Land Management

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.

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.

This bill modernises Queensland's land valuation framework, which determines how property is valued for land tax, council rates, and state land rent. It gives the valuer-general new powers to make binding guidelines on valuation practices, streamlines the objection process by removing arbitrary monetary thresholds, and gives farmers more control over how their non-adjoining lots are valued.

This bill updates Queensland's positioning and mapping laws to adopt the new national standard (GDA2020), closes a growing 1.8-metre gap between GPS coordinates and government maps, and makes several unrelated improvements to state land management, Indigenous land grants, land titling, and Cape York Peninsula heritage protection.

This bill sought to amend the Vegetation Management Act 1999 to allow graziers to apply for vegetation clearing permits for feed production, and to give landholders a right to appeal when their clearing applications are rejected. It was a private member's bill introduced by Robbie Katter MP that failed at the second reading stage and did not become law.

This bill significantly expands the role of Economic Development Queensland (EDQ) to tackle Queensland's housing shortage. It makes delivering social and affordable housing a core part of EDQ's mandate, gives EDQ new powers to acquire land and direct infrastructure delivery, and restructures EDQ as a more independent body with its own board, CEO, and employing office.

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.

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.

This bill updates multiple regulatory frameworks within Queensland's Natural Resources, Mines and Energy portfolio. It strengthens explosives safety and security, protects Cape York Peninsula heritage land from mining, modernises State land compliance powers, facilitates electronic conveyancing, improves gas safety regulation, and enhances Indigenous land management options.

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.

This bill modernises the management of Queensland's state land, place naming, and resource authority obligations. It streamlines how reserves and trust lands are administered, gives trustees more autonomy, overhauls the place naming process to allow faster removal of offensive names, and requires resource companies to pay local government rates as a condition of their authority.

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.