Queensland enters dangerous territory as environment, planning law overridden

The Queensland Conservation Council has today raised major concerns with the Queensland Government’s plan to override environment and planning laws for Olympic venues.

This comes as the Crisafulli Government announced the introduction of new legislation that aims to increase the community engagement and benefits of large-scale renewable energy projects.

Queensland Conservation Council Director Dave Copeman said

This move by the Queensland Government to allow unchecked development for the Olympics is irresponsible and sets a dangerous precedent that the Government is willing to override the law.

Habitat across South East Queensland is shrinking, and especially for our endangered koala population, we need to make sure that every Olympic venue is well sited and responsibly developed.

We strongly believe that the potential environmental impacts of all types of development, whether for the Olympics, housing or energy, should be rigorously assessed.

We have been calling for better community consultation and regional community benefit sharing from renewable projects.

It remains to be seen though how proposed new renewable energy legislation would work in practice. This could potentially be a wolf in sheep's clothing if the Government uses this process to halt renewable projects based on ideology over evidence.

The Queensland LNP’s consistent rhetoric about streamlining fossil fuels approvals, and their plans to review the State’s 75 per cent emissions reduction target, is ringing alarm bells about how serious they are about protecting our environment and acting on climate change.

When we invite the world to Queensland for the Olympics it would be an international embarrassment if the Government’s actions have pushed our koala population to the brink and further degraded our precious Reef.

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