11 August 2023

Corrigendum to the report: Review of the Regional Planning Interests Act 2014 Assessment Process

On page 21 of the, under the heading of other observations, the GasFields Commission Queensland’s report Review of the Regional Planning Interests Act 2014 originally stated the following:

The RPI Act allows for a range of other exemptions in addition to the Exemption – land owner agreement. These include:

• Exemption – activity carried out for less than 1 year
• Exemption – pre-existing resource activity
• Exemption – wild river area under the repealed Wild Rivers Act 2005
• Exemption – pre-existing regulated activity.

These four exemptions were not commented on by submitters. Aside from Exemption – activity carried out for less than 1 year, these are not exclusive to the regional interests of PAAs or SCAs. As such it would not be appropriate to assess these and make any specific recommendations outside of a more comprehensive review that included examining other regional interests such as PLAs or SEAs.

The statement ‘These four exemptions were not commented on by submitters…’  is incorrect as other exemptions were raised in stakeholder submissions received and considered as part of the review.

The corrected paragraph is listed below:

Whilst these exemptions were raised by submitters, as these exemptions (with the exception of the ‘exemption – activities carried out for less than a year’) are not exclusive to the regional interests of PAAs or SCAs it would not be appropriate to assess these and make any specific recommendations outside of a more comprehensive review that included examining other regional interests such as PLAs or SEAs.

The error and correction do not materially affect the review outcomes or recommendations. The Review Report clearly states that the reason the Commission did not address these other exemptions based on the view that due to the potential for unintended consequences in areas out of scope for the review (i.e. Priority Living Areas and Strategic Environmental Areas), it would not be appropriate for the Commission to comment or make recommendations without broader considerations.