Property Development

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.

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 reforms Queensland's body corporate and off-the-plan property laws. It creates a new process for terminating ageing community titles schemes that are no longer economically viable, modernises body corporate governance rules around pets, smoking, and parking, and protects off-the-plan buyers from developers misusing sunset clauses to cancel contracts.

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.

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 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.

This bill would have removed state-imposed caps on infrastructure charges that local governments can levy on property developers. Introduced by Greens MP Michael Berkman, it lapsed at the end of the 57th Parliament and did not become law. It aimed to give councils the flexibility to charge developers the true cost of providing infrastructure like parks, footpaths, and flood mitigation in growing communities.

This bill makes a series of changes to Queensland's electoral laws covering political donations, prisoner voting, party preselections and campaign transparency. It removes the ban on property developer donations at the state level, resets donation caps on a financial year basis, allows political parties to borrow from banks for campaigns, removes Electoral Commission oversight of preselection ballots, tightens prisoner voting restrictions, and extends election material authorisation requirements to 12 months before a general election.

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.

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.

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.