Coal and coal seam gas (CSG) miners may be banned from southeast Queensland's Scenic Rim district under a Liberal National Party (LNP) government.
LNP leader Campbell Newman on Wednesday announced the land-use plan for the area southwest of Brisbane would be revised to say exactly which industrial activities will and won't be allowed in certain places.
"Coal seam gas and coal mining is likely to be inappropriate, ruled out, across this area," Mr Newman told reporters at a Beaudesert farm.
Agriculture and tourism were more appropriate industries for the area, although mining activities like quarrying would be allowed, Mr Newman said.
He said 80 per cent of the Scenic Rim council area was subject to exploration permits, which was concerning the community.
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Mr Newman conceded nothing could be done about those permits, but no major projects had been approved.
"We're warning the industry that if we're the government it will be very difficult to get any sort of approval here," Mr Newman said.
"(It would be) almost impossible, not wanting to pre-empt the process, to actually get those projects into production.
"We think that they should be spending their money elsewhere."
Mr Newman said the announcement was not a ploy to garner support in the seat of Beaudesert, held by Katter's Australian Party (KAP) state leader Aidan McLindon.
The new party, led by federal MP Bob Katter, wants a moratorium on CSG.
At the weekend KAP poached the LNP's Dalrymple MP Shane Knuth, who had been unhappy with his former party's CSG stance.
Premier Anna Bligh said Mr Newman's announcement was a knee-jerk reaction.
"It is Campbell Newman's desperation about the Bob Katter party and the threat that it poses to the LNP that is now driving his mining policy," she told reporters in Cairns.
"I think we're seeing from the LNP today an element of desperation.
"I don't think you make mining policy on the basis of one electorate.
"You do it for the whole of Queensland, you do it carefully, you do it in a planned way."
Mr Newman said the LNP's CSG policy was far more concrete than KAP's, as a moratorium would provide only a temporary halt to the industry and not a long-term plan.
He said the Labor government's strategic cropping land plan, which proposes to protect the state's best farming land, was a "political sham" that gave no real certainty to land-holders who wanted protection from mining.
Lobby group Lock the Gate urged the LNP to make a policy with clear criteria for good farmland that would apply across the state.
"The LNP has to stop picking off geographical areas where they want to win seats and start putting down policies that encapsulate clear, principled positions," spokesman Drew Hutton said.
Queensland Resources Council chief Michael Roche said he had been assured existing mining rights would be preserved under a LNP government.
The sector was prepared to wait for the LNP's plans on the busy Darling Downs and central Queensland regions, he said.
"They are complex documents to prepare that involve a lot of consultation with community and industry, and the LNP is being realistic when it says it will be a couple of years until it can get those plans in place," he said.
