does not like—whether it is HHS board members, the Land Access Ombudsman or their Resources Safety & Health Queensland board members—they reserve the right to kick these people out at a whim for any reason or none. Insecure tenure like this undermines the independence and the quality of advice that the government is going to get, but it sits perfectly with their absolute determination to run roughshod over any kind of accountability and to ensure that they get public servants telling them what they want. So much for frank and fearless advice.