Make Coal Giants Pay for Mine Clean-Up

Our new report – Abandoned Mines in Queensland: Toxic Time-bomb or Employment Opportunity? – calls for big mining companies to cover the cost of rehabilitating the State’s abandoned mines and estimates that this would generate 6000 jobs in regional Queensland!

There are too many large abandoned mines, and the full cost of cleaning them up is too large and should not fall on taxpayers. If mines are levied to pay for the clean up, they can also create jobs in the process.

Why should we miss out on hundreds of schools and hospitals because we’re footing the bill for the mess left behind by irresponsible mining companies?

References:

• Dodging clean up costs Six tricks coal mining companies play (pdf)

• Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry Report (pdf)
• ACF Mine Rehab Stories
• Abandoned Mines in Queensland Report
• NSW Coal Pit Legacy
• Mine Rehab Closure Cost Report
• Rhetoric Vs Reality. Rehab performance snapshot

On the driest inhabited continent on earth, where people and landscapes depend on vulnerable water resources, Australia needs laws that protect our water from coal and unconventional gas mining.

In the lead-up to the Federal election, will you join us in putting water on the national agenda? Will you be part of our #Water4Life campaign?

We will be taking action all around the country to tell candidates and political parties, that it’s time for them to:

• Protect nationally significant water resources
• Support the ‘dining boom’
• Protect the health of people and communities

We’ll be asking them to commit to our full #Water4Life Index, and we’ll be judging them against it.