It is now becoming mandatory in Australia to rehabilitate ponded fine grained coal mine tailings, which may well have been deposited initially with no consideration as to how or whether this could be done nor to the costs involved. Of prime importance to the rehabilitation of tailings ponds are the bearing capacity and deformation characteristics of the tailings. Since the tailings are fine grained, time effects will govern the self-weight deformation of the tailings initially deposited as a slurry and the subsequent deformation of the deposit under the weight imposed by rehabilitation fill. The engineering properties of a particular deposit of ponded tailings have been investigated and its response to the placement of fill monitored and analysed.