Environment

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 strengthens Queensland's vegetation clearing laws to protect native vegetation, reduce carbon emissions, and safeguard the Great Barrier Reef. It reinstates protections for regrowth vegetation on freehold and indigenous land, and ends broadscale clearing of remnant vegetation for agriculture.

This bill introduces a waste levy of $70 per tonne on waste sent to landfill in Queensland's populated areas. The levy aims to make recycling more attractive than dumping, fund new recycling programs, and stop Queensland being used as a dumping ground for interstate waste.

This bill reforms Queensland's fisheries laws to implement the Sustainable Fisheries Strategy 2017-2027. It introduces harvest strategies for more responsive management of fish stocks, creates tough new penalties for illegal fish sales (black marketing), and formally recognises charter fishing and Indigenous traditional fishing as distinct sectors.

This bill strengthens workplace safety in Queensland's resources sector by introducing industrial manslaughter offences, while also improving mine rehabilitation oversight, streamlining regulatory processes, and protecting energy and water consumers.

This 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 a Greens private member's bill 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 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 multiple areas. It clarifies homeowners' rights to install solar panels without aesthetic restrictions, expands greywater use in large buildings, strengthens QBCC's regulatory powers, and updates security of payment protections for subcontractors.

This bill strengthens regulations to protect the Great Barrier Reef from agricultural pollution. It introduces mandatory minimum practice standards for farmers across all six Reef catchment regions to reduce nutrient and sediment runoff, which science identifies as the main cause of poor Reef water quality. The bill also adopts a national standard for listing threatened species.

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 them be repurposed as a useful water resource for farming.

This bill makes sweeping changes across Queensland's natural resources, land, water and energy laws. It streamlines exploration permit processes with 15-year caps and more flexible work programs, creates a new dispute resolution system for state land subleases, strengthens water compliance enforcement, and establishes CleanCo as a government clean energy company to boost electricity market competition.

This bill enables the State Government to implement The Spit Master Plan, a 2019 vision for transforming The Spit on the Gold Coast into improved public spaces with better community facilities and environmental connections. It commits $60 million in State funding and expands the Gold Coast Waterways Authority to deliver capital works.

This bill strengthens protections for First Nations traditional knowledge used in scientific research by requiring researchers to obtain consent and share benefits with knowledge custodians. It also simplifies the approval process for biodiscovery activities and aligns Queensland law with international treaties including the Nagoya Protocol.

This bill extends commercial beekeeping access in specified national parks for 20 years until 2044, creates new offences for impersonating park rangers, and updates governance arrangements for the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. It delivers an election commitment to beekeepers while strengthening enforcement against people who deceive park visitors by pretending to be rangers.

This bill establishes Queensland's legal framework for transforming its electricity system to renewable energy. It sets legislated targets for 50% renewable energy by 2030, 70% by 2032, and 80% by 2035, creates frameworks to build transmission infrastructure and Renewable Energy Zones, and guarantees job security for workers in coal-fired power stations.

This bill locks in Queensland's progressive coal royalty rates by preventing them from being reduced through regulation alone. Any future government wanting to lower coal royalties must pass legislation through Parliament, ensuring public debate and transparency.

This bill makes wide-ranging changes to Queensland's agricultural, biosecurity and animal welfare laws. Most notably, it doubles penalties for farm trespass, introduces biosecurity management plans that visitors must follow, and gives animal welfare inspectors new powers to help abandoned animals.

This bill was discharged and did not become law. It sought to establish a Queensland Crocodile Authority in Cairns to remove crocodiles from populated waterways, expand the commercial crocodile industry, and give Indigenous landholders new rights to manage crocodiles on their land.

This bill updates Queensland's waste laws with several environmental protection measures. It bans the outdoor release of helium balloons and sky lanterns, removes the levy exemption for clean earth sent to landfill, introduces circular economy principles, and phases out exemptions for banned plastics attached to products like juice boxes.

This bill aimed to create a Queensland Crocodile Authority to remove dangerous crocodiles from populated areas and waterways, while creating economic opportunities through egg harvesting and controlled hunting on private land. The bill's second reading failed and it did not become law.

This bill sought to make it easier for graziers to clear vegetation on their land and to challenge rejected clearing applications. It failed at the second reading stage and did not become law.

This bill creates a special legal framework to allow a major wind farm to be built in Queensland State forests. It enables up to 226 wind turbines producing 1200 megawatts of renewable energy in the Toolara, Tuan and Neerdie State forests near Gympie, while allowing existing plantation forestry to continue. The bill also fixes unrelated planning issues in the Springfield development area in Ipswich.

This bill streamlines environmental and resources regulation in Queensland by creating standardised codes for lower-risk activities, reducing duplicate approval processes, and extending prosecution timeframes for environmental offences. It also creates a single permit system for tourism operators working across multiple parks and forests, and improves underground water monitoring and reporting for mining-affected areas.

This bill creates new criminal offences for protesters who use 'dangerous attachment devices' - specialised equipment like steel tubes, concrete barrels, and tripods designed to make it difficult and dangerous for police to remove them. It was introduced in response to climate, mining, and animal welfare protests that caused significant disruptions, including a $1.3 million delay to coal trains at the Port of Brisbane.

This bill aimed to reduce crocodile attacks on North Queenslanders by creating a new Queensland Crocodile Authority to remove crocodiles from populated waterways. It would have empowered Indigenous landholders to manage crocodiles on their land and expanded the commercial crocodile egg harvesting industry. The bill's second reading failed and it did not become law.

This bill establishes a Rehabilitation Commissioner to provide independent advice on mine site rehabilitation and improves the framework for managing environmental risks on former resource sites. It ensures the State receives adequate funds from mining companies to manage residual risks after sites are closed, and requires these risks to be recorded on land titles.

This bill reforms how Queensland manages the interaction between its resources industry and agricultural landholders. It creates a new framework to protect farmers from coal seam gas subsidence, expands dispute resolution services, modernises the mining rehabilitation insurance scheme, and streamlines regulatory processes across multiple resources laws.

This bill makes technical fixes to mining and petroleum laws to protect existing resource tenures from administrative errors, repeals the never-implemented Personalised Transport Ombudsman scheme, and gives South East Queensland water distributors new powers to enforce water restrictions while protecting cyber security information from public disclosure.

This bill makes major reforms to dangerous dog laws, commercial fishing monitoring, and biosecurity emergency powers. It bans restricted dog breeds like pit bulls, requires cameras or observers on commercial fishing boats to protect the Great Barrier Reef, and extends the duration of biosecurity emergency orders to better respond to disease outbreaks.

This bill makes major changes to Queensland's energy policy by repealing legislated renewable energy targets and shifting to a 'market-driven' approach. It renames the Energy (Renewable Transformation and Jobs) Act to the Energy (Infrastructure Facilitation) Act, abolishes three statutory advisory bodies, changes public ownership rules, and creates a new framework for the CopperString transmission project connecting North and North West Queensland to the national grid.

This bill creates a new financial provisioning scheme to protect Queensland from the cost of mine rehabilitation when companies fail to meet their obligations. It replaces the previous individual financial assurance system with a pooled fund where companies pay contributions based on their assessed risk level, and requires all major mines to have Progressive Rehabilitation and Closure Plans with enforceable milestones.

This bill makes three changes to Queensland electricity laws: it clarifies when Solar Bonus Scheme customers can add batteries without losing their 44c/kWh feed-in tariff, it enables apartment and caravan park residents to choose their own electricity retailer, and it allows regional small customers to return to Ergon Retail after switching to a private retailer.

This bill makes wide-ranging changes to Queensland's mining, petroleum and water laws. It improves dispute resolution for landholders dealing with mining and gas companies, strengthens climate change and First Nations considerations in water planning, creates temporary water access mechanisms, and establishes emergency powers for water quality crises.

This bill makes wide-ranging changes across the Natural Resources, Mines and Energy portfolio. It strengthens explosives safety and security including automatic licence cancellation for domestic violence perpetrators, modernises compliance powers for State land, facilitates electronic property conveyancing, protects Cape York heritage land from mining, and supports Indigenous land ownership.

This bill creates 'special wildlife reserves' - a new type of protected area for private land that provides the same level of protection as national parks. Landholders voluntarily enter perpetual agreements with the government to protect their land from mining, forestry and other incompatible uses, while retaining ownership. The bill also extends Great Barrier Reef environmental protections to activities crossing into Commonwealth waters.

This bill makes wide-ranging changes to how Queensland manages state land, names places, and ensures resource companies pay their local council rates. It streamlines land administration by removing duplicate assessments, makes it easier to change offensive place names and recognise First Nations names, and gives local governments stronger tools to collect rates from petroleum, geothermal, and greenhouse gas companies.

This bill puts Queensland's emissions reduction targets into law, committing the state to cut greenhouse gas 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 emissions, establishes an expert advisory panel, and requires annual progress reports to Parliament.

This bill modernises Queensland's environmental protection enforcement by consolidating three types of compliance notices into one 'environmental enforcement order', creating new offences for breaching environmental duties, and requiring polluters to restore contaminated environments. It implements recommendations from an independent review to make environmental regulation more proactive rather than reactive.

This bill attempted to strengthen Queensland's ethanol mandate, which has never been met since 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. The bill was defeated at second reading and did not become law.

This bill updates Queensland's animal welfare laws following a comprehensive review of the 20-year-old Animal Care and Protection Act. It bans inhumane practices like prong collars and horse firing, introduces tougher penalties for serious animal neglect, requires dogs to be secured when transported on vehicle trays, and implements recommendations to better track retired racehorses and improve RSPCA inspector oversight.

This bill validates the use of electronic systems for automatically issuing routine environmental and wildlife permits. It confirms that permits automatically issued since 2017 are legally valid and ensures environmental enforcement tools remain effective after recent legislative changes.

This bill makes practical adjustments to coal mining safety employment rules and supports Queensland's critical minerals sector. It allows coal mining companies more flexibility in staffing safety-critical positions while maintaining the core protections for workers, and introduces rent deferrals for new critical minerals mining leases.

This bill strengthens how Queensland measures and monitors non-urban water use, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. It requires water entitlement holders to use approved measurement devices or develop certified measurement plans, and enables telemetry for real-time compliance monitoring. The bill also makes various administrative improvements to water authority governance and water supply regulation.

This bill modernises Queensland's environmental protection laws by streamlining approval processes, strengthening compliance powers, and better protecting the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area. It introduces temporary environmental authorities for emergency situations and bans mining in the Wet Tropics.