Environmental Defenders Office
OrganisationReferenced in 8 bills
Vegetation Management and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill reinstates stronger vegetation clearing laws in Queensland, reversing changes made in 2013 that loosened protections. It ends broadscale clearing of remnant vegetation for agriculture, extends protections for regrowth vegetation to freehold and Indigenous land, protects waterways in all Great Barrier Reef catchments, and significantly increases penalties for illegal clearing.
Mineral and Energy Resources and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill makes wide-ranging changes across Queensland's mining, energy and water sectors. It introduces industrial manslaughter offences for the resources industry, strengthens financial assurance requirements to prevent mining companies from abandoning sites without proper rehabilitation, streamlines resource authority approval processes, extends energy consumer protections, and increases transparency of water infrastructure charges in South East Queensland.
Natural Resources and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill makes a broad range of amendments across the Natural Resources, Mines and Energy portfolio. It caps mining exploration permits at 15 years, strengthens rural water compliance with higher penalties, simplifies Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land processes, modernises water authority board governance to improve gender balance, and supports the establishment of CleanCo as a new clean energy electricity generator.
Environmental Protection (Efficiency and Streamlining) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill reforms Queensland's environmental regulation to reduce red tape and improve responsiveness. It introduces a new risk-based system for classifying and regulating environmentally relevant activities, streamlines environmental impact assessments, strengthens groundwater protections for bore owners, and creates a single permit for tourism operators working across multiple public land tenures.
Environmental Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill reforms Queensland's framework for rehabilitating land disturbed by mining and resource activities. It creates a statutory Rehabilitation Commissioner to independently advise on best practice rehabilitation and publicly report on how well mine sites are being restored. It also overhauls the residual risk framework so the State can better manage former resource sites after companies hand back their environmental authorities, including establishing a dedicated fund to pay for ongoing management and remediation.
Mineral and Energy Resources (Financial Provisioning) Bill 2018
This bill establishes a Financial Provisioning Scheme to protect Queensland from the cost of cleaning up mine sites when resource companies fail to rehabilitate the land. It replaces the old individual financial assurance system with a pooled fund model, where companies pay annual contributions based on their risk level, and introduces enforceable Progressive Rehabilitation and Closure Plans to ensure mined land is progressively restored throughout the life of a mine.
Mineral, Water and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill makes wide-ranging changes to Queensland's mineral resources and water management laws. It improves dispute resolution between landholders and resource companies, requires climate change to be explicitly considered in water planning, recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural values in water plans, and gives the government new emergency powers to address urgent water quality problems.
Environmental Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill modernises Queensland's environmental protection laws by amending the Environmental Protection Act 1994 and several related Acts. It streamlines regulatory processes for environmental authorities and impact assessments, strengthens compliance powers for environmental inspectors, creates temporary authority provisions for emergency situations, improves contaminated land management, and bans mining in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.