“No sense:” One year on, Queensland’s strict new renewables rules still baffle developers and councils

Queensland’s strict new planning regime for large-scale renewable energy and battery storage projects remains “very messy and very complicated,” one year down the track, as councils are forced to “learn on the job” and developers find themselves mired in lengthy, early-stage project delays.

The planning rules, unveiled by the Queensland LNP in May 2025, require developers to complete social impact assessments (SIA) and enter into “binding” community benefit agreements (CBA) with local governments before they can apply for state approval.

“Assessments will be undertaken at the outset – not after – before the development application is put in,” state planning minister Jarrod Bleijie told state parliament, at the time. “This will enable communities to have a say about what is important to them.”

But at the 2026 Wind Industry Forum this week, environment and sustainability lawyer Matthew Thornton-Dibb, from Pinsent Masons, said this aspect of the new rules was creating a range of unnecessary risks and challenges, both for project developers and local councils.

“I think it’s good that there is a social impact assessment. I think it’s good that there is a community benefit agreement that is mandatory,” Thornton-Dibb told the conference in Melbourne on Tuesday. 

“[But] it probably doesn’t need to delay development applications being submitted. There’s no sense in that at all.

“You cannot lodge development application until you have a CBA executed by council, so you run the risk of extensive time delays at an early stage, where … you don’t even know the final design, or even a detailed design of [the project].

“Your community benefit agreement …[therefore] needs to try and find a way of evolving with the project, which is very challenging and very difficult to get councils over the line on, and this results in lengthy delays to projects, because they can’t proceed on development application [until the CBA is secured].”

On the local government side of the equation, Thornton-Dibb says there are “widely differing views” between councils on how CBAs should be negotiated – and what territory they should cover, as opposed to a development approval – and no deadlock mechanism if negotiations stall.

“It’s a novel regime, which means that councils are having to learn on the job,” he told the conference. 

“Our experience is that the different councils are very differently equipped to deal with this and are approaching the process quite differently. 

“Some of the councils are generating endless amounts of policy documents and procedures that need to be complied with. Others are far more pragmatic and more amenable to allowing developers to develop. 

“Currently, I think there have only been two or three CBAs that have been executed in Queensland, with a whole lot of them in the pipeline, waiting for councils to decide if they want to actually start negotiating and… no real mechanism to break any deadlock… so you really are stuck at their whims. 

“It’s a question: what’s holding them up? Whether councils are just wanting to delay projects because they don’t have the appetite for them, or whether they just don’t really understand what they need to do in this regime?

“So it’s just it’s very messy and very complicated.”

Nathan Hart, the director of advocacy and community engagement at the Clean Energy Council, which hosted the Wind Industry Forum, said that while it was pleasing to see some CBAs had been signed, the troubles that were emerging from the new regime were not unexpected.

“There are some real leading councils, like Western Downs and Isaac Regional Council, but obviously there are a lot of councils in Queensland… and [there’s a] spectrum in their maturity and experience,” Hart said.

“It was a disappointing experience to see industry’s point of view almost completely ignored throughout that entire reform process, and almost all of our concerns are starting to play out.”

It’s ironic, because the LNP government has been claiming this week that its Energy Roadmap has been responsible for the falls in wholesale prices and the lower bill prices recommended by the Australian Energy Regulator in its annual Default Market Offer.

But, as the AER has made clear, the fall in wholesale prices has been driven by the connection of more wind, solar and battery projects. `And all of these were committed and started construction well before the LNP came to power and stopped developments in their tracks with new planning rules and the “calling in” of some key projects.

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