Queenslanders back coal mining & support more internationally competitive rates
Market research, conducted for Coal Australia, found that Queenslanders in regional and metropolitan areas believe coal mining is critically important to their communities and the state.
Coal Australia Chairman, Nick Jorss, said:
“While encouraging, these results reflect what many of our members have already been seeing. The vast majority Queenslanders, both in the regions and the metro areas, back our coal communities. Voters understand how important the coal industry is to the economic health of Queensland.
“They are also supportive of Queensland getting onto a more sustainable and internationally competitive coal royalty regime, if it kept investment flowing into our great state. Queensland voters clearly understand that industry is a force for good, and want to see more, not less, coal mining”, Mr Jorss said.
Key insights:
- Voters in key coal communities like Mackay (Net agreement +87), Rockhampton (+82), and Gladstone (+90) all strongly agreed that “Coal Mining is important to their community”.
- Residents in metropolitan Brisbane and the Gold Coast were also overwhelmingly in agreement that “Coal mining is important to the Queensland economy”, with voters in Springwood (+71), Capalaba (+73) and Ipswich (+83) all showing strong levels of support for the industry.
- On the issue of coal royalties, voters across the state said that they strongly supported incentivising coal companies to stay in Queensland with more internationally competitive coal royalty rates; Regional areas (+47), Metro areas (+37), Mackay (+71), Rockhampton (+72), Townsville (+62), Springwood (+34).
Paul Flynn, CEO of Whitehaven Coal, a Coal Australia Member, said the findings on coal royalties made it clear that “anyone who thinks having the highest coal royalty rates in the world is good for Queensland is kidding themselves.”
“The findings of this independent community research couldn’t be clearer – Regional Queenslanders know better than most how important the coal industry is to their future, and they want to see it thrive,” Mr Flynn said.
“Every year, the coal industry invests billions of dollars in Queensland to develop projects, pay salaries and wages, and support local businesses and community causes. If the State Government wants mining companies to continue to carry the risk of making large, multi-decade, capital investments, it must offer appropriate incentives to invest via a sustainable royalty regime under which everyone can prosper.”
The vast majority of those surveyed, across both regional (+78) and metro (+67) areas, said they did not want to stop coal mining if it impacted their community, and the Queensland economy. Voters in Mackay (+81), Burdekin (+80), Townsville (+72) and Gregory (+85) were particularly against any end to coal mining.
There is also strong support among Queenslanders of all stripes for attracting greater investment to grow the coal mining industry (Regional +71 and Metro +63) as well strong support for reducing red tape to speed up approval of new coal mines.
Read the full polling report here.
Media inquiries
Olivia McCormack - [email protected]
A note on survey methodology
A sample of n=400 respondents was collected across each of the geographic areas, with a total sample size of n=5,200 across all areas. Data are weighted to be representative of Australian voters in each region. The survey was conducted via computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) during July to August 2024. Coal Australia commissioned an independent market research firm, to conduct the interviews, which abides by industry standards (ISO 20252) / (ISO 9001).