Early this month the Land Access Ombudsman and our dispute resolution officer headed out to Dalby in the Western Downs and Taroom in the Banana Shire.
The team took part in a Department of Resource Community Information Session at the Taroom Town Hall. A location that the LAO had not visited yet with our pop-up office. It was a great opportunity to connect with the Taroom community and landholders. We were able to provide private one on one sessions for land access dispute discussions relating to conduct and compensation agreements (CCA) or make good agreements (MGA).
Traveling as a group with the Department of Resources, Department of Environment and Science and GasFields Commission Queensland was beneficial to community members. The ability to offer a one stop shop information session, where land access issues could be discussed with government departments along with additional support services like the LAO, made it easy for landholders, resource company employees and professionals that work in the field to have the questions answered or referred on, that day.
Traveling on from Taroom the team stopped again in Dalby. We continue to revisit the town of Dalby, given the current resource activity in the Surat region, it is one of the major district/hubs for in the western downs region. This vist the Gas Fields Commission Queensland’s Engagement Team joined us at the Myall Youth and Community Centre Inc, with private rooms provided to discuss land access matters with the LAO.
We continue to see a need for support and assistance with the negotiation of Conduct and Compensation and Make Good Agreements. Other enquiries made by community members include issues that do not full within the jurisdiction of the LAO, we are not legislated to help in these areas. In such cases, the LAO will help with referring an enquiry onward to a service that may be able to provide the help and information needed to resolve a particular issue.
Community visits are an important part of LAO business activities. We enjoy being out in the community where we can listen to the issues and concerns of community members, landholders and industry workers within the regions that we visit. Being a small team, we do our best to visit communities at minimum once a quarter. We hope to be back out on the road soon, taking out pop-up office to the high activity regions of Queensland’s resources community.