Royalties for Regions

As Queensland Also Calls for System

The Tasmanian Greens today continued their campaign for a ‘Royalties for Regions’ system to be introduced, pointing to recent moves in Queensland to have such a scheme in place for distributing mining royalties throughout local communities.

Greens Member for Braddon, Paul O’Halloran MP, said that should State Labor continue to refuse to investigate introducing a Royalties for Regions scheme, Tasmanian mining communities risk being left behind the rest of the nation.

“Just this last week Mayors from Queensland’s mining regions attended a Royalties for Regions forum held in Brisbane, where they called for a system to distribute mining royalties across that state to be introduced,” Mr O’Halloran said.

“The gathering national momentum for Royalties for Regions demonstrates the growing recognition amongst mining communities that there is a fair way that they can obtain their fair share of the wealth generated by their local region and their workers.”

“Royalties for Regions is in place in Western Australia, there are moves in South Australia towards establishing a similar scheme, and now Queensland local communities are also pushing for it to be implemented.”

“Once again, Tasmania’s Labor government is out of step by continuing to turn a blind eye to the need to ensure equitable distribution of wealth generated by mining amongst the local communities.”

“This intransigence of state Labor risks holding back many Tasmanian communities especially those of our mineral hub along the West Coast, as well as others around the state.”

“The Greens’ Royalties for Regions policy which we took to the state election will establish a ‘Royalties for Regions Fund’ that would receive either 50% or $10 million of the annual mining royalties received by the state, which would then be redirected back to projects within local mining communities,” Mr O’Halloran said.