A big year for Queensland environmental law reform but Federal EPBC Act reforms stall

What you need to know

• Proposed reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) have stalled, with the Federal Government's "Stage 2" reform Bills failing to pass the Senate.
• At the Queensland level, a broad range of amendments to the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld) commenced in June 2024.  Key changes include an offence for breaching the general environmental duty, expanded notification obligations, and a new statutory enforcement tool.
  
   

What you need to do

• Watch to see what happens on Federal environmental law reform after the 2025 Federal election.

Welcome to the 2024 Queensland land access and project approvals year in review

Where did the Federal Government land with its environmental reform?

Despite some momentum in the first half of 2024, proposed reform of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC Act) appears to have stalled.

In late 2023 and early 2024, the Federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) published consultation papers on proposed changes to the EPBC Act, some of which were discussed in our February 2024 alert "Overhaul of Australian environmental laws begins in earnest". Key proposed changes include:

• the establishment of Environment Protection Australia (EPA), an independent body to be responsible for approvals, compliance and enforcement;
• the creation of National Environmental Standards (NES);
• streamlining assessment methods via "standard" and "low impact" self-assessment pathways;
• reforming environmental offsets;
• improving conservation planning arrangements; and
• establishing Environment Information Australia (EIA).

We published a series of alerts about these reforms during the first half of 2024 (see below).

Three reform bills were introduced into Parliament on 29 May 2024, reflecting what the Federal Government called "Stage 2" of the reform:

• the Nature Positive (Environment Protection Australia) Bill 2024 (Cth), which would establish EPA;
• the Nature Positive (Environment Information Australia) Bill 2024 (Cth), which would establish the Head of Environment Information Australia within the DCCEEW; and
• the Nature Positive (Environmental Law Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2024 (Qld), which would amend the EPBC Act and other environmental laws.

The Bills were passed by the House of Representatives on 4 July 2024, and were introduced into the Senate on 12 August 2024. However, the Federal Government did not get the crossbench support required to pass the Bills through the Senate by the end of 2024.

The Senate referred the Bills to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, which published a consultation report in September 2024. As part of this publication, the Coalition and the Greens provided dissenting opinions that highlighted the need for further consultation and reform.

The committee recommended that the Bills be passed subject to several recommendations:

• Further consultation: The committee recommended that the Australian Government undertake further consultation regarding the definition of 'nature positive' to ensure that it is consistent with Australia's international commitments, including the Global Biodiversity Framework.
• First Nations traditional knowledge: The committee recommended that the Minister consider measures to encourage the incorporation of First Nations traditional environmental knowledge into the EIA and in particular in determining the baseline for nature positive, and in the register of national environmental information assets, with appropriate protections for Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property and the confidentiality of culturally sensitive information.
• Greater procedural safeguards for EPOs: The committee recommended that amendments be made to the Nature Positive (Environment Law Amendments and Transitional Provision) Bill 2024 to introduce greater procedural safeguards for the issuing of Environmental Protection Orders (EPO), including considering requirements for limited merits review, and requiring the Minister (and subsequently the CEO of the EPA) to disclose the underlying facts that have led to the issuing and scope of an EPO.
• NES to be disallowable instruments: To ensure parliamentary oversight to this process, the committee recommended that National Environmental Standards be disallowable instruments.

In its dissenting report, the Coalition criticised various elements of Labor's Nature Positive Plan, including the lack of clear direction for implementing the legislation, the amount of time it was taking to discuss the reforms, and the lack of support from stakeholders for the proposed changes. There were also concerns raised regarding the proposed funding for the new EPA.

The reforms were briefly back on the Government's agenda in late January/early February 2025, when the Nature Positive (Environment Protection Australia) Bill and related legislation appeared on the Senate's notice paper for 6 February 2025. A few days later it was removed from the notice paper and the Senate passed a motion that all three bills would not proceed. We will now have to wait until after the federal election to see what happens next on Federal environmental law reform.

Major amendments to Queensland's environmental legislation commence

Last year in our Queensland Land Access and Resource Approvals Year in Review 2023 article "Potentially significant changes to Queensland environmental legislation release for public consultation" we discussed a range of proposed amendments to the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld).

These amendments commenced in June 2024, after the Queensland Parliament passed the Environmental Protection (Powers and Penalties) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 (Qld). Key amendments include:

• an offence for failure to comply with the general environmental duty, making the duty directly enforceable for the first time;
• expanded notification obligations, with entities now required to notify where they "ought reasonably to have become aware" of certain events or circumstances;
• an active "duty to restore the environment" as soon as reasonably practicable after an incident involving contamination; and
• a new statutory enforcement tool called an "environmental enforcement order", which replaces environmental protection orders, direction notices, clean up notices and cost recovery notices.

Of particular note, the new environmental enforcement order can be issued for an activity "even if the person is the holder of an environmental authority that authorises…the activity". This gives rise to the risk of compliant activities being the subject of enforcement action (see our 2023 article referred to above for further discussion). With little guidance on this aspect of the amendments, how these tools are used in practice remains to be seen.

Authors: Paul Wilson, Partner and Leanne Mahly, Lawyer. 

Want to know more?

• Overhaul of Australian environmental laws begins in earnest (13 February 2024)
• Assessment pathways under Australia's proposed new Federal environmental laws (28 February 2024)
• Australia's proposed National Environmental Standards (16 April 2024)
• Potentially significant changes to Queensland environmental legislation release for public consultation (18 December 2023)