On 10 September 2025, the State Development Bill 2025 (WA) (the Bill) was introduced into the WA Parliament.1 The Bill proposes significant changes to the existing approach to the approval of major projects and the application of WA’s environment laws.
There have been no known consultations with the public, experts or environmental groups throughout the drafting of the Bill. We are not aware of any current formal opportunities to comment on the Bill.
Fundamentally, EDO’s view is that the Bill should not proceed. The Bill centralises too much power in the executive arm of government, and creates serious risks of undermining the intended operation of WA laws and ultimately harming the environmental and community/cultural values of WA.
One of our greatest concerns (addressed in more detail in the fourth section below) is that the Bill would effectively give the executive arm of government the power to make their own laws up as they apply to different projects in WA – allowing the personal views of the government of the day to override established and democratically enshrined laws that exist to protect the WA community and environment.
In this post, we provide an overview of the key terms of the Bill,2 to assist the WA community to understand the legislation and its significant risks, and what you can do in response.
1. The object of the Bill prioritises private sector financial interests over the environmental and cultural values of the WA community
The object of the Bill is to provide for the “coordination, facilitation and promotion of State-significant development, while taking into account social and environmental considerations.”3 State-significant development is defined as development that is “of strategic or economic significance to the State.”4
Through this object, the Bill is directed to actively promoting economic development. While “social and environmental considerations” are mentioned in the object, these are expressed as matters only to be taken into account. Taking a matter into consideration does not require a decision-maker to act in a way that protects or promotes those matters – in legal terms it can amount merely to lip service. This means that important considerations which serve to protect people, communities and nature, and uphold the public interest, can easily be sidelined. It is also unclear whose economic interests are to be prioritised, and whether benefits are to be retained locally.
2. The Coordinator General is given broad powers and limited accountability, including no safeguards against conflicts of interest
The Bill establishes the Coordinator General as a statutory office, appointed by the Governor.5 There are no stipulated qualifications for this appointment, meaning that the Bill places no standards on the person appointed to this position of significant power.
The Bill gives the Coordinator General specific functions,6 mainly revolving around facilitating and coordinating priority projects. Extraordinarily, the Bill gives this taxpayer funded statutory office a function of directly assisting proponents, through “providing advice and assistance to proponents in their engagement with public authorities”.7 There are no requirements for the Coordinator General to consider the public interest, ensure environmental protection, or to undertake public or expert consultation. The role does not support or advance community rights – it appears to erode them by entrenching asymmetry in power between well-resourced proponents and the broader WA community.
Aside from some requirements such as annual reporting,8 there are no significant checks and balances on how the Coordinator General exercises their powers and functions under the Bill. The Coordinator General is not an elected office. This raises serious concerns as to integrity, and whether the functions and powers of this unelected position will face genuine public scrutiny.
Disturbingly, the Bill would seemingly allow the Coordinator General to act even where they have a conflict of interest. There are no safeguards in the Bill prohibiting the Coordinator General from acting in such situations,9 or even declaring conflicts where they arise. The lack of accountability mechanisms, including public consultation on decisions and public rights to seek merits review of decisions, raises the risk of corruption and unchecked executive power.
3. The power to designate “priority projects” is not subject to rigorous criteria and standards
The Bill creates a power for the Minister for State Development (with approval from the Premier) to designate a specified development project10 as a “priority project”11 – this designation would then carry the benefits of several new powers also proposed to be created by the Bill (explained further below).
Ultimately, the Premier has said that the Bill is directed towards facilitating particular kinds of projects in WA – renewable energy, critical minerals, naval shipbuilding and manufacturing. The actual drafting of the Bill means that the powers could be used for any project – uranium mining, fracking, clearing native forest, new coal mines. Even if the current government doesn’t intend to use the powers in the Bill for these projects, another future government would be given the ability to do so.
In designating something as a “priority project”, the Minister is given a broad discretion. The Minister is only required to “have regard to” the Bill’s object, and to be personally “satisfied” that the project is of “strategic or economic significance to the State”.12
The way the power is drafted in the Bill means that the Minister is not required to consider the public interest or the protection of the environment. Nor is the designation subject to a public comment period requiring the Minister to take into account community views.
There are also no objective criteria for the decision – under the current provisions of the Bill, a project does not have to objectively meet particular criteria to qualify for designation, the Minister merely has to subjectively consider particular matters and come to their own conclusions. The Bill does not include any standard that the Minister’s “satisfaction” be evidence-based, reasonable or correct.
This power in the Bill means that, for example, a Minister could think that a new coal mine was economically significant to WA and give it this designation, without being required to show any evidence or modelling, or consult with the WA public, about whether this is objectively true.
4. The Bill creates extraordinary powers that can be used to undermine the intended operation of other WA laws and decision-making processes
Once something has been designated a priority project, the Bill creates two main sets of powers that become available in respect of the project. These are extraordinary mechanisms which effectively give the executive arm of government the power to make their own laws up as they apply to different projects in WA, with agencies made to fall in line instead of following their established statutory processes.
The Bill creates power for the Minister for State Development, or the Coordinator General by delegation, to issue notices to “public authorities” (offices that have some kind of legal responsibility over the project) as to how they exercise functions, through:
- Asking the public authority to have regard to particular matters in making a decision relevant to the project (due regard notice);13
- Requiring the public authority to exercise a function within a specified time (timeframe notice);14
- Requiring the public authority to get the Minister for State Development or Coordinator General to agree with their proposed decision (joint decision notice),15 even if that means the decision is made by considering matters which are ordinarily prohibited from being part of the decision.16
Each of these notice powers is concerning as they have the potential to significantly undermine existing statutory processes and the intention of Parliament in setting important frameworks for decision-making. It disrupts the role of existing statutory processes and the obligations of other public authorities to make important decisions affected the WA community and environment. In our view, this risk is ultimately not acceptable or necessary to take, and therefore the Bill should not proceed as it would have profound undemocratic consequences.
The Bill also creates the power for the Minister for State Development to make orders modifying the way laws apply to the project (modification powers).17 The Minister is given a wide discretion to make these orders without the need to meet any objective criteria. Again, this means that the power can be used according to the Minister’s personal views, without the need for evidence.
While a modification order can’t be used to exclude the requirement for a key approval, it is able to change the grounds, processes or other criteria for approvals such that it could remove all substance underpinning the approval (for example, any environmental criteria or public consultation).18 This could include, for example, changing the requirements of the EP Act to exempt a project from public rights to refer it for assessment, excluding the need for a project to be assessed by the EPA, or preventing public consultation on a project’s environmental impact assessment.
This power creates an unacceptable risk of undermining the intended operation of other WA laws, therefore being inconsistent with the democratic process and separation of powers. This is a key reason why the Bill should not proceed.
5. The State development area framework carries risks of interfering with the intended operation of other WA laws without greater oversight and limits
The Bill creates a framework where the Minister for State Development is given a wide discretionary power to designate particular areas of the State as “State development areas”, which then enlivens further powers and has legal effects to facilitate development within the area.19 It is not subject to a requirement for public consultation, and nor would it be subject to disallowance procedures in Parliament.
As to the implications of declaring a State development area, the Bill creates special processes for projects proposed within the area. This includes requirements on public authorities to involve the Coordinator General in their processes for projects within that area,20 and to have regard to a State development area plan in making their decisions.21 This creates a risk, similar to the points above, that authorities are required to consider matters that are ordinarily outside their scope under WA law, undermining the Parliament’s intention about how that authority would make decisions.
What can you do?
Our view is that the Bill poses unacceptable and unnecessary risks for democratic process, integrity, community participation and protection of cultural and environmental values in WA, and therefore it should not proceed. It does not modernise WA’s environment and planning laws, but instead would establish a retrograde, ad hoc and uncontrolled system of executive government discretion, without transparency or accountability. The Bill should be withdrawn.
The Bill is currently before the WA Parliament, and will need to be passed by both the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council in order to become law. Members of Parliament may move amendments to the Bill during this process. Bills also may be subject to more detailed scrutiny within either House, or be sent for consideration by a Committee. The latter can involve opportunities for public comment. You can stay up to date on the progress of the Bill online here.
We are not aware of any formal opportunities for public comment at this stage.
As with any lawmaking process in our democratic system, you can contact your local Member of Parliament if you wish to raise concerns or make comments on the Bill.
If you have any questions about the information in this blog, please contact [email protected].
1 Available online here.
2 We note that the scope of this explainer does not extend to consideration of the implications of the Bill for planning laws in WA, in relation to which the State development area framework proposed by the Bill is of particular relevance.
3 Bill, cl 3.
4 Bill, cl 3(2).
5 Bill, cl 10.
6 Bill, cl 18.
7 Bill, cl 18(c)(iv).
8 See, eg, Bil, cl 27.
9 Other than the Coordinator General being prevented from having additional “paid employment … without the Minister’s approval”: Bil, cl 11(3).
10 “Development project” is defined widely in cl 4 of the Bill as: a project for carrying out one or more developments [being activities in respect of land, per the definition in s 4 of the Planning and Development Act 2005 (WA)] or activities. Curiously, Clause 30(3) excludes residential developments from designation as priority projects – meaning the power cannot be used to facilitate construction of housing in WA.
11 Bill, cl 30.
12 Bill, cl 30(2).
13 Bill, cl 34.
14 Bill, cl 37. Note that this power is expressly made available in relation to processes under the Aboriginal Heritage Act 1972 (WA), which is otherwise not subject to the terms of the Bill.
15 Bill, cl 40.
16 Bill, cl 42.
17 Bill, cl 49.
18 Bill, cl 50.
19 Bill, cl 60.
20 See, eg, Bill, cls 68, 69.
21 Bill, cl 70.
