Waterford Electorate

Personal Injuries Proceedings and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

This bill stops 'claim farming' - where third parties cold-call people to pressure them into making injury claims and sell their details to lawyers. It creates new offences for personal injury and workers' compensation claims, requires law practices to certify compliance, and confirms when workers with terminal conditions can access lump sum compensation.

Health and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2023

This bill makes a wide range of health reforms to improve patient safety and expand access to healthcare. Key changes include allowing nurses and midwives to provide early medical terminations of pregnancy, counting babies as separate patients for midwife staffing ratios, requiring disclosure of serious patient safety risks identified by quality committees, and allowing Mental Health Court documents to be used in criminal proceedings.

Pharmacy Business Ownership Bill 2023

This bill creates a new licensing system for pharmacy ownership in Queensland, replacing the outdated 2001 Act. It establishes an independent Queensland Pharmacy Business Ownership Council to regulate who can own pharmacies and enforce compliance. The bill retains existing restrictions limiting pharmacy ownership to pharmacists while adding new transparency measures and prohibiting pharmacies in supermarkets.

Criminal Code (Serious Vilification and Hate Crimes) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023

This bill strengthens Queensland's hate crime laws by increasing penalties for serious vilification, creating aggravated offences for hate-motivated crimes, and banning the public display of symbols like Nazi imagery. It implements recommendations from a parliamentary inquiry into serious vilification and hate crimes.

Forensic Science Queensland Bill 2023

This bill establishes Forensic Science Queensland as an independent statutory body following the 2022 Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing, which found serious problems with DNA analysis in Queensland. It creates a Director with statutory independence, a supporting office, and an Advisory Council to ensure forensic services are reliable and impartial.

Public Trustee (Advisory and Monitoring Board) Amendment Bill 2021

This bill creates an independent advisory and monitoring board to oversee the Public Trustee of Queensland. It responds to a 2021 review that found the Public Trustee needed greater transparency and accountability in how it manages the financial affairs of vulnerable Queenslanders, particularly people with impaired decision-making capacity.

Inspector of Detention Services Bill 2021

This bill creates an independent Inspector of Detention Services to oversee Queensland's prisons, youth detention centres, work camps, and police watch-houses. The Inspector will conduct regular inspections, review how people in custody are treated, and report publicly to Parliament on conditions and any concerns about harm or ill-treatment.

Criminal Code (Consent and Mistake of Fact) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020

This bill makes changes across several unrelated areas of law. Most significantly, it clarifies consent laws for sexual offences by putting existing case law into the Criminal Code, making it clearer that silence is not consent and that voluntary intoxication is no excuse. It also extends police banning notices, bans predatory wagering marketing, and ensures victims of solicitor fraud receive full compensation.

Liquor (Artisan Liquor) Amendment Bill 2020

This bill creates a new artisan producer licence for Queensland craft brewers and artisan distillers, giving them a streamlined pathway to sell their products in taprooms, online, at wholesale, and at promotional events like farmers markets. It was introduced to support the growth of Queensland's independent liquor producers and help the industry recover from COVID-19 impacts.

COVID-19 Emergency Response and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020

This bill extends Queensland's COVID-19 emergency laws from 31 December 2020 to 30 April 2021, allowing continued pandemic response measures. It also makes separate changes to how council vacancies are filled, supports artisan distillers, and extends the Small Business Commissioner role.

Property Law Bill 2023

This bill replaces Queensland's 50-year-old Property Law Act with modernised legislation that makes property transactions clearer and safer. It introduces a mandatory seller disclosure scheme so buyers receive standardised information before signing contracts, supports electronic conveyancing, and protects parties when settlement is disrupted by emergencies or system failures.

Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill 2024

This bill creates Queensland's first laws to regulate fertility clinics and establishes a donor conception register. It responds to failures in industry self-regulation, including cases where wrong donor sperm was used and donors fathered far more children than guidelines allowed. The law prioritises the welfare of people born through donor conception, giving them the right to know their genetic origins.

Building Units and Group Titles and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

This bill improves protections for owners in older unit and townhouse developments established before 1997, bringing their governance rules closer to modern strata legislation. It also enables enforcement of gift card consumer protections.

Defamation (Model Provisions) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021

This bill reforms Queensland's defamation laws to align with national standards, making it harder to bring trivial claims while protecting journalists and researchers who report on matters of public interest. It also fixes a heavy vehicle regulation issue before it causes problems for truck operators.

Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill 2022

This bill modernises Queensland's birth, death and marriage registration system with significant reforms for trans and gender diverse people. It removes the requirement for surgery to change sex on a birth certificate, instead allowing people 16 and over to self-declare their sex with a supporting statement. It also recognises contemporary family structures by allowing same-sex parents to both be recorded as 'mother' or both as 'father'.

Evidence and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021

This bill makes several changes to Queensland's evidence and court procedures. It introduces shield laws to protect journalists' confidential sources, allows domestic violence victims to use police-recorded video statements as their main evidence, creates new procedures for examining deceased persons' remains in criminal cases, and makes administrative updates to magistrate transfers and computer warrants.

Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021

This bill makes permanent several temporary COVID-19 measures across multiple areas of law. It modernises how Queenslanders can sign and witness important legal documents using electronic signatures and video links, improves access to domestic violence protection orders, and allows licensed restaurants to permanently offer takeaway wine with meals.

Domestic and Family Violence Protection (Combating Coercive Control) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

This bill implements the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce's recommendations to combat coercive control in domestic and family violence situations. It modernises stalking laws to cover technology-facilitated abuse, requires courts to identify the person most in need of protection in disputed cases, and improves how evidence of domestic violence patterns is recognised in criminal proceedings.

Tobacco and Other Smoking Products (Vaping) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024

This bill cracks down on the illegal vape and tobacco trade in Queensland by creating new offences, increasing penalties to up to 2 years imprisonment, and giving authorities power to close non-compliant businesses. It responds to a public health crisis with vaping among 12-17 year olds quadrupling since 2017, and supports the Commonwealth's national vaping ban.

Health Practitioner Regulation National Law and Other Legislation Amendment Bill

This bill would have strengthened patient safety by making it harder for health practitioners with serious misconduct to regain their registration, permanently publishing sexual misconduct findings on public registers, and protecting people who report concerns about practitioners. It lapsed when the 57th Parliament ended and did not become law.

COVID-19 Emergency Response and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021

This bill extends Queensland's COVID-19 emergency laws until 30 September 2021 and gives local governments more flexibility during the pandemic. It covers extensions to temporary regulations across many areas of life, allows councils to adjust rates outside normal budget cycles, and creates new rules for holding COVID-safe local government elections.

Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023

This bill implements major reforms to Queensland's laws on domestic and family violence and sexual violence, following recommendations from the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce. It creates a new criminal offence of coercive control (carrying up to 14 years imprisonment), introduces affirmative consent laws requiring active agreement to sexual activity, specifically criminalises 'stealthing', and establishes a diversion scheme for first-time DVO offenders.

Monitoring of Places of Detention (Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture) Bill 2022

This bill allows the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to visit and inspect Queensland's prisons, youth detention centres, mental health facilities, police watch-houses, and other places where people are detained. It implements Australia's international obligations under OPCAT, which aims to prevent torture and cruel treatment through independent monitoring.