Background of James Purtill the Inaugural Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner
The background of James Purtill the first ever appointed Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner in 2021 is hardly one to inspire any confidence that Mining and Gas companies are being fully held to account and paying the correct amount into the fund by the due dates.
https://www.qmrc.qld.gov.au/about/commissioner
About the Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner
An environmental scientist by profession, James Purtill was appointed as the inaugural Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner on 11 October 2021. James has Australian and international experience, including numerous roles as Chief Executive Officer in the Queensland Government and has also held senior executive roles in the private sector.
In private industry, he has established international operations for a multi-national corporation, as a company director of its Australian subsidiary. He has held senior management positions in an Australian energy resources company, overseeing sustainability management (government relations, communications, approvals, environmental management, community and aboriginal engagement) for an $18.5B energy project. He was Managing Director of an environmental rehabilitation company.
In the public sector, James has been Director-General for the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Multicultural Affairs, the Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, and the Department of Energy and Public Works. He was also Queensland Public Service Commissioner 2006-2008.
This is what the Office of the Mine Rehabilitation Commission do according to their website https://www.qmrc.qld.gov.au/about/what-we-do
The Office of the Queensland Mine Rehabilitation Commissioner has four key responsibilities:
- engage with stakeholders and the community to raise awareness of mine rehabilitation matters
- produce technical reports on the leading practice rehabilitation of land impacted by resource activities
- provide advice to the Minister on mine rehabilitation practices, outcomes and policies
- report on mine rehabilitation performance and trends in Queensland.
Advise
We advise the Minister for the Environment and Great Barrier Reef, Minister for Science and Minister for Multicultural Affairs on:
- mine rehabilitation and management practices, outcomes and policies
- public interest evaluation processes and performance.
https://www.qmrc.qld.gov.au/research
Our research aims to establish clear, evidence-based, leading practice standards for rehabilitation and management of mined land in Queensland.
Learn more about how we develop our leading practice advice.
Well you would think that Mr. James Purtill with his background on the Office of the Rehabilitation Commissioner that he is eminently qualified for the job.
However Mr. Purtill neglects to mention that he was working for Santos when they were getting the Coal Seam gas and LNG export facilities at Gladstone approved and construction started.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-10-23/queensland-gas-project-to-create-12000-jobs/2308592
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/public-servants-tasked-with-approving-to-massive-csg-projects-were-blindsided-by-demands-to-approve-two-in-two-weeks/news-story/210f1e31eb311d3f8ab9c928771f1dae
Luckily for the public of Queensland Simone Marsh who worked in environmental regulation of the mining industry for over a decade before becoming an engineering consultant and then became a whistleblower and resigned from her role in the Qld Public Service
In early 2010, she was appointed to draft the Queensland Coordinator-General’s evaluation reports for Santos’ Gladstone LNG and BG Group’s Queensland Curtis LNG projects — the world’s first large-scale proposals to turn gas from land-based coal seams into liquefied natural gas for export.
In 2014, Simone provided evidence to a federal Senate inquiry regarding breaches of environmental law.
In 2015 she was the principal researcher and writer for this report on the revolving door of senior public servants to and from the gas and other mining industries in Qld
https://jeremybuckingham.org/2015/03/27/revolving-doors-queensland/
A list of some of the people who have switched from government to the gas industry in Queensland.
James Purtill – from Director-General of the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency (including the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service); to Public Services Commissioner; to Santos GLNG, during the approval phase; and now Director-General, Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Partnerships.
http://www.datsima.qld.gov.au/about-us/director-general
[Note: James’ latest government profile avoids specifically mentioning his last role at Santos]
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-10-23/queensland-gas-project-to-create-12000-jobs/2308592
Santos spokesman James Purtill says the approval process has taken three years.
“While the project has a large number of conditions placed on it we are very confident that we can meet and exceed those conditions and the conditions of both the commonwealth and the state,” he said.
Mr Purtill says Santos wants to work with the community and governments to create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars for the economy.
“It has take over three years so we are very excited to get to this point that’s for sure,” he said.
“The project has undergone a pretty thorough environmental approval and community consultation process, I would say it was one of the most comprehensive in Australian history.”
Revolving Doors Queensland – compiled by Simone Marsh
Santos’s Rick Wilkinson (whom later moved across to industry group, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association – APPEA) and Santos’ James Purtill (whom has now returned to Queensland Government – as director general of the Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM) – from where he came) were invited guests of Treasurer Andrew Fraser at the government box at the stadium on 14 May 2010, i.e. two days after the “constitutional innovation” email.
The Queensland Law Society President was also invited.
Within days of Fletcher’s email (and presumably after QGC’s presentation to the LNG Committee), I was instructed to finalise sections of the Coordinator-General’s report for the Santos and QGC projects. I was not permitted to speak with the Coordinator-General, and draft text was altered and deleted without consultation. The Coordinator-General’s final conditions enabled gas field information to be submitted prior to construction, i.e. after the legislated assessment process.
The rule of law had been thrown out on George Street.
CAMPBELL Newman backs calls for the CMC to probe former Bligh Government’s approval of two of the state’s biggest CSG projects.
“It’s very rare that I would every agree with anything my former opponent in City Hall days, Mr Drew Hutton, would say but on this occasion I support what he has suggested,” Mr Newman said.
He said if Mr Hutton, president of the anti-CSG group, the Lock the Gate Alliance, had not referred the matter to the CMC, he would have.
Earlier, The Courier-Mail reported that two of Queensland’s largest resources projects were approved by public servants panicked by a Bligh government order to sign off on them quickly.
Public servants at the two departments tasked with giving the official go-ahead to Queensland’s new coal seam gas industry were blindsided by Bligh government demands that two of the gigantic projects be approved within weeks of each other.
And just days before the QGC approval was granted, public servants were warning the directors of the government’s assessment team that they still had not been given any detailed information on pipelines and the location of wells.
They also warned a long list of environmental issues had not been fully analysed.
The documents show the director of environmental impact study assessment at the Department of Environment and Resource Management was told on May 1 the QGC draft assessment was needed within three days.
The director, Stuart Cameron, complained in an email sent on May 4: “We have not even started on the QGC conditions. I have consistently been advised by the Department of Infrastructure and Planning that QGC was down the track and that DIP had not even started writing their report.
“Once again I am faced with a physically impossible request, along with the other 80 EIS projects that are starting to slip.”
But the public servant in charge of drafting the environmental response from the government’s Co-ordinator-General, Simone Marsh, wrote the response to the GLNG EIS was rushed, insufficiently transparent, altered and lacking key impact assessment.
She made 26 objections to the process of approving the Santos GLNG project in an email to senior bureaucrats.
“It is clear the project’s activities will lead to widespread, serious environmental harm and material environmental harm, as defined by the Environmental Protection Act, both during and following the removal, transportation and processing of coal seam gas,” Ms Marsh wrote.
“I am concerned that the proponent has in recent days been submitting comments and requesting alterations to the draft Co-ordinator-General’s report and that paragraphs containing important text appear to have been deleted and other changes made in a non-transparent manner and without adequate justification,” Ms Marsh wrote.
The Federal Government also complained it had not been given an evaluation report on one project until after it was approved by the Queensland government.
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/public-servants-tasked-with-approving-to-massive-csg-projects-were-blindsided-by-demands-to-approve-two-in-two-weeks/news-story/210f1e31eb311d3f8ab9c928771f1dae
After all what other gifts can the likes of Mr. Purtill get and even legally declare
Copy of dnrme-gifts-benefits-march-quarter-2020
With the huge rush to find Lithium deposits to feed the demand for the likes Elon Musk’s Tesla electric cars I wonder if any of the Qld Director Generals or Commissioners of various Departments and especially Mr. Purtill have a declared interest in Broo Limited and through them to Lithium Australia NL and other associated $2 shelf companies to getting a whole heap of lithium exploration leases in Qld WA, NT
Lithium Australia NL (ASX:LIT) has had three of its four exploration permits granted at the 1,000 square kilometre Amber Project located in North Queensland.
The Amber region shows all of the geological hallmarks associated with many of the world’s predominant lithium provinces.
Lithium exploration will initially concentrate at the historical recording of pegmatite and greisen hosted tin, tungsten, and fluorite occurrence.
Adrian Griffin, managing director, commented: ”Lithium Australia has identified North Queensland as a region with the optimum geological history to host major lithium deposits.
