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COMMITTEE’S REPORT

The committee tabled its Report No. 31, 57th Parliament - Waste Reduction and Recycling and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 on Friday, 14 April 2023. The Bill was passed with amendment by the Queensland Parliament on 24 May 2023.

View: Report
View: Debate on the Bill in Parliament: Transcript 24 May 2023 (starts at page 1578)
          The debate on the Bill can viewed by clicking on the movie icon within the above transcript.
 

Further material about the bill including any written briefings from the department, responses to submissions and questions taken on notice are available under the Related Publications tab.

ABOUT THE BILL 

On 22 February 2023, Hon Meaghan Scanlon MP, Minister for the Environment and the Great Barrier Reef and Minister for Science and Youth Affairs, introduced the Waste Reduction and Recycling and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023 into the Queensland Parliament. The Bill was referred to the Health and Environment Committee for detailed consideration. 

View: Bill
View: Explanatory speech
View: Explanatory notes
View: Statement of compatibility 

The policy objectives of the Bill are to:

• enable a thing to be prescribed by regulation to not be a waste, and move the definition of waste from the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (EP Act) to the Waste Reduction and Recycling Act 2011 (WRR Act)
• remove the automatic levy exemption for clean earth and then remove the definition of clean earth, to take effect from 1 July 2023
• ban the outdoor release of any number of lighter-than-air balloons, from 1 September 2023
• enable the chief executive to make a decision about amending or suspending a Resource Recovery Area declaration
• enable the chief executive to make a decision about making a payment to a local government to mitigate direct effects of the waste levy on households in a local government area
• include the circular economy principle as a principle under the WRR Act
• change the review date for the state’s Waste Strategy from 3 to 5 years
• set an expiry date of 31 December 2025 for the exemption from the ban for a single-use plastic item that is an integral part of a shelf-ready product (such as a plastic straw attached to a juice box).

The Bill includes consequential amendments to the Biosecurity Act 2014 and the Rural and Regional Adjustment Regulation 2011 as a result of moving the definition of waste from the EP Act to the WRR Act.

TIMELINE