When Trish Goodwin discovered this week that the Bluff coalmine had been officially abandoned, it came as no surprise.
“I always said they’d walk away from it,” she says of the long mothballed central Queensland highlands mine, 175km west of Rockhampton.
Last week liquidators disclaimed the mining lease for the 1,100ha site, after failing to sell it following the financial collapse of its owner, Bowen Coking Coal, in July 2025.
With responsibility to clean up the mine handed to the state government, Goodwin is far from certain what happens next.
For now, they are all questions the mines department will have to take on notice.
The program manages abandoned mines, but this is the first since the state introduced a financial provisioning scheme designed to ensure taxpayers are not left to foot the bill when mines go bust.
The scheme needs miners to provide surety to cover remediation and rehabilitation costs when mines close.
Andrew Gorringe of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis says Bluff “won’t be the last that goes this way”.
Bluff had been in care and maintenance mode since November 2023, the second time it was mothballed since breaking ground in 2019. Gorringe says at least another five coalmines are in care and maintenance, while new mines continue to be approved or have their leases extended “without a view to the long term outlook for coal”.
The central Queensland coordinator for the Lock the Gate Alliance, Claire Gronow, says department’s estimate of the rehabilitation cost is likely to be an underestimate, and whatever the shortfall “it is the taxpayer who has to pay for it”.