QLD:New Queensland housing policy for miners

AAP General News (Australia)
08-25-2011
QLD:New Queensland housing policy for miners

By Kym Agius

BRISBANE, Aug 25 AAP - Mining companies will have to assess where workers want to live
and the impacts on communities under new Queensland government policy.

Proponents of major projects will need to address seven principles in a new housing
and accommodation strategy.

Among the considerations are whether new infrastructure is required and how the lifestyle
in the town will be protected when a fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) workforce is proposed.

Workers would also have a choice about where they live.

Miners would have to determine how much demand there is for local jobs before a project
goes ahead, and justify its FIFO workforce.

Treasurer Andrew Fraser said Queensland had 38 projects in the pipeline over the next
six years, including 23 coal mines and 12 coal seam gas projects, supporting 30,000 new
workers.

He said FIFO arrangements were a reality for isolated mining towns and helped spread
the wealth from the resource boom.

But workers should have a say on where they live from the start.

"It is important that the staff of these important projects ... have the same level
of choice as everyone else," he told parliament on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the federal government announced this week a parliamentary inquiry into
the impact of FIFO workforces.

Chair of the inquiry, Tony Windsor, said the practice may be the answer to high unemployment
in some regions, but maintains the inquiry is a clean slate.

"Our inquiry is to look at the positive and negatives, and social and community implications
of fly-in fly-out, drive-in drive-out," he told Sky News on Thursday.

A number of regional Queensland towns say they miss out on jobs because of the use
of FIFO workers.

At the same time they pay the social and infrastructure costs of hosting the transients,
without garnering rates.

One such town is Moranbah, in central Queensland, where miner BMA wants approval from
the state government for a 100 per cent FIFO workforce for the nearby Caval Ridge coal
mine.

A decision is expected to be made within a month.

Mining community advocate Jim Pearce said the federal inquiry came too late for Moranbah,
which would suffer if BMA got its way.

"If we lose that fight, our communities will be devastated and it would set a precedent
for communities to be overrun with fly-in fly-out workers," he told AAP.

The former Labor MP will seek Labor preselection in the seat of Mirani in the next
election to push for a banning of 100 per cent FIFO workforces.

Mirani is currently held by Liberal National Party (LNP) MP Ted Malone.

The LNP does not support 100 per cent fly-in fly-out workforces.

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KEYWORD: FIFO WRAP

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