Consultation on Queensland's Environmental Offsets Framework

I'd like to begin today by acknowledging the Traditional Owners on the land of which we meet. For us in Meanjin, it's the Turrbal and JaAgera peoples. We recognise their connection to land, sea and community and pay our respects to elders past and present. I'd also like to extend that acknowledgement to the land on which you are joining from today.
I'll be helping to facilitate the session and ensure everything runs smoothly online.
If you're not familiar with this format, I'll quickly run you through how today will work.
Today's session will be delivered in two parts. Part 1 will be a presentation providing further information on the discussion paper, and Part 2 will be a Q&A session.
Please note that the presentation component part one is being recorded. The question and answer session will not be recorded.
Throughout the session, you can submit your questions you'd like to ask our team using the Q&A chat function at the top of your screen. You can also vote for the questions you'd like to be answered first.
To submit a question, click the Q&A tab at the top banner. If it doesn't appear, it might be hidden in the ’more‘ tab with the three dots.
Once you open it, press the share updates or start a discussion and type in your question.
We'll aim to get through as many questions as possible during the Q&A session, which will run for approximately 30 minutes following the presentation.
If you would prefer to ask your question verbally, please use the raise hand function and we will invite you to come off mute at the appropriate time.
We will do our best to respond to your questions. If we don't get to your question or it requires a more detailed response, please include it in your written submission.
Thank you again for joining us and I'd like to hand over to our Executive Director, Kahil Lloyd, from the Environment and Conservation Policy and Legislation Branch.
Thanks, Roxanne. Thanks, Roxanne. And thank you, everyone. So as Roxanne said, my name is Kahil Lloyd, the Executive Director of our Environment and Conservation Policy and Legislation team here in the Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation. I've got a few of my team online today to be able to chat through the discussion paper which was released last week. So, Jess Jennings is the manager of our Offsets Policy and Ledge team. So, she's online and we'll run through a lot of the paper for you today to be able to talk through those three focus areas which are included in the paper. But I did want to first start by saying thank you to all of you for taking time out of your busy week to join us to chat through the paper. We're really keen on getting your feedback as part of this, and it really is the start of a conversation around how we look at our state's Environmental Offsets Framework and what improvements we could do there as well to respond to issues. So, as I mentioned, this session is part of our consultation process to review and update
Queensland's Environmental Offsets Framework. And this is the first of many engagement sessions that we're keen to do around this, including some targeted sessions with any organisations out there. So, if you're keen to chat to us further, please reach out. We'll share our details at the end of this presentation as well for you to reach out to us.
I think many of you know that Queensland's Environmental Offsets Framework was introduced in 2014, so it's been in place now for over 10 years. And there are some challenges with the framework. It's, you know, after 10 years, it's always a good time to pause and reflect and review how it's working.
and what those matters are that we want to look to address in the future. And that's really what shaped up the three focus areas in the discussion paper. So, the first one being around unlocking the Offsets Fund. We've received a lot of funds over the years, and there are some challenges in being able to implement those. So we're keen on getting feedback around what approach we should take into the future around ensuring that we're delivering good conservation outcomes from that in line with the Act's objective. We're keen to seek feedback through this process around the financial settlement calculator, which is part of our offsets framework. That again has been in place since 2014, so we're keen to seek feedback on the settings within that, and as the paper notes that that will require broader discussion and consideration. And then the third element of the discussion paper looks at our regulatory settings at the state level. One of the key elements which were also keen to seek feedback through this and what's been a real driver for us being able to release our discussion paper now is the reforms at the Commonwealth level around the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.
We've been really keen to see where some of those settings have been landing and are really, I think now in a position once a bit of those details are out there, still a bit to be confirmed, but a lot of that information is out there at the moment. Really keen to seek your feedback through this process around any learnings from that which you think that we should consider in the state level, so that we can look at alignment. Obviously, a key element of Queensland's Environmental Offsets Framework is to remove duplication between state and Commonwealth matters. So now that that kind of detail is getting a bit clearer, we're keen to seek feedback through this process around what we need to do as part of that process. So really keen on seeking your thoughts on that.
So I might pause there. Again, thank you for taking the time to join us today. Jess will do a bit of an overview of the paper itself and those key focus areas. And then Jess and I will be really keen to answer any questions that you may have at the end. But most importantly, I'm more interested in hearing from all of you, particularly through our submissions or surveys.
or if you want to chat and reach out to the team and have a chat with us and discuss your thoughts as well, we would be keen to do that. So, I'll stop there and hand over to you, Jess, to start to run through the paper.
Thank you, Kahil. And hello and good morning. My name is Jessica Jennings and I'm in the privileged position of shaping how environmental offsets can help Queensland protect its most valuable asset, our beautiful environment. Today, I'm going to cover the Environmental Offsets Framework.
the steps for our review, and then having a look at the discussion paper under those three focus areas. After that, we'll do some questions and answers, and then we'll tell you how you can have your say.
Queensland is the most biologically diverse state in Australia. Over 14,000 native plant species are found within the state, and more than 1/3 of those are found nowhere else in the world. Queensland is home to almost 3/4 of Australia's native bird species, more than four-fifths of its mammals, and just over half of its native reptiles and frogs. Environmental offsets are used to counterbalance the unavoidable impacts of development by replacing environmental values elsewhere. So impacts after avoidance and mitigation have been actioned on important species and ecosystems at a project level.
This is increasingly important as Queensland's growing population drives the need for development.
The Queensland Government has a target to deliver 1 million new homes by 2044. This will drive significant infrastructure projects, such as upgrades to water supply, sewage systems and roads. Striking the right balance between growth and environmental stewardship is essential.
Queensland's Environmental Offsets Framework is governed by the Environmental Offsets Act, the Environmental Offsets Regulation and the Environmental Offsets Policy, as well as a suite of supporting documents and guidelines. Where an offset condition is imposed from an activity, the delivery of the offset is met for either through a proponent delivered offset.
A financial payment made to a local or state government, or a combination of both.
Here are the steps that we propose to undertake to review our framework.
The Environmental Offsets Regulation is due to expire in August 2027 and must be reviewed to ensure it remains fit for purpose. This review provides an opportunity to take a look at the framework as a whole. The first step is to consult on the discussion paper and receive feedback to help us understand what is important for Queenslanders. The second step is to progress to Parliament the streamlining reforms to the Environmental Offsets Act as outlined in our discussion paper.
Last but not least, we will finalise the sunset review, which will be shaped by what we hear from the discussion paper, and then subject to further consultation. This part of the review will include consideration of the Offsets Policy, including the financial settlement calculator within.
The discussion paper presents three focus areas that we are seeking feedback on. Those are how we can unlock the offset account.
How financial settlement offsets are calculated, and how we can improve regulation.
Let's start with Focus Area 1, the offsets account. A large majority of the offset conditions imposed under Queensland legislation are met through financial settlement offset payments.
Payments are made into the offset account, which is administered by the Queensland Government.
Some of the data that we have shared in the discussion paper, you can see on your slide now. So 90% of Offsets have been settled via financial settlements.
There's been 503 authorities with offset conditions.
There's 8,630 hectares of impacted area.
With some financial settlement payments, we have received over 100 and twenty-nine million.
Since July 2024, we have received 45% of that, so $58.5 million.
There's been 14.2 million contracted for projects. As you can see, there have been some challenges in delivering financial settlement offset projects over time.
These challenges include complexity and confusion. The state legislation can be difficult to interpret, and interaction with the Commonwealth offsets framework increases confusion. Landholder concerns. There is a perceived negative impact to property value.
and negative attitudes towards legal security and what is considered locking down land use options. Long-term obligations. Challenges in engaging landholders or suppliers for managing offsets over extended periods.
Market competition. Increasingly, we are seeing there are more opportunities available to landholders through other environmental markets.
Limited suitable options. Difficulty in finding land with specific habitat requirements at the scale needed for some impacts. Finding suitable land can be super hard when the impacted matter requires niche habitats or has limited distribution.
Further, the cost of products and land is rising, making it difficult to meet the principles of offset delivery.
Lengthy processes. Agreement is required from all parties that have an interest on title. This is a lengthy process and can be very difficult as all parties have very different perspectives and values.
Here's some of the measures that we are looking at to unlock the offset account.
Improving land sector engagement. This means better promoting the opportunities and financial incentives, proactively engaging and seeking real-time market feedback. We want to promote project uptake by better engagement.
Partnering to deliver. This means exploring alternative partnership methods to achieve conservation outcomes. This might include partnering with natural resource management groups, who are often well placed to engage with the market and deliver outcomes quickly.
Expanding flexible offset delivery. This will involve exploring more practical pathways to source and deliver offset projects. Flexibility in delivery could efficiently leverage existing funds to expand opportunities for environmental stewardship.
Other measures include supporting the development of a stronger advanced offset market and identifying opportunities for expanding the protected area estate, where the values are compatible with the objectives of protected areas.
I would now like to talk to our case study in the discussion paper, the Carpentarian grasswren project.
Here, permanent land acquisition and ongoing legal security arrangements were just not feasible. So instead, the Southern Gulf Natural Resource Management team is delivering a project over six years that spans across multiple properties in 10 years.
The project aims to enhance fire management techniques and monitor Carpentarian grasswren populations. The project will actively engage traditional owners, pastoral landholders, local and state governments, research organisations and conservation groups to achieve its goals.
Beyond environmental benefits, it delivers significant economic co-benefits by creating regional employment opportunities in science and conservation. This project demonstrates how environmental offsets can drive both ecological preservation and regional economic growth.
I've just popped onto the slide the questions as they appear in the discussion paper. These are some thoughts to get you started.
Do you have any views or suggestions about how we could unlock our offset account?
What are some of the ways that the challenges outlined could be addressed?
How could a flexible delivery model ensure conservation outcomes?
Next, I'd like to move on to Focus Area 2.
how financial offsets are calculated.
Five issues have been identified in the financial settlement offset calculator. These include...
Outdated costs. The calculator has not been updated or indexed since it was introduced in 2014. As a result, on-ground management, administration and landholder incentive costs do not reflect current market conditions, particularly where offsets are delivered with Private landholders.
This means simply that incentives are not often enough to attract landholders to deliver offsets.
Sliding scale discounts that apply to large offset areas allow reductions in cost of up to 90%, where a terrestrial offset requirement is greater than 10,000 hectares.
These discounts assume that there are strong economies of scale. That is, the cost per hectare to deliver the offset should be less for large offset areas. This has not proven accurate. In practice, this has reduced funds available for offset delivery, delayed offset delivery, and reduced conservation outcomes.
Distinct matter area discounts. These allow for multiple environmental matters to be rolled into one offset payment. This has increased cost and delivery delays, as offset sites often cannot meet the diverse ecological requirements of all the matters.
Fixed multipliers. The multipliers that are used in the calculator are too small for some environmental matters, risking insufficient conservation outcomes. The last key issue that we have identified is a lack of contingency margins. To account, or for uncertainties such as natural disasters, which undermines the reliability and resilience of our framework.
We are proposing a review of the financial settlement offset calculator to address the issues identified.
There is an opportunity here to align Queensland's approach with the recent reforms to the Commonwealth Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Under the Commonwealth's reforms, proponents can now deliver offsets through financial settlement, and the Commonwealth is developing its own financial settlement offset calculator to support this change. Aligning Queensland's calculator with the Commonwealth's approach could facilitate future Commonwealth accreditation of Queensland's framework and further streamline offset delivery.
We are seeking your ideas and thoughts in this initial phase. However, there will be a separate consultation process to support any suggested amendments to the financial offset settlement calculator.
Please note, this will be considered in 2027.
On the screen, I've added some of the questions as they appear in the discussion paper. So we're asking, do you think that the current settings for the financial settlement offset calculator are appropriate?
How can Queensland ensure the financial settlement offset calculator is a robust tool for conservation and for business?
Are there any matters related to the calculation of offsets which should be considered?
To what extent do you support alignment with the Commonwealth's proposed offset calculator?
The last focus area that we're going to cover today is how we can improve our regulation.
We've previously undertaken consultation with stakeholders.
And what we have heard is that there are several issues with our regulations, making it difficult to deliver offsets effectively and efficiently.
And we agree the legislation is complex and unclear.
As outlined earlier in our steps for review, after our consultation, we'll be looking to make amendments to the Offsets Act to clarify the operation of the Act.
Let's have a look at some of the specific problems we have identified and some of the ideas we propose to improve our Act.
The first problem is clarity. We are looking to relocate and consolidate key concepts to make things easier to understand.
The first thing to provide clarity on is the application of the offsets mitigation hierarchy. We are proposing to put the mitigation hierarchy right up front in the Act. Previously, provisions have been scattered. There is no proposed change to the offset triggers. We are holding the status quo here and modernising the Act to provide greater clarity about a principle which has, and always will be, a foundational principle in our framework.
We are proposing to move provisions from the regulation to the Act and group those scattered definitions, processes.
and requirements to make it easier to understand.
and to reduce compliance costs. This also meets the modern standards for how legislation is written.
We are proposing to modernize administrative processes by having clear steps for handling applications, for requesting additional information.
And for withdrawing applications.
Finally, we are looking to clarify provisions dealing with cumulative impacts and staged offsets. What this means is that when a project in a location is delivered in stages or grows over time, how the offset is conditioned can consider the total impact of that project.
Through this process, we are seeking to improve alignment with existing legislation.
The next problem we identified is inefficient processes for financial settlement offsets.
We are proposing to allow agencies in some circumstances to impose a financial settlement offset when they create the offset condition, removing several extra steps. We are also proposing to streamline the process for payments when an activity is considered accepted development under the Planning Act. What this means is that we are simplifying the process for when infrastructure activities become accepted development because an offset will be delivered.
The next thing we're looking at is issues with legal security. Legal security is a key requirement for proponent delivered offsets and there are a few hiccups with our current Act.
Currently, we have two steps requiring landholder consent during the offset site approval and legal security process. We are proposing to require landholder consent only once, to make it quicker to get the land secured.
We are also proposing to enable environmental offset protection areas to provide legal security for Commonwealth offsets.
Under the Commonwealth's Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, an offset must be registered on title. The approach used in the past with declared areas is no longer acceptable as a long-term solution. So our proposal will bridge this gap as well as facilitating the delivery of integrated state and Commonwealth offsets.
Yes.
The last issue we identified is with the limits on advanced offsets. We are proposing to allow landholders to establish advanced offsets for both State and Commonwealth environmental matters, reducing delays and expanding market opportunities for landholders.
What this means is that when a landholder wants to do an advance offset on their land, it can be picked up by both the Commonwealth and the state system.
We are looking to remove barriers for offsets secured as protected areas. The barrier is that the Offset Act does not recognize the additional benefits of legally securing an advanced offset as a protected area and then requires further legal security
when the advanced offset is picked up to meet an offset requirement.
The next step will be to look at the Environmental Offsets Policy.
These are being presented as considerations for feedback today, and what we hear will support the changes when we look at this as part of the regulation review.
Currently, the rules for locating offset sites are scattered in the policy. We would like to consolidate those rules to clarify how offsets can be located, prioritizing the use of advanced offset areas as well as biodiversity restoration areas under both
regional plans and local plans.
We recognize that expanding the application of indirect offsets may also be necessary. Indirect offsets are offsets that are not strictly land-based. For example, our Carpentarian grasswren fire project. We are seeking your feedback on broadening the scope of these indirect offsets beyond research and education to include threat mitigation where this is justified.
Currently, the Offsets Policy specifies that only 10% of an offset can be delivered as an indirect offset.
We are proposing that this percentage is increased so long as it achieves a better conservation outcome.
The last thing in the policy that we are looking at to improve is the limited application of connectivity offsets. We are proposing to permit improvement of regrowth or poor quality remnant vegetation as part of connectivity offsets, enabling the creation of biodiversity corridors, and improving ecosystem resilience. All of these things are our proposals, and what we are asking from you is that you think about these and give us any of the ideas that you think we should be considering in our review.
Once again, I’ve shared some of the discussion paper questions on the screen.
Do you support the proposed amendments to the Act? And what do you think about the policy changes we are proposing? Why or why not? What issues require further?
What issues require further consideration within the context of the framework?
And what else would you suggest to improve the framework?
I will now hand back to Roxanne to facilitate the questions and answers.
Thank you, Jess, for walking us through the current landscape, the Environmental Offsets Framework, and the key focus areas outlined in the discussion paper. We'll now move into the Q&A portion of today's session. Just a reminder that this part of the session will not be recorded.