The industry earned a record $77 billion in exports for the 12 months until the end of March as coal prices boomed and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said some of that benefit should be returned to Queenslanders to be spent on essential services and infrastructure.

The Courier-Mail reported this morning that the Queensland Resources Council had written to the Minister detailing conversations in which the Government said it would increase royalties in the 2022-23 Budget to be handed down in a fortnight.

The QRC said the impact would be long-term losses for the industry. However, the sector is receiving record prices for coal and in a report released today said it was enjoying “good times”.

The huge boost in royalties this year would be a significant benefit to the State Government Budget due later this month. It is also expected that stamp duty will be boosted significantly because of the housing boom.

But the expected increase on mining royalties is always stridently imposed by the sector, but the Government’s self-imposed freeze on royalty increases ends on June 30.

The Premier said it was only right that Treasurer Cameron Dick talks to the mining sector about royalties.

“Coal companies are receiving record prices the likes of which we have not seen before,” she said.

“It’s only just that the Treasurer has these talks. If coal companies are making these record prices they should return some of that to Queenslanders.”

Treasurer Cameron Dick said coalminers had enjoyed a 10-year royalty freeze, but that was set to change.

“We’re working through that detail at the moment, but ultimately we’re talking to the industry about that, and then we’ll make an announcement at an appropriate time,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

The industry has also warned that environmental issues were rapidly developing in the sector and that “green premiums” were being paid for companies that demonstrated their environmental credentials.

The Queensland Resources Council State of the Sector report said the industry was enjoying “good times” on the back of rising commodity prices, particularly coal.

QRC chief executive Ian Macfarlane said resources royalties went directly to the Queensland Budget to pay for essential services like doctors, nurses and infrastructure.

“International commodity price cycles are volatile by nature and dictated by the laws of supply and demand so the resources sector is extremely pleased the current upturn in prices has come at the best possible time to help the Queensland economy recover from Covid,” Macfarlane said.

“The downside is that like everywhere else, our input costs have been rising, particularly for wages, because we pay our employees very well and we’re right in the middle of major skilled worker shortage which shows no signs of abating.”

It said about 50 per cent of chief executives in the sector believed demand for their products would increase as the world transitioned to lower emissions, while one-third said there would be no change and 17 per cent forecast a drop in demand.

But bosses were now also concerned with finding workers as well as the war in Ukraine while cost of inputs was also a major factor.

Rio Tinto said it had received job applications from 3000 women for roles within the company after launching a recruitment campaign targeting women who had never worked in the industry.

Western Australia provided more than half of the number.

The company said the applicants came from a diverse range of sectors including defence, aviation and government.