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Economic Development Act Update

  • September 20, 2018

Economic Development Act Update

The Economic Development and Other Legislation Amendment (EDOLA) Bill 2018 was introduced to Parliament on 19 September 2018. A number of amendments are proposed across several Acts with many of the provisions affecting the property industry.

Key highlights of the Bill include:

• Amending the Building Queensland Act 2015 (BQ Act) – amendments include: changing the threshold for which business cases are led by Building Queensland (BQ), removing low cost but high-risk road infrastructure proposals, and reducing the frequency of publication of the Infrastructure Pipeline Report (IPR) to an annual one.
• Amendments to the Economic Act 2012 (ED Act) and other Acts consequential to the operation of the ED Act – These improve alignment between the ED Act and the Planning Act 2016 to provide more flexibility around the declaration of Priority Development Areas (PDA) and their associated instruments.
• Amendments to the Planning Act 2016 – validating infrastructure charge notices (ICNs) issued under the repealed SPA since July 2014 is among the amendments.  Remove the requirement for a submitter appellant to serve a notice of appeal to all other submitters to the development application.  This provision will be applied retrospectively to any appeal filed that did not comply with the provision.
• Amending the Planning and Environmental Court Act 2016 (P&E Court Act), to allow the P&E Court Act to refer matters for private mediation, in addition to the referral of matters to the Alternative Dispute Resolution Registrar.
 
The Bill also amends the Queensland Reconstruction Authority Act 2011 (QRA Act), the Sanctuary Cove Resort Act 1985 (SCR Act), the South Bank Corporation Act 1989 (SBC Act), and repeals the Southern Moreton Bay Islands Development Entitlements Protection Act 2004 (SMBI Act.

The Property Council has provided feedback to the Department of State Development, Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Planning on many of the proposed amendments contained in the Bill.

To access a copy of the Bill and the Explanatory Notes visit Parliament’s website.