QRC calls on state government to cut red tape

Queensland Resources Council (QRC) President Michael Roche has written to state Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk asking for an urgent meeting to discuss a jobs-protection plan for the industry.

“The Queensland resources sector is facing some of the toughest conditions in decades with more than 20 000 jobs lost over the past two years,” Roche said in a press statement. “The QRC is not looking for bailouts or subsidies by our entire sector needs certainty and support in the shape of commitments to reduce red tape and unjustified government-imposed costs.”

According to the QRC, the resource sector employs 60 000 directly in Queensland with tens of thousands of indirect jobs also supported by the industry.

“Even in these most difficult of times, there are companies prepared to invest in new job-generating projects because of the strong growth in demand for resource commodities in India and southeast Asia,” continued Roche. “However, these projects are locked up in interminable court appeals by green activists. We need government action to get those projects out of the courts, instead creating thousands of construction jobs and thousands more permanent jobs.”

Edited by Jonathan Rowland.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/mining/25012016/qrc-calls-on-state-government-to-cut-mining-red-tape-2016-104/