Minister’s Guidelines and Rules

The Minister's Guidelines and Rules (MGR) sets out guidelines and rules for plan-making, as well as a variety of other important functions including:

• what can be considered in setting a tailored plan-making process
• how local planning instrument are made or amended
• how infrastructure designations are processed
• how certain compensation exemptions can apply where relating to natural hazards
• the process for environmental assessment and consultation for infrastructure designations
• the process for working out the cost of infrastructure for offset or refund relating to infrastructure for a development approval
• criteria for deciding a conversation application relating to infrastructure for a development approval.

The guidelines and rules in the MGR are made by the Planning Minister.

Updates to the Minister's Guidelines and Rules

Consultation on the draft revised State Planning Policy and Minister’s Guidelines and Rules is now open until 11.59pm Monday 26 October 2026. Updates to the Minister’s Guidelines and Rules are proposed to align with the draft revised State Planning Policy and support its implementation through planning schemes.

Proposed changes include updating terminology to reflect the proposed revised state interests and ensuring strategic aspirations are considered as part of certain qualified state interest amendment processes. Additional changes will improve clarity and expand the minor amendment pathway for adopting state hazard mapping into planning schemes.

Read more about:

• proposed updated Minister’s Guidelines and Rules ( 13.6 MB)
• fact sheet about the changes ( 136.5 KB).

Find out more about the State Planning Policy review and how to provide feedback.

Minister's Guidelines and Rules version	Publication date	Date commenced
Minister's Guidelines and Rules - version 3.0 ( 5.3 MB) The amendments made to the MGR, includes: for public notification, removing the requirement that notices be published in a hard-copy newspaper for new or amended state or local planning instruments allowing the Planning Minister to direct a local government to amend their local planning scheme, without first giving notice to the local government allowing the local planning scheme to use a minor amendment process to reflect the direction enabling the Planning Minister to condition a proposed Temporary local planning instrument (TLPI) or TLPI amendment Operational and editorial amendments to facilitate improvements. View a copy of the public notice ( 139.2 KB).	22 July 2024	22 July 2024
Minister's Guidelines and Rules - version 2.0 ( 1.2 MB) The amendment made to the previous version of the MGR, includes: changes to allow the rezoning of land and removing the effect of an overlay, where the overlay affects the demolition or removal of structures on land acquired for disaster recovery or resilience, through the minor planning scheme amendment process other minor and administrative changes to generally improve the readability, presentation and navigation of the MGR, including editorial and formatting changes.	17 July 2023	28 July 2023
Minister's Guidelines and Rules - version 1.1 ( 50.9 MB) Read ( 185.0 KB) a summary of the amendment made to the previous version of the MGR	22 September 2020	11 September 2020
Minister's Guidelines and Rules ( 684.7 KB)	26 May 2017	3 July 2017