Sustainable Planning Act 2009
LegislationReferenced in 26 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.
Strong and Sustainable Resource Communities Bill 2016
This bill requires large mining and gas projects in Queensland to share the benefits with the regional towns near them. It bans future projects from staffing their entire operational workforce as fly-in fly-out (FIFO), makes it illegal to discriminate against local residents when hiring, and requires every project to do a social impact assessment. It also permanently bans underground coal gasification (UCG), a controversial gas-extraction method.
Local Government Electoral (Implementing Stage 1 of Belcarra) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill bans political donations from property developers to candidates, councillors, political parties and third parties at both state and local government levels in Queensland. It also significantly strengthens the rules for how local government councillors must declare and manage conflicts of interest, following recommendations from the Crime and Corruption Commission's Operation Belcarra investigation into corruption risks in local government.
Planning and Development (Planning for Prosperity) Bill 2015
This bill was a complete rewrite of Queensland's planning laws, aimed at replacing the 700-page Sustainable Planning Act 2009 with a simpler, faster system. It simplified development categories, cut State planning instruments from four to two, increased maximum fines for illegal development to over $500,000, and gave councils new powers over party houses. The bill was introduced by the Newman LNP government shortly before the 2015 election and did not pass; Queensland's planning system was instead replaced by the Labor government's Planning Act 2016.
Planning and Development (Planning Court) Bill 2015
This bill would have created a separate Act to govern the Planning and Environment Court, which hears disputes about planning, development and environmental decisions. It moved the court out of the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 into its own legislation, and expanded the powers of an Alternative Dispute Resolution Registrar to handle simpler matters cheaply. The bill was part of a 2015 LNP planning reform package and did not become law.
Planning and Development (Planning for Prosperity—Consequential Amendments) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015
This bill changes 67 Queensland Acts so they line up with a proposed new planning system (the Planning and Development Bill 2015 and Planning and Environment Court Bill 2015) that would have replaced the Sustainable Planning Act 2009. Most changes are technical — swapping old planning terms for new ones — but the bill also streamlines environmental approvals for major coordinated projects and clarifies the Coordinator-General's power to authorise entry onto land in State Development Areas such as the Galilee Basin.
Major Sports Facilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill bundles changes across gambling, land, sport and transport laws. It cuts gaming machine tax for clubs with multiple premises, lets Queensland keno join interstate jackpot pools, allows the State to lease the beds of working rivers and lakes, streamlines stadium event advertising rules, and relaxes a toll freeze on the Logan and Gateway Motorways to fund a $450 million upgrade.
Sustainable Ports Development Bill 2015
This bill protects the Great Barrier Reef by tightly controlling port development along the Queensland coast. It confines new port facilities and capital dredging to four priority ports (Abbot Point, Gladstone, Hay Point/Mackay and Townsville) and bans sea dumping of port dredge spoil in the World Heritage Area. Each priority port must have a long-term master plan and a port overlay that sets consistent rules across local planning schemes.
Queen's Wharf Brisbane Bill 2015
This bill creates the legal framework for the Queen's Wharf Brisbane casino and entertainment precinct on state-owned land in the CBD. It ratifies a 99-year casino agreement with the Destination Brisbane Consortium, exempts the precinct from parts of Queensland's property, tenancy and planning laws, and introduces tight probity controls over who can own or influence the casino.
Implementation of The Spit Master Plan Bill 2019
This bill implements The Spit Master Plan for the Southport Spit on the Gold Coast, backed by $60 million in State funding. It fast-tracks road closures and land releases, expands the Gold Coast Waterways Authority to deliver community infrastructure, and fixes a Planning Act error that had blocked some property owners from claiming compensation for adverse planning changes.
Forest Wind Farm Development Bill 2020
This bill enables a $2 billion wind farm of up to 226 turbines in three State forests near Gympie, creating special tenure arrangements that override the Forestry Act. It also separately fixes planning administration problems in the Springfield development area in Ipswich.
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.
Local Government and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No.2) 2015
This bill makes several technical fixes to Queensland's local government and planning laws. It gives councils up to two more years to adopt infrastructure plans, lets developers skip offset and refund details to speed up approvals, and cleans up inconsistencies around how-to-vote cards and outdated mayoral voting rules.
Vegetation Management (Reinstatement) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill reinstates stronger vegetation clearing laws to slow land clearing and protect the Great Barrier Reef. It re-regulates high-value regrowth on freehold and indigenous land, stops new approvals for clearing native vegetation for high-value agriculture, and brings back riverine protection permits for destroying vegetation in waterways. Key clearing rules apply retrospectively from 17 March 2016 to prevent a rush of pre-emptive clearing.
Agriculture and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015
This bill updates 10 Queensland agriculture laws with mostly technical changes — clearing the way for drone-based crop spraying, tightening controls on feeding animal products to livestock, speeding up exotic disease responses, simplifying pet microchip rules, and realigning company director liability with national principles. It also stops the automatic repeal of rules that manage the state's 38 remaining forest reserves, keeping them in place until those lands can be transferred to new tenures.
Environmental Protection (Underground Water Management) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill tightens the environmental assessment of underground water taken by mining and petroleum projects, improves protections for landholders whose water bores are damaged by resource activities, and fixes gaps in how local councils enforce heritage laws. It also creates a transitional 'associated water licence' process for mining projects that were partway through approval when Queensland's 2014 water reforms commenced.
Planning Bill 2015
This bill replaces Queensland's entire planning and development system with a simpler framework, repealing the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 and introducing a new Planning Act. It reduces red tape, streamlines how councils make planning schemes, clarifies the rules for approving or refusing development applications, and increases penalties for breaking planning laws.
Planning and Environment Court Bill 2015
This bill gives the Planning and Environment Court its own stand-alone Act instead of being buried inside the Sustainable Planning Act 2009. It keeps the existing court running, pairs with the Planning Bill 2015 to handle development disputes, and encourages more use of mediation and other alternative dispute resolution to settle cases faster and more cheaply.
Planning (Consequential) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015
This bill updates 68 other Queensland laws so they work with the new Planning Act 2016 and Planning and Environment Court Act 2016, which together replace the Sustainable Planning Act 2009. It mostly changes terminology and cross-references, removes duplicated or outdated planning steps, and sets transitional rules so any application already lodged is finished under the old system.
Local Government Electoral (Implementing Belcarra) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017
This bill responds to the Crime and Corruption Commission's Operation Belcarra report by banning political donations from property developers to candidates, councillors, political parties and state MPs in Queensland. It also tightens the rules on how councillors must handle conflicts of interest at council meetings, with new criminal offences and the possibility of being barred from office for four years.
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.
Cross River Rail Delivery Authority Bill 2016
This bill sets up the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority, a new independent statutory body to build the Cross River Rail project connecting Brisbane across the river by underground rail. The Authority will operate commercially, with power to compulsorily acquire land and to drive economic development around new stations, and will be wound up once the project is complete.
Gasfields Commission and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017
This bill restructures the GasFields Commission Queensland to clearly separate its strategic board from its day-to-day management, and to allow a part-time chairperson. It also makes it easier for biodiscovery businesses to on-license the use of native biological material, and fixes a technical gap in how port planning overlays apply to development.
Local Government Electoral (Implementing Stage 2 of Belcarra) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill implements the second stage of the Queensland Government's response to the Crime and Corruption Commission's Operation Belcarra report, which investigated corruption risks in local government following the 2016 council elections. It strengthens donation disclosure, tightens conflict of interest rules, mandates full preferential voting, reforms mayoral powers, and brings Brisbane City Council under the same oversight framework as all other Queensland councils.
Local Government Electoral (Transparency and Accountability in Local Government) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill tightens the rules for money in Queensland local council elections and makes a range of technical fixes to planning and building laws. It lowers the donation disclosure threshold to $500, paves the way for real-time online donation reporting, and clarifies when council approval is needed alongside a private certifier's approval for building work.
Plumbing and Drainage and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015
This bill sets up a new plumbing industry regulator inside the Queensland Building and Construction Commission, strengthens protections for renters against unfair tenancy database listings, lets community housing providers give tenancy guarantees to private landlords, and confirms that public housing development has been lawfully carried out.