Legislation and regulations

Compliance and enforcement

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View guidelines and codes of practice
Learn about reporting and expenditure

Resources Victoria monitors around 1,100 sites across Victoria to make sure operators are following the state’s laws on mineral, extractives and energy resources.

To support ongoing compliance, our inspectors:

  • share educational materials, such as guidelines and codes of practice
  • carry out ad-hoc and targeted inspections to check how sites operate
  • investigate concerns raised by community and other stakeholders
  • attend community reference group meetings
  • take enforcement when needed, including:
    • giving directions or improvement notices
    • issuing fines
    • recommending legal action in serious cases.

Current compliance priorities

Our compliance program is focused on protecting communities, the environment, infrastructure and public safety.
We are increasing our onsite presence to better understand how operators are managing their sites and how risks are being addressed.

We will continue to focus on our current key priorities while increasingly using data to target the highest-risk activities across the industry.

Industry can expect:

  • greater use of enforcement actions
  • more communication about compliance activities and outcomes
  • a stronger focus on public and community concerns and transparency around non-compliance.
Resources Victoria Compliance Priorities 2025-26 (PDF, 80.3 KB)

Working with other regulators

We work with other government agencies to:

  • support better decision-making
  • help industry understand their obligations
  • make sure our decisions are transparent and consistent.

What operators must do to comply

Once a site is approved, operators must keep us informed about their activities by:

  • submitting reports on time
  • contacting us if issues arise or they need guidance
  • managing risks effectively
  • following all approved conditions.

Enforcement

Our enforcement actions are proportionate to the seriousness of the non-compliance.

As part of our compliance priorities, we are sharing more information about our enforcement actions publicly online. This includes:

  • remedial notices (section 110)
  • stop work notices (section 110A)
  • fines
  • enforceable undertakings
  • prosecutions
  • other key regulatory decisions.

Publishing this information helps hold mine and quarry operators accountable and encourages them to do the right thing.

Enforceable undertakings

The Minister may consider an enforceable undertaking if there are reasonable grounds to believe an authority holder has breached, or is likely to breach, the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act 1990 or regulations.

You can view current enforceable undertakings on our enforceable undertakings page.

Page last updated: 06 Aug 2025