Electricity

This bill restores workplace safety protections that were wound back in 2014 and re-establishes key electrical safety oversight bodies. It gives trained health and safety representatives the power to order unsafe work to stop, lets union safety inspectors enter workplaces immediately to investigate suspected breaches, and requires employers to notify the regulator when a worker is off for more than four days due to injury.

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.

This bill strengthens Queensland's electrical safety laws by giving the regulator clearer, more accountable powers to ban unsafe electrical equipment and by confirming that electricity distributors can legally issue defect notices for unsafe equipment found at properties. It also removes an uncommenced workplace health and safety provision before it takes effect.

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.

This bill creates the legal framework for Queensland's shift from coal-fired to renewable electricity generation. It sets legislated renewable energy targets (50% by 2030, 70% by 2032, 80% by 2035), establishes new infrastructure frameworks to build transmission lines and Renewable Energy Zones, commits to public ownership of energy assets, and creates a $150 million fund to support coal-fired power station workers through the transition.

This bill updates Queensland's electrical safety and workplace health and safety laws based on recommendations from five major reviews. It brings new technologies like e-scooters and battery storage systems under electrical safety regulation, strengthens industrial manslaughter laws to cover deaths of bystanders, makes it easier to prosecute serious safety breaches, and gives worker safety representatives new powers to document hazards.

This bill authorises $2.267 billion in additional government spending to fund energy rebates on Queensland household power bills. The government fast-tracked the funding as unforeseen expenditure within the 2023-24 financial year to deliver urgent cost of living relief.

This bill reshapes Queensland's energy legislation by repealing renewable energy targets, renaming the Act to the Energy (Infrastructure Facilitation) Act 2024, and shifting planning towards a market-driven approach focused on affordable, reliable and sustainable energy. It creates a new legislative framework for the CopperString transmission project to connect North and North West Queensland to the national electricity grid, and strengthens public ownership provisions for existing government-owned power assets.

This bill expands what the Energy and Water Ombudsman Queensland (EWOQ) can do. It opens the free dispute resolution service to small businesses with higher electricity use, lets EWOQ handle credit reporting complaints against energy and water providers, and fixes a small drafting error in another energy law.

This bill would have tightened the rules for Queensland's Solar Bonus Scheme, which pays a premium 44c/kWh feed-in tariff to over 280,000 homes and small businesses with eligible solar panels. It spelled out when adding a battery or extra solar would cause a customer to lose that tariff, and it also opened up retail electricity competition for customers in embedded networks like apartment buildings. The bill lapsed when Parliament was dissolved and did not become law.

This bill supports the merger of Queensland's two government-owned electricity networks, Energex and Ergon, under a single parent company by ensuring the merged businesses remain subject to the same regulations as before. It also renames the Island Industries Board to Community Enterprise Queensland, modernises its governance and removes the geographic limits on where it can run stores serving remote communities.

This bill sets clear rules for Queensland's 240,000 Solar Bonus Scheme customers on how they can install batteries and extra solar panels without losing their 44c/kWh feed-in tariff. It also opens up retail competition for customers in embedded electricity networks and lets regional Queensland households and small businesses switch back to Ergon Retail.

This bill puts Queensland's greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets into law — 30% reduction by 2030, 75% by 2035, and net zero by 2050. It creates a framework for planning how different sectors of the economy will reduce emissions, sets up an expert advisory panel, and requires the government to report progress to Parliament every year.