Deputy Premier Takes Over Divisive Gold Coast Quarry Decision

The Call-In

Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie announced on 31 March 2026 that he would personally assess and decide the fate of the Reedy Creek quarry application. The move transfers decision-making power from Gold Coast City Council to the state government.

Bleijie said the decision followed more than 2,900 public submissions and a request from three Gold Coast state MPs, Ros Bates, Laura Gerber and Hermann Vorster, who raised concerns about the project.

“Queenslanders deserve transparency and confidence in planning decisions, as well as certainty about the future of their area,” Bleijie said.

Under the Queensland Planning Act, call-in decisions cannot be appealed in the Planning and Environment Court.

The Proposal

Construction materials company Boral lodged its development application with Gold Coast City Council in April 2025. The plan covers a 216.7-hectare site at Reedy Creek, west of Burleigh Heads, with the quarry itself taking up about 26 per cent of the land.

Boral has proposed extracting up to 1.2 million tonnes of rock per year over a 40-year operational life. The plan includes the removal of a ridgeline and up to 400 heavy vehicle movements per day.

Boral says the quarry is needed because its existing West Burleigh quarry will run out within 13 years. Without a replacement, the company says construction materials would need to be trucked from further north, adding 31,000 extra heavy vehicles to Gold Coast roads each year.

“If there is no replacement for the West Burleigh Quarry in the southern Gold Coast area, construction materials would need to be transported from the City’s north,” Boral’s Queensland executive general manager Paul Noakes said.

A Long-Running Fight

The dispute stretches back more than 15 years. Boral purchased the 216.7-hectare property for $15.4 million in 2005, and the then-Labor government declared the site a Project of State Significance in 2010.

Boral first proposed building a quarry on the site in 2011. Gold Coast City Council unanimously rejected that application in 2014. Boral appealed, but the Planning and Environment Court sided with the council in 2017, finding the land use conflict with surrounding residential areas was too great. The Court of Appeal upheld that ruling in 2018.

Boral’s current application is a revised version of the earlier plan, with reduced annual output and a smaller extraction footprint.

Community Concerns

Opponents have raised issues including silica dust and its health effects, noise from blasting and crushing, the destruction of koala habitat in an area already under pressure, and heavy truck traffic on roads not built for industrial use.

Reedy Creek resident Jen Gyles told InDaily in February that the health risks worried her family.

“As someone who lives here, my kids go to school here and the pollution and the dust is a real concern,” Gyles said.

Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates, whose electorate covers the site, said she had opposed the quarry from the start.

“From the first public meeting in 2010, I have made my position clear. I have been unwavering in opposing this quarry,” Bates said.

What Happens Next

Bleijie has 30 business days to decide whether the quarry goes ahead or is rejected. He gave no indication of which way the decision might fall, saying only that the government would consider the project’s merits and impacts “calmly and methodically.”

The outcome could also affect neighbouring areas. If the quarry is blocked and West Burleigh runs dry, Boral says the extra trucking needed to supply the southern Gold Coast would add thousands of heavy vehicles to the M1, a route shared daily by Logan commuters.