Bill
Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (General Charges Imposition) Bill 2025
passed, as at 2025-12-01. Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water portfolio.
- Sponsor
- Not recorded
- Portfolio
- Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water
Recorded stages
- introduced — 2025-10-30
- second reading — 2025-10-30
- second reading — 2025-11-04
- second reading — 2025-11-05
- second reading — 2025-11-06
- second reading — 2025-11-06
- third reading — 2025-11-06
- introduced — 2025-11-24
- second reading — 2025-11-24
- second reading — 2025-11-27
- second reading — 2025-11-27
- committee — 2025-11-27
- third reading — 2025-11-27
- passed — 2025-11-27
- royal assent — 2025-12-01
Divisions
No divisions recorded. Most questions are decided on the voices; this does not establish that a bill was unopposed.
Plain-language summary
Written by a model from the explanatory memorandum; not the record, as at 2025-10-30.
This bill is part of a package of three bills that together create a legal basis for charging fees related to activities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act).
The specific activities and fee amounts would be set by regulations, and the minister must ensure those fees do not exceed the government's expected costs for handling those matters.
The package splits the charging rules into three separate laws because the Australian Constitution requires different types of taxes to be in different acts, with this bill covering charges that are neither customs nor excise duties.
- The package establishes a framework for imposing charges on prescribed activities under the EPBC Act.
- The package limits charges to cost recovery, requiring the minister to confirm that fee amounts will not over-recover the Commonwealth's likely expenses.
- The package provides for collection and recovery of charges through amendments to the EPBC Act, as set out in the Environment Protection Reform Bill 2025.
The people and businesses that undertake activities regulated under the EPBC Act, and the Commonwealth agencies that administer those regulations.
Sources
em
billhome
frl act