Environmental Protection Act 1994
LegislationReferenced in 33 bills
Vegetation Management and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill reinstates and strengthens Queensland's vegetation clearing laws, delivering on the government's election commitment to end broadscale tree clearing. It removes the ability to clear remnant vegetation for agriculture, extends regrowth protections to freehold and indigenous land, expands watercourse protections to all Great Barrier Reef catchments, and significantly increases penalties for unlawful clearing.
Waste Reduction and Recycling (Waste Levy) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill introduces a waste disposal levy in Queensland, starting at $70 per tonne from 4 March 2019, to discourage sending waste to landfill and boost recycling. The levy funds a $100 million Resource Recovery Industry Development Program and stops Queensland being used as a cheap dumping ground for interstate waste.
Fisheries (Sustainable Fisheries Strategy) Amendment Bill 2018
This bill overhauls Queensland's fisheries management by introducing harvest strategies as the key tool for managing fish stocks, strengthening enforcement against black marketing of seafood, and formally recognising charter fishing and Indigenous fishing in the law. It implements the Queensland Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017-2027, backed by $20.9 million in funding for better monitoring, compliance and stakeholder engagement.
Mineral and Energy Resources and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill makes wide-ranging changes to Queensland's resources, energy, and water laws. It introduces industrial manslaughter offences for the mining and resources sector, reforms how the State manages mine rehabilitation and abandoned mines, tightens scrutiny of who can hold resource authorities, extends energy consumer protections, and increases transparency of water infrastructure charges in South East Queensland.
Environmental Protection (Great Barrier Reef Protection Measures) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill strengthens protections for the Great Barrier Reef by toughening regulations on agricultural and industrial activities that contribute to poor water quality. It expands mandatory farming standards across all Reef catchments and introduces a national approach to classifying threatened species in Queensland.
Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment Bill 2025
This bill allows greenhouse gas exploration wells in the Great Artesian Basin to be converted into water supply bores for local landholders, rather than being plugged and abandoned. It was introduced after the 2024 ban on greenhouse gas storage in the Great Artesian Basin ended the only exploration permit (EPQ10), held by CTSCo, leaving several wells that need to be decommissioned.
Major Sports Facilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill updates Queensland's laws for major sports facilities and events. It allows Gold Coast stadiums to host concerts until 10:30pm by removing restrictive liquor licensing noise conditions, increases penalties for ticket scalping, and modernises the governance of the Stadiums Queensland board.
Waste Reduction and Recycling (Strengthening the Container Refund Scheme) Amendment Bill 2026
This bill overhauls the governance of Queensland's Container Refund Scheme — the 10-cent bottle and can return program — following a parliamentary inquiry that found significant weaknesses in how the scheme is run. It gives the government much stronger oversight of the scheme coordinator (currently Container Exchange), requires an independent board majority, and expands the scheme's purpose to include supporting environmental and community programs.
Natural Resources and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill makes wide-ranging amendments across the Natural Resources, Mines and Energy portfolio. It reforms mineral and petroleum exploration permits with a 15-year cap, strengthens water compliance penalties, introduces dispute resolution for state land sublease disputes, streamlines Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land administration, and supports the establishment of CleanCo as a government-owned clean energy generator.
COVID-19 Emergency Response and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill extends Queensland's COVID-19 emergency response legislation from 31 December 2020 to 30 April 2021, keeping in place temporary measures across tenancy, court proceedings, health, and other areas. It also reforms by-election procedures during the pandemic, allows artisan distillers to sell spirits directly to the public, changes how local government councillor vacancies are filled, and bolsters youth detention centre staffing powers.
Regional Planning Interests (Condamine Alluvium) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026
This bill protects the Condamine Alluvium — a large underground water source vital to Darling Downs farming — from damage by coal seam gas (CSG) operations. It delivers on a Queensland Government election commitment to require gas companies to prove new projects will not harm the aquifer, while also expanding compensation rights for landholders affected by ground subsidence from CSG extraction.
Property Law Bill 2023
This bill replaces Queensland's nearly 50-year-old Property Law Act 1974 with a modernised framework for property transactions. It introduces a statutory seller disclosure scheme requiring sellers to provide standardised information to buyers before contract signing, facilitates electronic conveyancing and electronic deeds, and simplifies rules governing mortgages, leases, co-ownership, and trusts.
Waste Reduction and Recycling and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill modernises Queensland's waste laws by embedding the circular economy principle, banning outdoor balloon releases, removing the clean earth levy exemption, and requiring local councils to be transparent about how they spend waste levy payments. It was passed with amendment.
Environmental Protection (Efficiency and Streamlining) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill overhauls Queensland's environmental regulation across multiple domains. It introduces ERA codes as a simpler way to regulate lower-risk environmental activities, creates a single tourism permission for operators working across parks and forests, strengthens enforcement powers for environmental and koala habitat offences, and improves protections for bore owners affected by resource operations.
Economic Development and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill makes wide-ranging changes to Queensland's planning, development and disaster management laws. It streamlines how priority development areas are managed, updates Building Queensland's infrastructure assessment thresholds, expands the Queensland Reconstruction Authority's role to cover all natural disasters rather than just floods, and improves various planning processes.
Justice and Other Legislation (COVID-19 Emergency Response) Amendment Bill 2020
This bill made temporary amendments to over 20 Queensland Acts as the state's third legislative response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It addressed issues that could not be dealt with under the existing COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020 modification framework, providing financial relief for workers, property owners and businesses, strengthening public health and emergency powers, and enabling corrections, disability and mental health services to operate safely during the emergency. Most provisions expired on 31 December 2020.
Environmental Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill creates a new Rehabilitation Commissioner to independently oversee mine site rehabilitation in Queensland, strengthens the residual risk framework for managing former resource sites after mining companies hand back their environmental authorities, and establishes a dedicated fund to manage the payments mining companies make towards the long-term costs of looking after those sites.
Mineral and Energy Resources and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill overhauls Queensland's framework for managing the coexistence of resources, renewable energy and agricultural industries. It creates a new system for assessing and compensating CSG-induced subsidence damage to farmland, broadens Queensland's coexistence institutions to cover renewable energy, modernises the Financial Provisioning Scheme for mine rehabilitation, and streamlines regulatory processes across more than a dozen resources-related Acts.
Land and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill updates a range of land and resource management laws within the Queensland Resources portfolio. It streamlines lease conversions and renewals, modernises stock route management, updates surveying rules, improves vegetation management administration, and enables coal mining lease transfers under the Central Queensland Coal Associates Agreement.
Public Health and Other Legislation (Further Extension of Expiring Provisions) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill extended most of Queensland's temporary COVID-19 emergency laws until 30 April 2022, continuing the legal basis for public health directions, quarantine requirements, and support measures across multiple sectors. It also reformed the quarantine fee system to allow prepayment and third-party liability, and clarified that quarantine directions could be issued electronically.
Mineral and Energy Resources (Financial Provisioning) Bill 2018
This bill creates a new Financial Provisioning Scheme for Queensland's mining and energy sector, replacing the old financial assurance system. It establishes a pooled fund where companies pay risk-based contributions, and introduces enforceable Progressive Rehabilitation and Closure Plans to ensure mined land is progressively restored during and after mining operations.
Mineral, Water and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill makes wide-ranging amendments to Queensland's mineral resources, petroleum, and water laws. It reforms how landholders and resource companies resolve compensation disputes, requires climate change and Indigenous cultural values to be formally considered in water planning, creates temporary access to strategic water reserves, and gives the government emergency powers to address urgent water quality threats.
Plumbing and Drainage Bill 2018
This bill replaces Queensland's 16-year-old plumbing and drainage laws with a modern framework. It simplifies the approval process by creating four clear categories of plumbing work, strengthens penalties for unlicensed and defective work, and introduces a new licence for mechanical services workers who install heating, cooling and medical gas systems.
Nature Conservation (Special Wildlife Reserves) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill creates a new type of protected area called a 'special wildlife reserve' that lets private landholders permanently protect their land with the same legal standing as a national park. It also strengthens Great Barrier Reef regulation and streamlines how conservation agreements are handled when land tenure changes.
Medicines and Poisons Bill 2019
This bill replaces Queensland's 80-year-old medicines and poisons laws with a modern regulatory framework. It consolidates the Health Act 1937, Health (Drugs and Poisons) Regulation 1996, and Pest Management Act 2001 into a single, outcomes-based system that is easier for health practitioners and businesses to follow while better protecting public safety.
Local Government (Councillor Conduct) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill reforms Queensland's local government councillor conduct complaints system, implementing recommendations from a parliamentary committee inquiry. It introduces a new preliminary assessment process, compulsory councillor training, a vexatious complainant scheme, and greater transparency for conduct investigations. The bill also modernises advertising requirements, amends the Queen's Wharf Brisbane Act, and updates Moreton Bay City Council references.
Environmental Protection (Powers and Penalties) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill strengthens Queensland's environmental protection laws by making regulation more proactive rather than reactive. It introduces the precautionary principle and polluter pays principle as core guiding principles, creates new offences for breaching environmental duties, establishes a duty to restore the environment after contamination, and streamlines enforcement tools into a single environmental enforcement order.
Nature Conservation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill puts the legal framework in place for government electronic systems to automatically issue low-risk environmental and nature conservation permits. It also retrospectively confirms that permits issued automatically since 2017 are legally valid, giving certainty to the thousands of permit holders who have relied on them.
Environmental Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill modernises Queensland's environmental protection laws by reforming the environmental impact statement process, strengthening enforcement powers against repeat offenders, creating temporary authorities for emergencies, and banning mining in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. It also updates contaminated land management, waste regulation, and mine rehabilitation frameworks.
COVID-19 Emergency Response and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill extends Queensland's temporary COVID-19 emergency legislation to 30 September 2021, gives local governments flexibility to adjust rates mid-year, creates a framework for holding COVID-safe local government by-elections and fresh elections, and extends temporary remote meeting arrangements for councils.
Housing Availability and Affordability (Planning and Other Legislation Amendment) Bill 2023
This bill reforms Queensland's planning laws to help deliver more housing faster, particularly in growth areas of South East Queensland. It gives the State new powers to acquire land for development infrastructure, fast-track priority housing applications, and create zones to manage growth areas, while also modernising planning processes and reducing red tape for businesses affected by urban encroachment.
Planning (Social Impact and Community Benefit) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill introduces a community benefit system requiring developers of large-scale projects (primarily renewable energy) to assess social impacts and negotiate community benefit agreements with local governments before seeking planning approval. It also overhauls governance and planning approvals for Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games venues and infrastructure, and makes administrative changes to Economic Development Queensland.
Health and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill makes wide-ranging amendments to Queensland's health legislation, with the most significant reforms to the Mental Health Act 2016. It strengthens the rights of people receiving mental health treatment by replacing 'best interests' tests with a rights-based approach, improves safeguards around electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), enables international patient transfers, and aligns confidentiality provisions across health agencies.