Queensland Productivity Commission inquiry into 2025 EPBC Act reforms: what it means for major project approvals
The Queensland Government has formally directed the Queensland Productivity Commission (QPC) to conduct a 12-month public inquiry into the economic and regulatory impacts of the Federal Government’s 2025 reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth) (EPBC Act). The inquiry was announced in April 2026 and is a significant formal examination of Commonwealth environmental approval processes to have been initiated at the state level in recent years. For environmental professionals, developers, legal advisers, and infrastructure investors operating in Queensland, the inquiry carries direct and immediate relevance to how major projects are scoped, assessed, and ultimately delivered.
The Queensland Renewable Energy Council (QREC) has publicly welcomed the inquiry but is urging the Queensland Government to expand its terms of reference. Specifically, QREC is calling for the review to examine how state and local government environmental approvals interact with EPBC assessments, arguing that the current layering of jurisdictional requirements is creating material delays and cost burdens for proponents. According to QREC, a one-year delay in environmental assessment on a $400 million project can add upwards of $20 million in holding and opportunity costs. That figure alone illustrates why this inquiry extends well beyond regulatory housekeeping and into the domain of project viability and investment confidence.
The broader policy backdrop is the Federal Government’s 2025 legislative reforms to the EPBC Act, which introduced updated requirements around how Matters of National Environmental Significance (MNES) are evaluated, referral thresholds, and assessment pathways. These changes have created new points of friction between Commonwealth obligations and existing state-level assessment frameworks, particularly in Queensland where bilateral assessment agreements were calibrated to an earlier version of the Act. The QPC inquiry will need to grapple directly with these misalignments.
Key details of the QPC inquiry and the regulatory fault lines it must address
The QPC inquiry has been set a 12-month timeframe, making it a substantive process rather than a rapid review. The Queensland Productivity Commission operates as an independent advisory body to the Queensland Government, and its findings and recommendations carry considerable weight in shaping policy and legislative reform. The scope currently directed at the QPC centres on the economic and regulatory impacts of the 2025 EPBC Act reforms on major projects, which would include renewable energy infrastructure, resources developments, transport corridors, and large-scale urban and industrial developments that trigger MNES referral obligations.
The 2025 EPBC Act reforms introduced changes to the assessment framework that affect how MNES are identified and evaluated during the referral and impact assessment stages. Under the EPBC Act, MNES include matters such as listed threatened species and ecological communities, migratory species protected under international agreements, Ramsar wetlands, Commonwealth marine areas, nuclear actions, and world heritage properties. The 2025 reforms updated evaluation criteria and introduced new procedural requirements around how impacts to these matters must be demonstrated and documented, particularly in Environmental Impact Statements and supporting technical appendices.
The friction QREC has identified is not hypothetical. Under existing bilateral assessment agreements between Queensland and the Commonwealth, the intention is to allow Queensland to conduct a single integrated environmental assessment that satisfies both state and federal requirements, thereby avoiding duplication. However, where the 2025 federal reforms have introduced updated evidentiary standards or assessment criteria that diverge from Queensland’s own framework under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld) and the State Development and Public Works Organisation Act 1971 (Qld), proponents are finding that a single assessment process is no longer sufficient. Consultants are being required to prepare separate technical sections or standalone appendices to address divergent Commonwealth criteria, particularly around ecological surveying standards, significance thresholds, and biodiversity offset calculations.
The $20 million cost estimate attributed to a one-year assessment delay on a $400 million project reflects holding costs, financing costs, escalation in construction pricing, and foregone revenue or production. For renewable energy projects specifically, delays can also affect eligibility for federal funding rounds, power purchase agreement timelines, and grid connection scheduling. These are not abstract risks; they are the kinds of factors that cause project sponsors to reconsider Queensland as a jurisdiction or to restructure project sequencing in ways that reduce overall investment.
Australian regulatory context: bilateral agreements, EPBC reform, and the path to harmonisation
Australia’s environmental approval system for major projects operates across two primary tiers: Commonwealth assessment under the EPBC Act, and state-level assessment under jurisdiction-specific legislation. Queensland’s primary instruments for major project assessment are the Coordinator-General’s evaluation process under the State Development and Public Works Organisation Act 1971 (Qld) and the environmental impact assessment process under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (Qld). These state processes are linked to the Commonwealth framework through bilateral assessment agreements, which are formal instruments under Part 5 of the EPBC Act that allow accreditation of state assessment processes as satisfying Commonwealth requirements, reducing duplication for proponents navigating both frameworks simultaneously.
References and related sources
- Primary source: qrec.org.au
- EPBC Act
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This is an iEnvi Machete news summary. Prepared by iEnvi to summarise the source article for contaminated land, groundwater, remediation, approvals and site risk professionals.
Published: 20 Apr 2026
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