The mining industry has denied suggestions money donated to Queensland political parties has bought it undue influence over government decision-making.

Key points: Institute wants mining industry donations to political parties to be banned

Institute wants mining industry donations to political parties to be banned Calls for a public inquiry to fully investigate the sector's influence on Government

Calls for a public inquiry to fully investigate the sector's influence on Government Former LNP government received almost $1.2 million between 2011-2015, Queensland ALP received more than $91,000

A report from the Australia Institute has claimed the millions of dollars in donations may have influenced government approval for several mining projects.

The Institute wants mining industry donations to be banned and a public inquiry to fully investigate the sector's influence on government.

The report examined political donations from mining companies and government decisions favouring their projects.

While the report found the former LNP government was the biggest beneficiary of the donations, it also raised questions about some controversial decisions made by the current state Labor Government.

At the last Queensland state election, then opposition leader Annastacia Palaszczuk promised to make political donations in the state more transparent amid concerns about the influence of the mining industry.

Later, Labor moved to repeal the former LNP government's legislation to remove community objection rights to mining projects in the Land Court.

But now concern has been raised the Land Court remains in jeopardy as a result of pressure from the Queensland Resources Council.

Mark Ogge, from the Australia Institute and one of the authors of the report, said the mining lobby had worked "really hard to remove and repeal those appeal rights, or limit those repeal rights, to people".

"They haven't made those changes yet, but it appears the Minister has been listening to the mining lobby on that," he said.

"What seems to be happening is these companies donate money to political parties and get unlimited access to ministers and important government decision makers.

"And in these cases they all achieved remarkable outcomes, like approval of projects in the face of really serious environmental concerns."

The report said the former LNP government had received almost $1.2 million in donations between 2011 and 2015, while the Queensland ALP received more than $91,000.

Linc Energy project 'should never have been approved'

One of the companies donating large sums of money was Linc Energy, which Mr Ogge said had contributed more than $300,000.

"What actually happened was there was a massive contamination case, subsequent to that the practice of underground coal gas cases had been banned in Queensland and there's charges pending against the company," he said.

"That project should never have been approved and when you look at what actually happened, they gave a really large amount of money to the various political parties."

The report also linked coal mining group Adani's $50,000 donations to the former LNP government and its decision to use millions of taxpayer dollars to build supporting rail and port infrastructure.

Revel Pointon from Queensland's Environmental Defenders Office said it was also concerned about the council's lobbying and influence over Mining Minister Anthony Lynham.

"We don't understand why they would want a tribunal because it would effectively make no change in terms of concerns they keep raising about the length of time that the court process takes," she said.

"Also we've seen the comments the Mining Minister has made, and comments just generally in the media around the Land Court process and how long it takes has led to much more expedited processes for the hearings we're involved with."

The report said Dr Lynham had 87 meetings with the mining sector, 50 per cent more than his LNP predecessor.

Mining donations should be banned: Australia Institute

Resources Council head Michael Roche slammed the report as biased and narrow and admitted to actively lobbying the Mining Minister to scrap the Land Court.

"It is open slather, so what we have said … to Government [is] these processes are rolling on with seemingly endless timetables.

"So if it's going to be open slather in terms of who can object, then we need some tightening of time frames."

He argued Queensland's Land Court should be replaced with a tribunal.

The institute has called for mining industry donations to be banned, and along with Peter Wellington, an Independent MP, has called for a public inquiry to fully investigate the sector's influence on the Government.

Mr Wellington said for the election promise of greater transparency in political donations to be effective, it needed to be enforced on a national level.

"There are serious allegations that money is donated by development vested interests to a federal branch of a political party, and that money is filtered back to [the] state branch of political party to camouflage or hide the source of funding," he said.

The ABC approached the Minister for comment but was directed to the Attorney-General, who provided a statement.

"The Palaszczuk Government is committed to transparency in political donations," the statement said.

"The Government has now committed to having a real-time political donation disclosure system in place by the end of the year."