Committee Details

Committee's report

The committee report was tabled on Wednesday, 20 October 2021.

About the Bill

On Wednesday 21 April 2021, Mr Nicholas (Nick) Dametto MP, Member for Hinchinbrook, introduced the Environmental and Other Legislation (Reversal of Great Barrier Reef Protection Measures) Amendment Bill 2021 (Bill). The Bill was referred to the Health and Environment Committee (the committee) for detailed consideration and report by Thursday 21 October 2021.

The explanatory notes state that the main policy objective of the Bill is to repeal a number of amendments made by the Environmental Protection (Great Barrier Reef Protection Measures) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019. 

The Environmental Protection (Great Barrier Reef Protection Measures) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 (the 2019 Bill) was referred to the Innovation, Tourism Development and Environment Committee (ITDEC) during the 56th Parliament.  The ITDEC tabled their report on 29 April 2019 and the 2019 Bill was passed on 19 September 2019.  More information about the 2019 Bill can be found here.

The Bill before the committee seeks to repeal the amendments made in the Environmental Protection (Great Barrier Reef Protection Measures) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019 to the Environmental Protection Act 1994 and Chemical Usage (Agricultural and Veterinary) Control Act 1988 including: 

• restoring the maximum penalty for an offence under the Act to 100 penalty units as opposed to the current penalties of either 600 or 1,665 penalty units.
• reverting to the previous definition of the agriculture environmentally relevant activities (ERA) being limited to activities that involve commercial sugarcane cropping and cattle grazing carried out on an agricultural property of more than 2,000 hectares.
• limit red and green tape by taking some of the regulatory burden away from farmers.

According to the explanatory speech, the Bill also seeks to:

• establish an independent regulator for the industry to advise the minister when making a new ERA standard and would oversee the administering of offences when a person commits an offence with respect to fertiliser application.
• introduce an enforceable undertaking so that there is no financial penalty for a person committing a first offence.
• mandate that the Minister publish on the department’s website a copy of each ERA standard made by the Minister and the recommendations by the independent regulator in relation to the ERA standard.

Submissions

Submissions closed on Wednesday, 30 June 2021 at 5:00pm.  The submissions are available under the view submissions tab.

Timeline

More information

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