Australian Politics

Gives regulatory capture a whole new meaning

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Queensland government allowed its mine safety commissioner to keep acting in her role after she accepted a lucrative job offer from a coal giant that has multiple convictions over workplace deaths and injuries.

Kate du Preez carried out her official duties for six weeks after giving notice she was jumping ship for an executive job with Anglo American, in what the state opposition claims is a "definite conflict of interest".

The mining giant, which previously employed Ms du Preez in Africa earlier in her career, has been in the regulators' crosshairs over safety failures in Queensland throughout her seven-year stint as commissioner.

Anglo has been convicted twice over worker deaths, charged over another, slapped with record fines and multimillion-dollar lawsuits, and excoriated by a judge-led inquiry into a 2020 underground explosion that injured five miners.

The meeting is listed in Mr Stewart's official ministerial diary on the same day that the Australian Financial Review revealed Anglo's global chief had been paid a $500,000 safety bonus after the Grosvenor explosion.

Anglo American's Australia chief executive Dan van der Westhuizen said the company was "focused on having the best people to deliver our goals for sustainability, innovation, environment and wellbeing within our communities".

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