State Development and Public Works Organisation Act 1971

This section applies if the Minister considers the undertaking of a project that is or is proposed to be a prescribed project is—

critical or essential for the State for economic, environmental or social reasons; or

a high priority for the State because the project will, or is likely to, significantly contribute to the achievement of the Queensland Government’s economic, environmental or social objectives for the State or a region.

The Minister may declare the project to be a State strategic project.

The declaration—

must be made by gazette notice; and

may be made with the declaration of the project as a prescribed project under section 76E or at a later time; and

ends when the declaration of the project as a prescribed project ends.

Despite subsection (1), the Minister can not declare a project to be a State strategic project if the project is—

development for a solar farm, wind farm or battery storage facility that is prescribed under the Planning Act 2016, section 106T to be development for which social impact assessment is required under that Act; or

a data centre operated for 1 or more of the following purposes—

research and development;

a commercial purpose;

a purpose prescribed by regulation.

In subsection (4)—

the terms solar farm, wind farm and battery storage facility have the same meaning they have for the prescription of the development under the Planning Act 2016, section 106T; and

a data centre is a building or other structure used wholly or mainly for providing compute resources, electronic data storage or computer networking services.