Environment

This bill allows disused greenhouse gas exploration wells to be converted into water supply bores and given to rural landholders for free. After Queensland banned carbon storage in the Great Artesian Basin in 2024, the company CTSCo was left with wells that would normally be plugged and abandoned. This bill instead lets those wells be repurposed as a useful water resource for farming.

This bill reforms Queensland's environmental regulation to reduce red tape and improve responsiveness. It introduces a new risk-based system for classifying and regulating environmentally relevant activities, streamlines environmental impact assessments, strengthens groundwater protections for bore owners, and creates a single permit for tourism operators working across multiple public land tenures.

This bill sought to create the Queensland Crocodile Authority, a new Cairns-based body responsible for managing all aspects of crocodile control across the state. It aimed to protect North Queenslanders from crocodile attacks by removing crocodiles from populated waterways, while expanding the commercial crocodile industry and empowering Indigenous landholders to manage crocodiles on their land. The bill's second reading failed and it did not become law.

This bill rewrites Queensland's energy planning laws by repealing renewable energy targets and replacing them with a flexible, market-driven approach focused on affordability, reliability and sustainability. It renames the Act from the Energy (Renewable Transformation and Jobs) Act 2024 to the Energy (Infrastructure Facilitation) Act 2024, streamlines transmission investment processes, creates a framework to deliver the CopperString project connecting North and North West Queensland to the national grid, and abolishes three statutory advisory bodies.

This bill confirms that Queensland government electronic systems can legally be used to automatically issue routine environmental and wildlife permits. It retrospectively validates permits that were automatically issued since 2017 and fixes an enforcement gap created by recent legislative changes to the Environmental Protection Act.

This bill introduces a community benefit system requiring developers of prescribed projects (initially renewable energy developments) to assess social impacts and negotiate agreements with local governments before lodging planning applications. It also restructures the governance and delivery framework for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and makes administrative changes to Economic Development Queensland.

This bill establishes the regulatory framework for Queensland's hydrogen industry by allowing hydrogen and other renewable gases to be transported through pipelines. It amends gas supply and petroleum laws to provide a clear pathway for hydrogen projects, supporting Queensland's goal of becoming a major renewable hydrogen exporter.

This bill enables joint management of Moreton Island's national parks and conservation areas between the Queensland Government and the Quandamooka People, following the Federal Court's recognition of their native title in 2019. It transfers protected area land to the Quandamooka Yoolooburrabee Aboriginal Corporation as Aboriginal land while maintaining its conservation status through a jointly managed arrangement.

This bill bans single-use plastic straws, stirrers, plates, bowls and cutlery in Queensland to reduce plastic pollution. Healthcare facilities and schools are exempt to ensure people with disabilities and healthcare needs can still access these items when required.

This bill modernises Queensland's building and construction laws across several areas. It strengthens homeowners' rights to install solar panels free from aesthetic restrictions by developers and body corporates, expands the use of treated greywater in large buildings, improves subcontractor payment protections, and gives the Queensland Building and Construction Commission stronger regulatory and enforcement powers.

This bill extends beekeeping in specified Queensland national parks for 20 years until 31 December 2044, delivering a government election commitment. It also creates new offences for impersonating rangers, strengthens enforcement powers for park officers, updates governance arrangements for the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area, and consolidates administrative provisions from regulations into the Nature Conservation Act.

This bill creates the legal foundation for Queensland's transition from coal-fired to renewable electricity generation. It legislates renewable energy targets of 50% by 2030, 70% by 2032, and 80% by 2035, commits to public ownership of energy assets, establishes frameworks to build new transmission infrastructure and Renewable Energy Zones across the state, and creates a $150 million fund to support workers at coal-fired power stations through the transition.

This bill locks in Queensland's progressive coal royalty rates by preventing any future government from lowering them through regulation alone. It was introduced after the then Leader of the Opposition signalled at a Queensland Resources Council event that coal royalties could be changed, prompting the government to require that any reduction must be debated and passed as legislation through Parliament.

This bill makes several changes to Queensland's waste laws. It bans the outdoor release of helium balloons and sky lanterns, removes the waste levy exemption for clean earth sent to landfill, introduces circular economy principles, sets a 2025 deadline for phasing out plastic items attached to shelf-ready products, and adds transparency rules for how councils report waste levy payments on rate notices.

This bill reforms Queensland's framework for managing the coexistence of resource, renewable energy, and agricultural industries. It introduces a major new system for managing coal seam gas induced land subsidence, expands the roles of key coexistence institutions, streamlines regulatory processes across resources legislation, and modernises the Financial Provisioning Scheme for mining rehabilitation.

This bill makes a broad range of administrative and streamlining amendments to Queensland's land, resources and environmental legislation. It modernises outdated processes, improves state land management, reforms stock route governance, and updates how vegetation management data is maintained.

This bill makes changes across five unrelated policy areas: it fixes paperwork problems with older mining leases, protects petroleum production leases from lapsing during renewal, scraps a planned transport ombudsman, gives South East Queensland water distributors new enforcement powers for water restrictions, and lets water providers remove cybersecurity details from public documents.

This bill makes sweeping changes across Queensland's agriculture, fisheries and animal management laws. It bans dangerous dog breeds, introduces statewide dog control rules with tough penalties including imprisonment, sets up camera and observer monitoring on commercial fishing boats to protect the Great Barrier Reef, strengthens biosecurity emergency powers, and reforms several other agricultural and animal welfare laws.

This bill puts Queensland's greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets into law, committing the state to cut emissions by 30% by 2030, 75% by 2035, and reach net zero by 2050. It creates a framework for planning how key industries will reduce their emissions, establishes an expert advisory panel, and requires annual progress reports to Parliament. The bill was passed with amendment.

This bill strengthens Queensland's environmental protection laws by modernising the powers and penalties available to regulators and creating new obligations for polluters. It implements recommendations from a 2022 independent review that found existing tools were too reactive, and introduces proactive measures including a new duty to restore contaminated environments and an offence for breaching the general environmental duty.

This bill sought to strengthen Queensland's ethanol mandate, which has never been met since it was introduced in 2017. It would have doubled penalties for fuel retailers not selling enough ethanol-blended petrol and required that E10 fuel contain at least 9% ethanol rather than the federally permitted minimum of just 1%. The bill was defeated at second reading and did not become law.

This bill modernises Queensland's 20-year-old animal welfare laws following a comprehensive review, a racehorse welfare inquiry, and an audit of RSPCA oversight. It introduces tougher penalties for animal neglect, bans harmful devices and practices, requires CCTV at livestock slaughter facilities, strengthens inspector accountability, and creates a new accreditation scheme for cattle procedures.

This bill strengthens how non-urban water take is measured and reported in Queensland, implementing the state's strengthened water measurement policy. It introduces requirements for measurement devices, measurement systems, measurement plans, and near real-time telemetry to ensure water is accurately accounted for, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. The bill also improves water licence administration, water authority governance, and drinking and recycled water regulation.

This bill modernises Queensland's environmental protection laws by amending the Environmental Protection Act 1994 and several related Acts. It streamlines regulatory processes for environmental authorities and impact assessments, strengthens compliance powers for environmental inspectors, creates temporary authority provisions for emergency situations, improves contaminated land management, and bans mining in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

This bill reinstates stronger vegetation clearing laws in Queensland, reversing changes made in 2013 that loosened protections. It ends broadscale clearing of remnant vegetation for agriculture, extends protections for regrowth vegetation to freehold and Indigenous land, protects waterways in all Great Barrier Reef catchments, and significantly increases penalties for illegal clearing.

This bill introduces a waste levy on waste delivered to landfill sites in Queensland, starting at $70 per tonne from March 2019. It aims to discourage landfill disposal, encourage recycling, stop interstate waste dumping, and fund a $100 million resource recovery program. Households are protected from direct cost increases through annual payments to local governments.

This bill overhauls Queensland's fisheries laws to implement the Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017-2027. It introduces harvest strategies as the main tool for managing fish stocks, cracks down on the illegal sale of fish (black marketing) with new trafficking offences and stronger inspector powers, and formally recognises charter fishing and traditional fishing as distinct sectors.

This bill makes wide-ranging changes across Queensland's mining, energy and water sectors. It introduces industrial manslaughter offences for the resources industry, strengthens financial assurance requirements to prevent mining companies from abandoning sites without proper rehabilitation, streamlines resource authority approval processes, extends energy consumer protections, and increases transparency of water infrastructure charges in South East Queensland.

This Greens private member's bill would have banned all coal mining in Queensland's Galilee Basin, including terminating Adani's existing mining leases for the Carmichael mine. It was based on the 2018 IPCC report finding that coal must be phased out globally by 2050 to limit dangerous climate change. The bill lapsed and did not become law.

This bill strengthens Queensland's laws to protect the Great Barrier Reef from agricultural and industrial pollution, and updates how the state classifies threatened species. It expands regulation of farming practices across all Reef catchment areas to reduce nutrient and sediment run-off that harms coral and marine ecosystems.

This bill makes a broad range of amendments across the Natural Resources, Mines and Energy portfolio. It caps mining exploration permits at 15 years, strengthens rural water compliance with higher penalties, simplifies Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander land processes, modernises water authority board governance to improve gender balance, and supports the establishment of CleanCo as a new clean energy electricity generator.

This bill protects First Nations traditional knowledge from being used without consent in biodiscovery — the scientific study of native plants, animals and organisms for commercial purposes like medicines or bioplastics. It requires researchers to negotiate benefit sharing with knowledge custodians and aligns Queensland law with the international Nagoya Protocol.

This bill makes wide-ranging amendments to laws governing agriculture, animal welfare, biosecurity, forestry, fisheries, racing, and other areas. Most notably, it significantly increases penalties for trespassing on agricultural land and strengthens biosecurity obligations, prompted by a wave of animal activist protests on farms. It also improves protections for animals in hot vehicles, expands farm debt mediation access, and clarifies the Racing Integrity Commission's powers.

This bill sought to create a Queensland Crocodile Authority based in Cairns to manage saltwater crocodile populations across the state. It responded to growing community concern about increasing crocodile numbers and attacks in North Queensland, with 25 recorded attacks between 1985 and 2015 (seven fatal) and three attacks in the year before the bill was introduced (two fatal). The bill's second reading failed and it did not become law.

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 enables the construction and operation of a major wind farm of up to 226 turbines in Queensland State forests, and separately fixes planning controls for the Springfield development area in Ipswich. The wind farm component creates special tenure arrangements that override forestry and land laws to allow a $2 billion renewable energy project to coexist with existing plantation forestry in the Toolara, Tuan and Neerdie State forests.

This bill reforms Queensland's framework for rehabilitating land disturbed by mining and resource activities. It creates a statutory Rehabilitation Commissioner to independently advise on best practice rehabilitation and publicly report on how well mine sites are being restored. It also overhauls the residual risk framework so the State can better manage former resource sites after companies hand back their environmental authorities, including establishing a dedicated fund to pay for ongoing management and remediation.

This bill overhauls how Queensland calculates petroleum royalties, replacing the old 'wellhead value' system with a simpler volume-based model that applies different rates depending on whether gas is sold domestically, supplied to LNG projects, produced as part of an LNG project, or is liquid petroleum. It also brings mineral and petroleum royalty administration under the Taxation Administration Act 2001 for consistency with state taxes.

This bill establishes a Financial Provisioning Scheme to protect Queensland from the cost of cleaning up mine sites when resource companies fail to rehabilitate the land. It replaces the old individual financial assurance system with a pooled fund model, where companies pay annual contributions based on their risk level, and introduces enforceable Progressive Rehabilitation and Closure Plans to ensure mined land is progressively restored throughout the life of a mine.

This bill makes wide-ranging changes to Queensland's mineral resources and water management laws. It improves dispute resolution between landholders and resource companies, requires climate change to be explicitly considered in water planning, recognises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural values in water plans, and gives the government new emergency powers to address urgent water quality problems.

This bill makes wide-ranging amendments to laws governing land, explosives, gas safety, and mining within Queensland's Natural Resources, Mines and Energy portfolio. It introduces security clearances for people who handle explosives, modernises compliance powers for state land, protects Aboriginal freehold land on Cape York Peninsula from mining, supports Indigenous home ownership, facilitates electronic conveyancing, and addresses gas safety and abandoned mining infrastructure.

This bill creates a new type of protected area called a 'special wildlife reserve' for privately owned or managed land with outstanding conservation value. It gives private land the same level of legal protection as a national park, banning mining, forestry, and fossicking while keeping the land in private ownership. The bill also ensures conservation agreements survive changes in land tenure and extends environmental regulation to cover activities straddling state and Commonwealth waters in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.