Big mines to fly foreign workers direct to outback Queensland

The booming mining industry could mean foreign workers will be flown directly by jumbo jet into outback Queensland as the state scrambles to fill massive job shortages.

Image: Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, one of India's richest men, flew to Queensland at the weekend for fresh talks on Abbott Point coal terminal near Bowen. Picture: Glenn Barnes

Several mining houses are in advanced negotiations with the Federal Government to replace the individual 457 visas with bulk temporary migration agreements to bring overseas labour into outback mines.

The proposed Enterprise Migration Agreements would establish a special type of labour agreement to address skill vacancies in major resource projects with capital expenditure greater than $2 billion and a peak workforce of 1500.

Federal Immigration Minister Chris Bowen's office told The Courier-Mail a decision was pending on a confidential submission by one mining house. Other miners also have submissions in the pipeline awaiting the decision, a spokeswoman for Mr Bowen confirmed.

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani is emerging as a key player in Queensland, completing the purchase of Rockhampton beef baron Graeme Acton's Moray Downs cattle station for about $110 million, which sits over about one-third of the total resource in the Galilee Basin.

Outback Queensland is to get a new airport, railway line and even a new town to cater for the thousands of workers needed to open up the mineral-rich Galilee Basin.

While retail and tourism sectors languish, the mining boom is putting massive demands on the state's workforce.

Coal miners are lobbying the Federal Government to allow fly-in unskilled workers from overseas as they grapple with a predicted shortage of 40,000 new employees in the resources sector by 2020.

One of India's richest men, Mr Adani, flew in to Queensland at the weekend for fresh talks on Abbott Point coal terminal near Bowen and his latest acquisition of Moray Downs cattle station.

Mr Adani, 49, who is worth $10 billion, has just bought Rockhampton beef baron Graeme Acton's Moray Downs cattle station for about $110 million.

Moray Downs, which sits over about one-third of the total resource in the Galilee Basin, would also be the site for a mining town for 2500 workers, 500km southwest of Bowen.

Mr Adani has plans for a runway, airstrip, a 500km railway line and Australia's biggest operating coal mine by 2022. His infrastructure plans will be India's single biggest investment in the country.

Mr Acton told The Courier-Mail the rural sector faced big challenges in balancing national food security issues with the rush into mining.

"This part of the world will be boom town," he said. "But we don't want it to get like Russia where we used to joke they'd have to pay us in vodka because they let prime agricultural land go to waste or ruin in the rush into the resources industry."

Respected cattle king Peter Hughes said there was a two-speed economy at work in the bush.

"These mines are like a cancer eating up all the productive cattle country but they pay good money for them," the Mackay grazier said.

"And I'm a great believer in bringing in as many Filipinos and Indians to do all the start-up infrastructure. There is nobody else out here to do the work."

Adani did a $3 billion deal with Linc Energy's Peter Bond for the rights to the tenement, negotiating $500 million payment up front and $2.5 billion over 20 years in royalties.

They paid $1.8 billion last April for Abbot Point terminal

and there's no doubt the scale of the projects means workers from overseas and within Australia will be required.

Australia's richest woman Gina Rinehart, who sold her Galilee prospects to India's GVK group, has been vocal in advocating a Northern Special economic zone from Bowen to Port Hedland.

Clive Palmer, the other big player in the Galilee Basin with ChinaFirst, is also behind the push.

It is creating fresh tensions with unions concerned about the implications of setting up "free trade zones" that employ 100 per cent foreign labour flown in direct from overseas.

Minerals Council of Australia acting chief executive Chris Fraser said no one had an Enterprise Migration Agreement yet.

"It is too difficult. The rules are so tight and the unions have killed them off and strangled them, so we are yet to see one emerge," he said.

Peter Michael The Courier-Mail

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