During Parliamentary Budget Estimates on Thursday 29 July 2022, I asked staff from the Queensland Department of Environment and Science about a promised review and reforms of the environmental offsets framework.
You can read the answers below or in the official Queensland Parliament Record of Proceedings (Hansard).
Mr BERKMAN: Director-General, we are now, I think, more than seven years on from the government’s first commitment to review and reform the offsets framework. When can we expect the department to deliver concrete reform outcomes following all those years of review and consultation?
Mr Merrick: As the member is aware, the environmental offsets framework plays an important role in ensuring the development of Queensland’s natural environment is ecologically sustainable and it comprises a number of elements: the offsets act 2014, the offsets regulation 2014 and the offsets policy. An environmental offset compensates for unavoidable impacts on significant environmental matters. The work of the review is now well advanced. Recommendations will shortly go before government for consideration. I anticipate that that phase of the offsets review will be completed very soon.