The Queensland Law Society foresees unintended impacts could be created by the Environmental Protection (Efficiency and Streamlining) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 currently under consideration.
QLS President Peter Jolly, Planning and Environment Law Committee member Mark Cowan and Principal Policy Solicitor Kate Brodnik shared the Society’s concerns at the public hearing before the Health, Environment and Innovation Committee this week.
The Bill’s primary objective is to improve administrative efficiency and ensure the regulatory frameworks within Queensland’s environmental legislation remain contemporary, effective and responsive, which QLS supports.
“The QLS supports reform to reduce complexity and duplication that enables regulation to be understood by those subject to or affected by it,” Mr Jolly said.
In undertaking this reform, the QLS submission states it is critical that all affected parties understand their rights and obligations.
“Generally, the QLS supports the reforms in the Bill, but there are a couple of possible unintended consequences which flow from that – that we’ve addressed in the submission and that’s firstly, the extended timeframe to commence summary proceedings,” he said.
“Secondly the removal of consultation on the draft terms of reference if this process is not made clear to the public; and the third thing is possible confusion as to whether new ERA (environmentally relevant activities) codes are required to be registered with the department, which might lead to a lack of oversight.”
Committee chair and Member for Southport Rob Molhoek said the written submission expressed concern around the absence of mandatory registration for code managed ERAs and some concern around regulatory visibility and oversight.
He asked the QLS representatives what they felt was the minimum registration or notification requirements necessary to ensure legal accountability under a code-based framework.
Mr Cowan responded that question was one of the key issues.
“As our submission says, we support the principle of the standard Code ERA process,” he said.
“One area that’s a little bit important to address, and a little bit unclear in the amendments, is making sure that everyone knows who is proposing to operate under those ERA codes and when they start and when they stop, so that DETSI (Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation) understands who’s saying they’re operating under the codes and can use its general investigation and oversight powers to monitor compliance with that, as well as the general public.
“There is some provision for when an environmentally relevant activity is designated as an ERA code, at the same time it can be designated as something that requires registration of the person undertaking it, but there’s also a scenario where that’s not required.
“There is, in one of the provisions, a need to notify still in that circumstance, but it’s a little bit unclear how they work in practice, and it doesn’t really pick up all the intricacies of what’s required, notifying when you cease, so that everyone knows what’s going on.
“It’s quite important for these activities for everyone to know who’s saying they’re going to go under those codes and who isn’t, and when and when they are or not.”
The Member for Bancroft, Chris Whiting, questioned whether the code-managed ERAs would result in lesser public awareness of what proponents were doing or proposing to do.
“And it’s possible that there’s going to be no record for a local community to find out who’s got the approvals and what they’ve got the approvals for. Correct?” he asked the QLS representatives.
Mr Cowan replied: “There are some proposals in there to say that operators do have to notify when they’re proceeding. If that is made comprehensive, then placed on the public register, then people could keep track of that.”
The Member for Bancroft also asked if it was correct that the Minister decided what was going to be in the code and how it was captured.
“Yes, what the scope of ERAs codes are going to capture is going to be quite important, I would say, because you do have very minimal low-risk activities all the way through mines,” Mr Cowan said.
The other key issue discussed concerned the extension of limitation periods for the commencement of summary proceedings. In this context, the Member for Hervey Bay David Lee raised the issue of clear guidelines.
“You talk about a recommendation around, in page two of your submission, a recommendation around guidelines being published to establish clear communication processes in order to commence a prosecution in terms of the proof that might be required and the burden on affected parties,” Mr Lee said.
“So can you unpack that a little bit more and give us a bit more insight into what your thinking is around that?”
Mr Cowan replied: “I guess the starting point is the proposal is to move the imitation periods from 12 months, possibly two years, to two years and three years under the Environmental Protection Act.
“And we understand there’s a public interest and balancing exercise in doing that, and there’s issues on either side.
“Certainly from the experience of practitioners on the QLS committee, the investigation of potential prosecution could end up leading to a decision of no offence being committed.
This could involve the employees of a company who might not have done ultimately anything wrong, but they now have an either two or three-year period from when an incident happens, where they know there could or could not be a prosecution where their actions are directly relevant to event.
“So we think it’s important in the scenario … for there to be guidelines so the department, as soon as possible, at least tells operators who are under investigation that they’re not going to proceed to a prosecution.
“So at the very least you don’t have a standard two or three-year period where people just don’t know.
“The timing of the communication is obviously going to depend on the complexity of the case.”
The committee is due to table its report on Friday, 30 January 2026.
Share this article