On Tuesday, 2 June 2026 I spoke in Parliament against the government's Environmental Protection (Efficiency and Streamlining) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, which chips away at community participation in environmental protection and hands more power to industry to self-regulate.
You can read my full speech below or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard) here.
I rise to address the Environmental Protection (Efficiency and Streamlining) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. I will start my contribution by speaking to the backdrop. The 2024 Queensland State of the Environment Report made some pretty damning findings. First, the remnant vegetation in 12 out of 13 bioregions is under increasing pressure due to land clearing and fragmentation. Second, between 2019 and 2024, 48 additional fauna species and 66 additional flora species became threatened. The Statewide Landcover and Trees Study for 2022-23 was only published in July last year, but it confirmed that 0.35 per cent of all Queensland’s woody vegetation was cleared in just 12 months. That is an area that is equivalent in size to the ACT, and nearly 44 per cent of all of that clearing occurred in Great Barrier Reef catchments, which has major downstream impacts on the reef.
Queenslanders have very good reason for concern not just because of that backdrop but because of the LNP’s track record on the environment. This is a government that will happily destroy culturally significant inner-city green space at Barrambin, Victoria Park, for a stadium—no less for a stadium that the Premier explicitly promised they would not build. Equally they are prepared to decimate our chances of achieving net zero by 2050, undermining renewable energy projects and continuing to subsidise coal-fired power beyond 2050.
We have seen this environment minister’s work before. He has been reinstalled in the role after the three years he had as environment minister under Campbell Newman when he disbanded and sacked all of the workers in the Office of Climate Change. None of us will forget his comments when he told us he was still to be convinced of the degree to which humans are influencing climate change. This is a Minister for the Environment and a Minister for Science who treats science as an article of faith—so, yes, I am concerned about the legislative program he is bringing forward and I am concerned about the consequences of this bill.
The bill makes a suite of changes that chip away at community participation rights and regulatory power, as well as handing over greater power to corporations to self-regulate. It is difficult to cover all of the detail in this bill in the time available, but I want to focus many of my comments on this by pivoting to code managed environmentally relevant activities. Currently, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I am sure you and all members know, an environmental authority is required for all environmentally relevant activities, or ERAs. That is a good thing because it means each operation is considered in its specific context and the department has eyes on what is going on across regions to assess cumulative impacts. Under this bill, proponents will no longer require an EA, an environmental authority, for code managed ERAs. This is a fundamental and deeply problematic change.
The department indicated in the committee hearings that this will likely involve small-scale resource extraction but we do not yet know which ERAs will be code managed. There were also clear indications from the department before the committee that ERAs themselves could be redefined so that some activities may no longer be covered by the regime at all. There are no real limits on what can be transitioned to code management. The minister must be satisfied that the risk of environmental harm is known and can be effectively prevented, minimised, rehabilitated or remediated by requiring compliance with the code. That does not even require that the harm is known to be minimal. In theory, it allows code management even for activities with major environmental impacts provided that a code can describe how impacts should or could be remediated or rehabilitated. What happens if that does not occur?
What is the problem with code management more fundamentally? In essence, it means that no assessment of the impacts is undertaken at all. The department steps back. It is entirely for the industry to self-regulate, plus there is no requirement under the bill for proponents to even register that they are undertaking code managed ERAs. If these activities are not registered, that is an extraordinary barrier to compliance and enforcement activities. I have long been on the record saying that it is a major issue that registers themselves are not always publicly available, but here the LNP does not even want its own department to know what is going on across the state.
As for small-scale mining activities, there is another boon for small-scale mining operators in this bill. Under the bill, they will no longer have to put up a surety and existing sureties held by the department will be refunded, believe it or not. A surety in this context means money that is paid by operators to the state to protect against any failure to rehabilitate. In effect, it is like the bond you pay when you move into a rental property. Why on earth should miners be exempt from this? Are we simply pretending that there is no real risk that they will not rehabilitate or remediate their land? Is the minister and this government simply accepting that Queenslanders need to foot the bill for any uncosted remediation works or that we are just going to let it go—that we are just going to let them damage the environment and that will be it?
What else is there? I am going to have to fire through these changes.
The bill removes community consultation on terms of reference for environmental impact statements. This is an important opportunity for communities to ensure a proponent’s environmental assessment addresses values that are important to the community, and in 100 per cent of cases terms of reference are changed in response to public consultation.
The bill claims to remove so-called duplication in assessments. In reality, what it does is just move environmental assessments for some projects outside of the Environmental Protection Act—that is the act the primary purpose of which is the protection of the environment. Instead, it will see more assessments done under the State Development and Public Works Organisation Act—that is an act the primary purpose of which is to facilitate and fast-track development, with minimal environmental protection and oversight. That shift itself is truly emblematic of the LNP’s priorities. On the assessment and auditing of progressive rehabilitation and closure plans, PRCPs, Queensland’s PRCP requirements were introduced in 2019. That is over six years ago, but so far of 206 mines required to produce a PRCP, as at June 2025, 144 of those do not yet have an approved PRCP. Instead of strengthening laws to address this poor performance, the bill just further chips away at existing protections.
Existing mining proponents are supposed to be transitioning to progressive rehab and closure plans, with assessments based on best practice contemporary environmental management. The point is that, after raking in profits from the destruction of Queensland’s environment, legacy mines should at least be required to rehabilitate to a contemporary standard. Under the bill, the department would now be asked to consider the historical context of operations and could wave through plans based on out-of-date standards.
The bill removes public interest evaluation when proposing to leave non-use management areas as part of a PRCP. This is essentially policy speak for pit voids. That is science speak for really big holes in the ground that continue to drain groundwater forever. This bill removes the requirement to provide a public interest evaluation, prepared by an appropriately qualified person, when proposing to leave one of these giant holes in the ground.
The effect is that decision makers will have to consider the public interest without the benefit of an actual assessment. I will say that again. Decision-makers will assess the public interest without an actual assessment of impact. It is absurd. The bill also removes mandatory three-year rehabilitation audits, which will be replaced with audits when the department feels like it, and proponents will be entitled to challenge the frequency of those audits if they think it is too burdensome. It is just laughable. What else do we have on this veritable shopping list of environmental protection erosions? The department will now give proponents six months to pay up for residual risks with the possibility of an extension for a further six months if they do not feel like paying it then. What a double standard. If you have an unpaid SPER debt you get just 14 days notice before your licence is suspended, but they will get six months with a potential further six months. There are new single integrated permissions for tourism activities in different protected areas which will not invoke the same assessment criteria that currently apply, extended reporting periods for underground water impact reports from three years to five years and extended duration of permits for activities in protected areas to 15 years.
My time is nearly gone, but it is honestly nuts how much this bill does in terms of how regressive it is in so many different areas of environmental protection. Frankly, what else should we expect from a wildlife-hating, climate-denying LNP government that is intent on taking us backwards—