In April 2022 the Government commissioned an Independent Review of Powers and Penalties under the Environmental Protection Act to be conducted by retired Judge Richard Jones and Barrister Susan Hedge.
The Final Report found that the Environmental Protection Act 1994 generally has an adequate range of powers and penalties, however, circumstances were identified where the powers could be improved and a range of recommendations were made.
Particularly important for our community are three key recommendations that improve the operation of the Act:
- Amend the Act to include the concept of “human health, safety and wellbeing” in the definitions of environment and environmental value.
This recommendation is important to our community as the types of activities that are regulated under the Act not only impact on the environment. As we have seen, they also impact on the residents, businesses and infrastructure around them, often with devastating impacts on physical, financial and mental wellbeing, and these impacts should be addressed by the Act.
- The power to amend environmental authority conditions be expanded to allow the Chief Executive or the Minister to amend conditions where the Minister or Chief Executive considers the environmental impact of the activity is not being appropriately avoided, mitigated or managed.
This recommendation is also important to our community due to those Environmental Authorities granted decades earlier where the size, scale, nature, and impact of the activity has changed dramatically over time. When that occurs, there is a mechanism needed to amend that authority.
- Consideration should be given to creating an offence for breaching the general environmental duty.
This recommendation is important to our community as when all else fails, the General Environmental Duty provides a ‘catch all’ power to address adverse impacts. Creating an offence will make the Duty more enforceable.
The State Government have accepted the recommendations and a detailed public consultation paper and/or Regulatory Impact Statement will be released in the second half of 2023, followed by the development of the necessary amendments to legislation.
For more information see this page: https://environment.des.qld.gov.au/management/policy-regulation/independent-review
We will post more information as it becomes available.