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 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.

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.

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.

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 amends Queensland's revenue and grants legislation to support home ownership and fix administrative issues across multiple tax laws. It ensures participants in the Boost to Buy and Help to Buy shared equity programs can access the same stamp duty concessions, First Home Owner Grant, and land tax exemptions as other home buyers.

This bill replaces the 1992 Brisbane Casino Agreement with a new agreement between the State and the casino operator. The main change is that future redevelopment of the Brisbane casino-hotel site will be assessed under state planning law as part of the Queen's Wharf Brisbane project, rather than being exempt from development and heritage laws as it has been since 1992.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.