This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The Queensland resources minister has been accused of using exaggerated job numbers circulated by the mining lobby when announcing the state would sell land for another six thermal coalmines.

Anthony Lynham said one in eight Queenslanders’ jobs was sustained by mining, as he announced he would auction potential coal tenements in the Galilee, Bowen and Surat basins last month.

The figure came from a report by the Queensland Resources Council which used a “multiplier” – a method of economic analysis considered a “biased estimator” by the Australian Bureau of Statistics – to claim that 282,000 jobs in Queensland were supported by mining.

According to census data, 49,997 people in Queensland work in the mining sector, about 2.3% of the state’s workforce, or about one in 47 jobs. Lynham’s department said in 2016 the number of “direct and indirect” jobs created by mining was about 180,000.

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Mining and gas companies have recently launched a missive against the “tofu tyrants” they say are costing Queensland jobs.

But a senior economist at the Australia Institute, Cameron Murray, said the resources council was “double counting” jobs and its figures clearly overstated the scale of the industry.



“This is the same thing that every lobby group does ... to make up numbers,” he said. “The reality is, responsible politicians and media wouldn’t report that sort of stuff by a vested interest because it’s clearly going to be overstated.

“You can go and find at least 10 other industries that are bigger than miners that will say something like they support ‘one in five jobs’ – then we’re going to be double counting jobs all over the place.”

The resources council said its figures were based on information supplied directly by miners. A spokesman for Lynham suggested the accuracy of his statement was “a matter of interpretation” but would not respond to questions about why the minister relied on analysis by the resources lobby rather than his department.

Lynham’s statements also appear to be at odds with the treasurer, Jackie Trad, who told Guardian Australia before last week’s state budget that Queensland was heavily diversified and that “no single industry accounts for more than 10% of the economy”.



Last week the Courier-Mail reported the “dire warning” from mining bosses that “lying” green activists behind an inner-city “tofu curtain” were killing the industry by blocking coal and gas expansion projects.

Jobs remain a key rallying point for the mining industry and its supporters, particularly as unemployment remains high in many regional Queensland communities.

The New Acland mine west of Toowoomba has promoted its expansion plan with an advertising campaign to save the town of Oakey and claims that scuppering the expansion, which is tied up in the courts, would cost 700 jobs.



A petition to “save Oakey” implies the community will lose 700 jobs. Murray disputes those claims in a forthcoming report.

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He said ABS data showed only 46 people in Oakey, less than 2% of the town’s population, were employed by the mining sector. ABS data shows Oakey has more residents employed in meat processing, defence, meat wholesaling, cattle farming and road freight than in mining.

“If anything, there is a shortage of labour, not a shortage of job openings in the region,” Murray said. “Promoting bad economics about jobs and investment is designed to distort the economic picture of the mine’s significance to gain political favour.”

Murray also highlighted claims made by New Acland during a recent land court case that 281 people were employed at the mine.

The mine’s parent company, New Hope Group, said there were an additional 500 contractors employed at the mine.

“That of course doesn’t account for the indirect jobs,” a spokeswoman said.

The Indian miner Adani has long claimed that the Carmichael coalmine will create 10,000 jobs, despite its experts telling a court the number was 1,464.

Conflict between the resources industry and attempts to transition away from coal as an energy source are coming increasingly into focus in Queensland. The state’s budget this month was boosted by a coal royalties windfall. The Palaszczuk government’s policies on one hand pull the state towards renewables, and on the other continue to embrace an escalation in the production of fossil fuels.

On Wednesday Lynham announced the release of another 1,140 square kilometres of coal country, mostly in the Bowen basin, for exploration permits. He said the Bowen basin produced most of the state’s coking coal, which is used to make steel.

“Metallurgical coal is critical to building our renewables future as it is one of the key elements for making the materials for our wind turbines, solar farms and electric cars,” he said.

The Bowen also produces more than half the state’s thermal coal, which is used to produce energy.