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Legislation

Amendments to legislation

Economic Development Queensland operates under the Economic Development Act 2012 (ED Act).

The ED Act establishes a streamlined planning and development assessment framework that applies to declared priority development areas (PDAs) within the state.

Amendments to the Act were made as part of the Economic Development and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019 (EDOLAA) on 11 April 2019.

Economic Development and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2019

The amendments follow a review of the Economic Development Act (ED Act) which focussed on planning and development assessment, including how the ED Act interacts with other Acts.

The amendments will improve existing processes to help deliver government priorities, including delivery of the Cross River Rail and other projects aimed at generating growth and job opportunities across the state.

Certain provisions came into effect immediately. Other provisions (mainly those relating to development assessment) commenced on 9 December 2019.

Key amendments

  • more flexible time frames for planning in priority development areas (PDAs) to respond to new or different circumstances
  • new ability to make a minor change to the boundary of a PDA in limited circumstances and to make a PDA larger by replacing it with a new PDA following the normal declaration process
  • improved ability to change back to the Planning Act when an area no longer needs to be in a PDA
  • a new way of declaring provisional PDAs that involves consultation with the local government and community, including the setting up of a local consultative committee and the opportunity to make submissions on a draft plan
  • improvements to the PDA development application process to make the steps in the process clearer and allow applications that are not active to lapse
  • new and updated provisions that are similar to the Planning Act, for example, in relation to development that does not require approval and actions that can be taken if development does not meet the requirements of a PDA development approval
  • improved interaction between the ED Act and a number of other Acts, such as the Building Act 1975 and Environmental Protection Act 1994, to allow, for example PDA development approvals to be considered when decisions are made under those Acts in the same way as development approvals under the Planning Act are considered.

View a summary of the key amendments (PDF icon 181 KB) to the ED Act and other related Acts.

View the Amendment Act and Explanatory Notes for further details.

Changes to the interpretation of PDA exempt and PDA self-assessable development

As a result of amendments to the ED Act, the development categories PDA self-assessable development and PDA exempt development have been replaced with the new category, PDA accepted development.

This means that development instruments (i.e. both Interim Land Use Plans (ILUPs) and development schemes) made after the ED Act was amended will now refer to PDA accepted development.

However, when interpreting an Interim Land Use Plan (ILUP) or development scheme made before the Act was amended:

  • read PDA exempt development as - PDA accepted development
  • read PDA self-assessable development as - PDA accepted development, subject to compliance with any applicable development requirements.

Ministerial direction

Impact analysis statements

Last updated: 22 Sep 2023