Qld Coal Statutory Official Employment Legislation Consultation Draft. A U-Turn in State Government Policy?
Inserted directly below is a copy of the Consultation Draft for the Employment of Statutory Officials that I have been provided through unofficial channels.
If interested please download it and read it.
If this consultation draft becomes legislated there will be massive changes from the existing Legislation. Some I find are really quite unbelievable.
It seems to represent a complete 180 degree change in official State Government policy.
Yesterday I contacted via email the CEO of RSHQ, Commissioner of RSHQ, the CIOCM and the Resources Minister asking whether this was the consultation draft and a few questions about when and to who it was released, why its not published, and how it was developed.
As usual I have received no reply to my email. So the RSHQ and Government Minister responsible have not denied it is a real document or providing any other information.
After reading the Consultation Draft this quote from Professor Quinlan immediately came to mind.
Even seemingly minor revisions can have significant effects. Equally critical is the provision of adequate infrastructure like inspectorate resourcing and strategic direction to implement the changes.
Even when regulatory change is successfully introduced powerful interest groups often seek to influence its implementation, to lobby their political representatives to reverse legislation or undermine its enforcement, or to refashion the laws years later when the heat has gone out of the debate
I have only had a short time to study it, I would confidently state that the QRC and the Mining Companies have been almost totally successful in derailing the process and outcomes and getting a lot more than they wanted over 2 years ago.
My explanation as to the drawbacks and back sliding on the draft Legislation are too long to tackle it all in one post so I will be doing several posts over the coming days going through the changes in detail.
There have been a number of major changes including
- No requirement I can find for a temporarily appointed Site Senior Executive to have the pre-requisites required to be appointed as a full time Site Senior Executive
- Insertion of “an associated entity of the coal mine operator“; or
- Insertion of “an entity that employs or otherwise engages 80% or more of the coal mine workers at the mine or part of the surface mine.”
I can quite easily argue that the draft provisions have given the Mining Companies even greater ability to not directly employ the Statutory Officials than existed at any time since 1999.
Within 5 minutes of discussing this with an associate we came up with about 5 different ways the “associated entity” or “80% employ or otherwise engages” could be used/misused.
I would confidently bet that these clauses could be used in any existing Coal Mine in the State to never directly employ any Statutory Official unless the Operator wanted to.
All I can say is that what a change in direction by the ALP State Government from 2 years ago as outlined in Report No. 46, 56th Parliament State Development, Natural Resources and Agricultural Industry Development Committee March 2020.
https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/tableOffice/TabledPapers/2020/5620T472.pdf
The issue is discussed in detail in Section 2.3 starting on page 28.
The position of the ALP State Government in 2020 was quite clear.
In response to matters raised by stakeholders in relation to the provisions in the Bill requiring statutory office holders to be employees of the mine operator, DNRME stated:
… it is a matter of government policy to require that statutory office holders are employees of a mine operator. There will be a twelve-month transitional period before statutory officer holders will be required to be an employee of a mine operator. The intent is to ensure that statutory office holders can make safety complaints and raise safety issues without fear of reprisal or impact on their employment.[1]
[1] Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, correspondence dated 6 March 2020, p 34.
Well something has sure changed.
I defy anyone to be able to explain any logical and documented way these complete change in Government policy occurred.
As an example I will just compare the existing requirements for employing Open Cut Examiners (OCE) against the Draft requirements.
EXISTING
59 Additional requirements for management of surface mines
- A site senior executive must appoint a person holding an open cut examiner’s certificate of competency to carry out the responsibilities and duties prescribed under a regulation in 1 or more surface mine excavations.
Maximum penalty—200 penalty units.
2) The coal mine operator for the surface mine must ensure that the site senior executive appoints a person under subsection (1) only if the person is an employee of the coal mine operator.
Maximum penalty—500 penalty units.
This is the draft proposed changes to the Coal Mining Act for employing OCE’s
59 Appointment of open-cut examiner
- The site senior executive for a surface mine or a separate part of a surface mine must appoint a person holding an open-cut examiner’s certificate of competency to be open-cut examiner for 1 or more surface mine excavations.
Maximum penalty—200 penalty units.
2. The coal mine operator for the surface mine or the separate part of the surface mine must ensure a person appointed by the site senior executive under subsection (1) is an employee of—
a) the coal mine operator; or
b) an entity that employs or otherwise engages 80% of the coal mine workers at the surface mine or separate part of the mine.
Maximum penalty—500 penalty units.
(3) The coal mine operator for the surface mine or the separate part of the surface mine must ensure the responsibilities and duties of the open-cut examiner for the surface mine excavation—
a) are limited to responsibilities and duties prescribed by regulation for the surface mine excavation; and
b) do not include the production of coal from the mine.
Maximum penalty—200 penalty units.
As I stated earlier, my explanation as to the drawbacks and back sliding on the draft Legislation are too long to tackle it all in one post so I will be doing several posts over the coming days going through the changes in detail.
