Regional 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 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 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 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 creates Health and Wellbeing Queensland, a new government agency dedicated to preventing chronic disease and improving the health of Queenslanders. The agency focuses on reducing risk factors like obesity, poor nutrition and lack of physical activity, with particular attention to closing the health gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, remote communities and disadvantaged areas.

This bill creates standalone legislation for the State Emergency Service, separating it from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services and placing it under Queensland Police Service oversight. It recognises the vital role of approximately 5,400 SES volunteers who respond to floods, storms, and other emergencies across Queensland.

This bill creates Marine Rescue Queensland (MRQ), a unified statewide marine rescue service to replace the current fragmented system of two separate volunteer organisations. MRQ will operate under Queensland Police oversight with a clear command structure from state to local level, providing coordinated marine search and rescue, assistance, and disaster response support across Queensland's waterways.

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 establishes the Brisbane Organising Committee for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games as an independent statutory body. The Corporation will plan, organise and deliver the Games in accordance with the Olympic Host Contract signed between the IOC, Queensland Government, Brisbane City Council and Australian Olympic Committee.

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 creates a new artisan producer licence for Queensland craft brewers and artisan distillers, giving them a streamlined pathway to sell their products in taprooms, online, at wholesale, and at promotional events like farmers markets. It was introduced to support the growth of Queensland's independent liquor producers and help the industry recover from COVID-19 impacts.

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 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 would have modernised Queensland's land valuation system - the framework that determines property values for calculating rates and land tax. It proposed streamlining the objection process, giving the valuer-general power to make binding guidelines for complex properties, and allowing valuation notices to be sent by SMS. The bill lapsed at the end of the 57th Parliament and did not become law.

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 would have established a Queensland Crocodile Authority based in Cairns to manage crocodile populations, prioritising human safety in populated waterways. It aimed to remove crocodiles from urban and recreational areas, empower Indigenous landholders to manage crocodiles on their land, and create a commercial crocodile industry through expanded egg harvesting. This bill lapsed and did not become law.

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 establishes the Queensland Food Farmers' Commissioner, an independent statutory office to support farmers in their dealings with major supermarkets. The Commissioner will help improve price transparency, address power imbalances between supermarkets and their suppliers, and provide farmers with a safe avenue to raise concerns about unfair treatment.

This bill establishes Queensland's first Cross-Border Commissioner, a new statutory role dedicated to helping communities along Queensland's borders with New South Wales, South Australia, and the Northern Territory. The Commissioner will work across governments to resolve issues caused by different state regulations and improve service delivery for border residents.

This bill establishes a Night-Life Economy Commissioner to support and advocate for Queensland's night-life sector, including live music venues, bars, and entertainment businesses. The Commissioner will work with industry and government to promote the growth and sustainability of businesses that operate at night.

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 strengthens workplace safety laws for Queensland's mining and quarrying industries, responding to the re-identification of black lung disease among coal miners. It increases penalties, expands inspector powers, requires better qualified ventilation officers, and creates new health surveillance for former miners.

This bill reforms Queensland's local government laws to reduce red tape and empower councils. It simplifies conflict of interest rules, removes lower-level conduct complaints from the formal system, gives councils more control over senior staff appointments, and streamlines electoral processes.

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 cuts liquor licence fees by 90% for pubs located in very remote parts of Queensland. It recognises that hotels in remote communities are often the only social gathering place and struggle financially due to small populations and seasonal income.

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 establishes the Games Venue and Legacy Delivery Authority to ensure Queensland can deliver venues, villages, and infrastructure for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games on time and on budget. The authority will operate independently with its own board but ultimately the State guarantees to cover any financial shortfall.

This bill modernises Queensland's land, resources and environmental regulatory frameworks. It streamlines lease conversion and renewal processes, allows local governments to keep stock route revenue for maintenance, updates publication requirements from newspapers to digital media, and creates pathways for mining lease transfers.

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 makes four unrelated sets of changes: it modernises the regulation of schools providing education to overseas students, creates a new statutory framework for student exchange programs, implements major reforms to senior secondary assessment including external exams and ATARs from 2019, and fixes an error that banned Easter Saturday trading in regional towns.

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 modernises the governance of Queensland's 13 hospital foundations and allows industrial hemp to be grown for food products. It replaces the outdated 1982 legislation governing hospital foundations with modern rules that better reflect how these charitable bodies actually operate, while also enabling Queensland farmers to grow low-THC hemp for the food market following a national decision to permit hemp seed foods.

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 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 officially makes the Muttaburrasaurus langdoni Queensland's State fossil emblem, and fixes several technical issues with parliamentary procedures including remote committee participation, privacy for unwell MPs using proxy votes, and the definition of the parliamentary precinct.

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 reforms Queensland racing industry funding by increasing betting tax to 20% and guaranteeing that 80% of revenue flows to Racing Queensland, with minimum funding for country racing. It also establishes administrative systems for the mental health levy on large employers.

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 implements the 2019-20 Budget revenue measures, making significant changes to land tax, payroll tax, and petroleum royalties. It raises taxes on large landholders and foreign property owners while providing relief for small businesses, regional employers, and those who hire apprentices.

This bill introduces a community benefit system requiring developers of major projects to conduct social impact assessments and negotiate community benefit agreements with local governments before lodging development applications. It also streamlines governance and removes planning approval requirements for Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games venues to ensure they are delivered on time.

This bill lapsed and did not become law. It was a private member's bill that sought to amend the 1985 agreement between Queensland and Mount Isa Mines Limited to prevent the company from ceasing copper mining without government approval. The bill was introduced in response to Glencore's announcement to close the copper mine with 1,200 job losses.

This bill sought to create three new criminal offences targeting trespass on business premises and transport infrastructure. It was a private member's bill that lapsed at the end of the 56th Parliament and did not become law.