Tenement holders are responsible for monitoring their own compliance and demonstrating compliance to their stakeholders through public reporting and engagement. Department for Energy and Mining officers conduct compliance activities to provide assurance to the government, industry, community and other stakeholders that companies are being regularly monitored and are adhering to all relevant obligations. All major mines and other mining operations in South Australia are subject to regular scheduled and ad hoc site inspections.

The changes to the Mining Act in January 2021 introduced new requirements for all extractive and industrial mining operations in South Australia to submit an annual compliance report. These compliance reports are publicly available and provide a summary of the tenement holder's compliance with their obligations.

In 2022–23 officers from the department conducted 398 inspections and attended 10 community meetings.

Details on mining compliance can be found in the Mining compliance section of the department's website:

• Mining compliance in South Australia

Table 4.1: Summary of mineral tenements and operating mines as at 30 June 2023

Note: These figures exclude opal mining tenements which are summarised separately.
*Defined as those mines for which a royalty return has been submitted to the department in the past 3 years.

Table 4.2: Compliance-related activities for mining operations 2022–23

Table 4.3: Status of ongoing community consultative committees as at 30 June 2023

Inspections by region 2022–23

Complaints

The most common mining complaints received between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023 were:

• Noise – 20
• Dust – 12
• Water quality – 7

Noise and dust complaints are typically received from mining operations located adjacent to residential areas. These operations are expected to continuously focus on minimising external impacts, with many adopting real-time technologies to monitor blasting and dust events, trigger and response plans and transparent reporting systems, or limiting operations to particular times of the day.

Many of these operations also have well-established community engagement programs to ensure local communities are informed of developments and regulatory performance.

Dust and blasting complaints typically occur in drier periods of the year, and while noise complaints can occur at any time, they can increase during holiday periods when people spend more time at home.

Mining incidents

There were 22 incidents recorded between 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2023. The most common incident types recorded were:

• Spills – 6
• Water quality – 5

All reportable incidents under the Mining Act must be reported to the department.

More information about the types of incidents that must be reported, and how and when can be found on the Incident reporting page of the department's website:

• Incident reporting

Mining enforcement actions

Table 4.4: Mining enforcement actions issued, outstanding or closed 2022–23

Note: Includes outstanding directions issued prior to 1 July 2022 that were completed or remained outstanding at 30 June 2023.