A State Budget pack of $68.5 million will boost Queensland's resources industry, including transforming the state’s new economy minerals sector into a long-term pit-to-product industry. Resources Minister Scott Stewart said the Budget was expected to inject millions into the discovery, development and manufacturing of the new economy minerals needed for renewable and advanced technology. “This…will fast track projects and the jobs and business opportunities for suppliers that come with them,” he said. “For decades, the resources industry has provided rock solid jobs for Queenslanders and royalties for state services including for our health workers, teachers, and police officers. “This Budget…
The Queensland Government has introduced nation-leading reforms to protect workers from sexual harassment as part of a number of changes to Queensland’s industrial laws. The Bill to amend Queensland’s Industrial Relations Act 2016 (IR Act) was introduced to Parliament following an independent five-year review. Changes to Queensland’s industrial relations framework include: strengthening protections for workers subject to sexual harassment, and sex and gender-based harassment, by providing conciliation, arbitration and injunctive powers to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) empowers the QIRC to set minimum conditions and entitlements for independent courier drivers improvements to entitlements under the Queensland Employment Standards, including…
With Australia in the grip of its worst-ever engineering skills shortage, first-of-its-kind research by Engineers Australia reveals the reasons women aren’t entering the engineering profession – and what needs to happen to change that. Shock findings from the Women in Engineering Report show that the biggest reason girls don’t choose to study engineering is that they simply don’t know what engineering is, and what engineers do. With the new Labor Government committing to both a strong women’s agenda and addressing the skills crisis, Engineers Australia Chief Engineer Jane MacMaster says these findings are a clarion call for swift political…
The WA Parliamentary Inquiry has handed down a final report titled Enough is Enough from its inquiry into sexual harassment against women in the fly-in fly-out (FIFO) mining industry, with 24 recommendations which urge stronger action to better support female workers. The report found women had been subjected to 'an appalling range of behaviours' and detailed how sexual harassment was 'generally accepted or overlooked'. It also described the failure of miners to recognise what was happening in their workplaces. The inquiry's chair, Libby Mettam, told parliament: "To hear the lived reality of the taunts, attacks, and targeted violence, the devastation…
Almost $80 million will be invested in Queensland’s resources sector and the state’s lands and waters as part of the 2022-23 State Budget. Resources Minister Scott Stewart said the investment would help grow and diversify the resources industry into the future with a focus on jobs and projects in Queensland’s emerging new economy minerals sector. Mr Stewart said exploration is the lifeblood of new resources projects and jobs, and its essential the sector continues to be supported, including with free access to first-rate geological data. “The latest statistics show that exploration is going strong in Queensland, with exploration expenditure up…
Scientists at ANSTO together with Lithium Australia Limited (LIT) have developed a world-first technology to extract more lithium from lithium mining waste, in a game-changer for Australian lithium industry. Lithium demand is being driven by the ever-expanding lithium-ion battery market – the leading technology for portable electronics and electric vehicles, which has revolutionised our lives over the last 30 years. Australia supplies about 60 per cent of the world’s lithium in the form of a mineral concentrate called spodumene. With an abundance of ‘hard rock’ lithium, we are amongst the countries with the largest lithium deposits globally. The conventional way…
The Australian Workers' Union has condemned mining companies’ continued inaction on sexual violence following reports of yet another alleged assault, this time on a female worker in the Pilbara. Police are investigating an alleged sexual assault at Hancock Prospecting's Roy Hill mine, just days before a WA parliamentary inquiry into sexual harassment against women in the resources industry is due to be tabled on Thursday. “The West Australian mining industry has been saying it has cleaned up its act and that nothing further needs to be done,” AWU WA Secretary Brad Gandy said. “But if this latest incident isn’t a…
