CFMEU Queensland district senior vice president Mitch Hughes said the new laws will ban 100% compulsory FIFO on all future mining and resource projects in Queensland.

“And it will mean workers at the two existing mines with compulsory 100% FIFO arrangements – Daunia and Caval Ridge – will have a choice about whether or not they want to live locally or continue to fly in, fly out,” he said.

“This a big win for regional Queensland communities.” 

The outcome is the culmination of the CFMEU’s five year long campaign, Hughes said.

At the last Queensland election, the CFMEU campaigned heavily to restore fairness to local communities for jobs in local mining and resource projects.

The union secured the support of 25 candidates to signing up to a Fair Go charter opposing 100% FIFO. Of those, 19 were elected.

This resulted in the incoming Queensland government setting up a Parliamentary Inquiry into the issue, and the CFMEU organised numerous community forums around the Inquiry.

The legislation will not prevent companies from using FIFO workers where a project is set up in a remote community with no nearby towns. But where there is a local community, they will no longer be locked out of jobs.

“Since the first major mining projects escalated the use of FIFO workers five years ago, the CFMEU has not stopped campaigning for a fair go for local communities,” Hughes said.

“When the former Queensland government gave mining companies the right to exclusively use FIFO workers, we had the ludicrous situation where locals wanting to work at a nearby mine had to fly hundreds of kilometres to Brisbane then fly back in again.”