In 2013, ClarkeKann reported on the Agripower Australia decision in which the Queensland Supreme Court held, in a controversial decision, that the Building & Construction Industry Payments Act 2004 (BCIPA) did not apply to construction work on land subject to a mining lease. The decision left much uncertainty about the extent to which BCIPA applied in the mining industry. That uncertainty was largely cleared up by the appeal decision delivered in late 2013.
Initially, the Supreme Court held that mining leases were not 'land' for the purposes of BCIPA and that as such temporary buildings and structures constructed on a mining lease did not form part of the land. The Court of Appeal preferred to give the word 'land' its ordinary (as opposed to legal) meaning, finding that the degree of annexation to the physical land will be relevant to the issue of whether or not a thing forms part of the land for the purposes of BCIPA.
Temporary buildings or structures on a mining lease are not precluded from the operation of BCIPA as long as it has the requisite affixation to the land. For example, in this case the plant consisted of numerous parts, which were set in or bolted to concrete slabs. Therefore, until the plant was removed, it formed part of the land and BCIPA applied.
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