Water Act 2000
LegislationReferenced in 18 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.
Fisheries (Sustainable Fisheries Strategy) Amendment Bill 2018
This bill overhauls Queensland's fisheries laws to implement the Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017-2027. It introduces harvest strategies as the main tool for managing fish stocks, cracks down on the illegal sale of fish (black marketing) with new trafficking offences and stronger inspector powers, and formally recognises charter fishing and traditional fishing as distinct sectors.
Co-operatives National Law Bill 2020
This bill adopts the Co-operatives National Law as a law of Queensland, replacing the outdated Cooperatives Act 1997. Queensland was the last state or territory to join this national scheme, which gives co-operatives a consistent legal framework across Australia. The bill reduces red tape for small co-operatives, allows automatic interstate recognition, and updates governance standards.
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.
Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2025
This bill allows disused greenhouse gas exploration wells to be converted into water supply bores and given to rural landholders for free. After Queensland banned carbon storage in the Great Artesian Basin in 2024, the company CTSCo was left with wells that would normally be plugged and abandoned. This bill instead lets those wells be repurposed as a useful water resource for farming.
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.
Debt Reduction and Savings Bill 2021
This bill implements the Queensland Government's Savings and Debt Plan through a series of structural reforms. It transfers the Titles Registry to a government-owned company within the Queensland Future Fund to improve the State's balance sheet, abolishes three statutory bodies (Building Queensland, the Queensland Productivity Commission, and the Public Safety Business Agency), and introduces measures to modernise government operations including a fee unit model and mandatory digital publication.
Revenue and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill makes wide-ranging amendments across revenue, penalties, Indigenous community safety, cultural heritage, and transport infrastructure legislation. It expands electronic property settlement in Queensland, formalises several beneficial tax arrangements, improves the SPER debt management system, closes a loophole allowing homemade alcohol production in remote Indigenous communities, and makes governance changes to the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority.
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 and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill reforms Queensland's framework for managing the coexistence of resource, renewable energy, and agricultural industries. It introduces a major new system for managing coal seam gas induced land subsidence, expands the roles of key coexistence institutions, streamlines regulatory processes across resources legislation, and modernises the Financial Provisioning Scheme for mining rehabilitation.
Land and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill makes a broad range of administrative and streamlining amendments to Queensland's land, resources and environmental legislation. It modernises outdated processes, improves state land management, reforms stock route governance, and updates how vegetation management data is maintained.
Integrity and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill strengthens Queensland's integrity and anti-corruption framework by implementing recommendations from Professor Peter Coaldrake's review of public sector culture and the Yearbury review of the Integrity Commissioner. It overhauls lobbying regulation, boosts the independence of five core integrity bodies, and extends the Ombudsman's reach to cover non-government organisations delivering public services.
Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill makes permanent several temporary measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic across the justice portfolio. It modernises how legal documents are executed by allowing electronic signatures and video call witnessing, improves access to domestic and family violence protection orders, allows licensed restaurants to permanently sell takeaway wine with meals, and extends commercial lease protections.
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.
Local Government (Councillor Conduct) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill reforms Queensland's councillor conduct complaints system based on a parliamentary committee inquiry that found the system was too slow and resource-intensive. It also strengthens councillor conflict of interest rules, introduces compulsory training for councillors, modernises advertising requirements, and makes amendments to support the Queen's Wharf Brisbane development.
Water Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill strengthens how non-urban water take is measured and reported in Queensland, implementing the state's strengthened water measurement policy. It introduces requirements for measurement devices, measurement systems, measurement plans, and near real-time telemetry to ensure water is accurately accounted for, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. The bill also improves water licence administration, water authority governance, and drinking and recycled water regulation.
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.