This has been welcomed by the Queensland Resources Council, which believes that to have done otherwise would have been hugely negative signal to investors and disruptive to hard-won productivity and culture gains at those mines.

QRC CEO Michael Roche said the Committee’s report and recommendation appears to have been coloured by the approval back in 2011 for two mines in the Bowen Basin to have up to a 100% FIFO operational workforce.

“Those approvals were given in a very different part of the economic cycle,” he said.

“The reality is that the concept of a 100% FIFO mine in the Bowen Basin is a furphy.

There are only two mines in all of the Bowen Basin that have approval for a 100% FIFO workforce and even at those two mines there are hundreds of local contractors and small businesses supporting those operations.

“All coal mines in Queensland operate with a mix of locally-based and commuting workers, with most of the latter living in the broader central Queensland region and commuting by car or bus. This is not going to change.”

The report has largely ignored the views of frontline resource sector workers, as clearly expressed in the independent survey of 1832 workers at resource operations around Queensland. The survey results were provided to the Committee five weeks ago, Roche said.

A centrepiece of the report appears to be a recommendation that the government considers amending the Anti-Discrimination Act to include location as a prohibited ground of discrimination.

The QRC will seek expert legal advice on the ramifications of such an amendment, but on the face of it this proposal seems to be a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

“The reality is that the workforce survey revealed that better than four out of five employees would not change where they live or their accommodation arrangements even if they were given the opportunity,” Roche said. “This really calls into question the need for any legislative amendment.”

The survey also showed that 85% of resource industry workers from around Queensland regard their physical and mental health and quality of life as either excellent, very good or good.

The report, however, appears to call into question the adequacy and confidentiality of mental health support services being provided by resource companies.

“We will need to take the time to better understand the Committee’s thinking behind such recommendations,” Roche said.

“The report’s focus on mental health and FIFO workers is not supported by any evidence that the mental health of FIFO workers is different from that of residential workers or of the broader community.

“The QRC and its members takes prevention and treatment of mental health issues for all workers – irrespective of where they live – very seriously, as evidenced by the comprehensive Mental Health Blueprint released by QRC.”

Finally, the report appears to call into question the standards of employer provided accommodation, and yet the workforce survey found that 79% of workers were satisfied or very satisfied with the standard of their employer provided accommodation. Only 8% were dissatisfied, according to Roche.

“The important message from workers is that they want to have the choice of where they live and they don’t want that choice taken away from them,” he said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to worker accommodation.

“There can be no doubt that regional communities, especially in central and north Queensland, are hurting from the loss of around 9000 jobs from the coal industry and the associated flow-on to businesses that service the industry.”