Queensland’s proposed State Development Bill* would hand extraordinary and largely unchecked powers to the Minister for State Development and the Coordinator-General to fast-track assessment of any hand-picked development — powers that threaten community rights, First Nations interests, private property and the environment.  

It is EDO’s view that the Bill should not be passed and instead for government go back to the drawing board. 

A backdoor to rewriting Queensland’s laws 

Well beyond existing powers to overrule regular planning laws, one of the major concerns with the Bill are “modification orders” that would allow a single Minister to alter how any Queensland laws apply to declared State Significant Projects.  

Compared to the usual process for changing the law, there would be only very limited parliamentary scrutiny and no public consultation required before a modification order is made. Challenging the lawfulness of such orders in court would also be very difficult, costly and risky. Laws that have provided rigorous assessment and accountability for the state’s largest projects for decades — including the Environmental Protection Act, Nature Conservation Act, and Mineral Resources Act — could be watered down or almost excluded at the stroke of a pen. The Bill would also majorly undermine the proper operation of the Human Rights Act.  

Despite government claims that human rights impacts can only be assessed project by project, the Bill itself would enable modification orders that could strip away significant human rights protections — including a person’s ability to complain that they have been arbitrarily deprived of their property.  

This is an anti-democratic, ad hoc and opaque way of changing the law in the future and in respect of particular projects, all but bypassing the parliament elected to make it. 

First Nations rights at risk 

The Bill’s purported safeguards for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples do not go far enough. Nothing prevents modification orders from removing the statutory notification, negotiation and dispute-resolution processes that underpin Cultural Heritage Management Plans.  

Fast-tracked approvals will also increase pressure on First Nations groups negotiating with proponents and are likely to increase future acts affecting native title. 

The impacts will not fall evenly.  

Critical mineral zones in north-west Queensland are home to a far higher proportion of First Nations residents than the rest of the state — meaning access authorities, enabling works and compulsory acquisitions under the Bill could disproportionately affect these communities.  

Yet the government did not meaningfully consult First Nations organisations before introducing the Bill. 

Failure to do so contravenes the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent, outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which Australia endorsed in 2009.  

Every landowner should be concerned 

The Bill allows privately held land to be more readily taken by the Coordinator-General and handed to private developers — contrary to the long-standing principle that land is compulsorily acquired only for public purposes.  

New access permits for “enabling works” could be granted, allowing proponents of state strategic projects to clear vegetation and construct buildings, including worker accommodation, on private land without landowner consent.  

Compensation is only available after the damage is done, with the onus on the landowner to pursue it. 

What needs to happen 

Environmental protection and prosperity are not mutually exclusive — Queensland can and should have both.  

The Government should bin the Bill and go back to square one. It needs to follow its own Better Regulation Policy and do the proper work – including clearly setting out the actual evidence of any problem it seeks to solve and the options and impacts of those options. In doing so, it must undertake genuine public consultation, including with First Nations stakeholders, community groups and the legal profession. 

Queenslanders — now and for generations to come — deserve laws that protect people, nature and good governance. This Bill fails on every count. 

What EDO has done 

EDO has made a submission to the Queensland parliamentary committee’s inquiry into the Bill and gave evidence remotely to a committee hearing in Mackay on July 14. 

*The full title of the bill is State Development and Public Works Organisation (Critical Minerals) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026.