legal services
IndustryReferenced in 13 bills
Personal Injuries Proceedings and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill cracks down on 'claim farming' — the practice of cold-calling people to pressure them into making personal injury or workers' compensation claims, then selling their details to law firms. It also tightens rules on legal billing in personal injury cases, confirms when terminally ill workers can access lump sum compensation, and fixes technical issues with Queensland's political donation caps.
Making Queensland Safer Bill 2024
This bill implements the government's 'Making Queensland Safer Plan', centred on the 'adult crime, adult time' policy. It allows courts to sentence children to the same penalties as adults for 13 serious offences including murder, manslaughter, robbery and dangerous driving. It also removes the longstanding principle that detention should be a last resort for children and makes victim impact the primary consideration in youth sentencing.
COVID-19 Emergency Response Bill 2020
This bill was Queensland's second emergency legislative response to the COVID-19 pandemic, passed in April 2020. It created temporary powers to protect residential and commercial tenants from eviction, enabled Parliament and courts to operate remotely, established a Small Business Commissioner, and allowed legal documents to be witnessed electronically. All provisions expired on 31 December 2020.
Criminal Justice Legislation (Sexual Violence and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2024
This bill implements the third tranche of legislative reforms recommended by the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce, focusing on sexual violence and women and girls' experiences in Queensland's criminal justice system. It creates a new criminal offence to protect 16 and 17 year olds from sexual exploitation by adults in positions of authority, strengthens courtroom protections for victim-survivors, reforms evidence rules to make it easier to admit relevant past conduct in criminal trials, and extends non-contact orders from two to five years. The bill was passed with amendment.
Trusts Bill 2024
This bill replaces Queensland's 50-year-old Trusts Act 1973 with modernised legislation based on recommendations from the Queensland Law Reform Commission. It updates the rules governing how trusts are managed, giving trustees clearer powers and duties while strengthening protections for beneficiaries. This bill lapsed at the end of the 57th Parliament and did not become law.
Defamation (Model Provisions) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill modernises Queensland's defamation laws to match nationally agreed reforms. It makes it harder to bring trivial defamation claims by requiring proof of serious harm, gives journalists and academics stronger defences when publishing on matters of public interest, and requires people to attempt to resolve disputes before going to court. It also fixes a heavy vehicle regulation issue before it causes problems for truck operators.
Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill 2022
This bill repeals and replaces Queensland's births, deaths and marriages registration law. It removes the requirement for surgery to change a person's recorded sex, allows same-sex parents to both use matching titles on birth certificates, streamlines registry services, and strengthens name change fraud prevention. It also adds new anti-discrimination protections for intersex people.
Trusts Bill 2025
This bill replaces Queensland's Trusts Act 1973 with modernised legislation that clarifies the powers and duties of trustees, makes it easier to replace trustees who die or become incapacitated, and gives beneficiaries clearer rights to see how their trust is being managed. It broadly implements recommendations from the Queensland Law Reform Commission's comprehensive 2012-2013 review of trust law.
Evidence and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill makes changes across several areas of Queensland's justice system. It introduces shield laws to protect journalists' confidential sources in court, creates a framework for a pilot where police-recorded video statements can be used as evidence in domestic and family violence criminal proceedings, and establishes a process for viewing deceased persons' remains in criminal cases following the Daniel Morcombe inquest.
Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill makes permanent several temporary measures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic across the justice portfolio. It modernises how legal documents are executed by allowing electronic signatures and video call witnessing, improves access to domestic and family violence protection orders, allows licensed restaurants to permanently sell takeaway wine with meals, and extends commercial lease protections.
Guardianship and Administration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill modernises Queensland's guardianship laws to better protect adults who cannot make decisions for themselves, while also fixing unrelated issues with government integrity and corruption reporting. It implements recommendations from the Queensland Law Reform Commission's five-year review of guardianship law and the Age Friendly Community Action Plan.
Domestic and Family Violence Protection (Combating Coercive Control) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill strengthens Queensland's domestic and family violence laws by implementing key recommendations from the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce. It recognises coercive control as a pattern of behaviour, modernises the stalking offence to cover technology-facilitated abuse, reforms court processes for competing protection order applications, and expands evidence rules so courts and juries better understand domestic violence dynamics. It also updates outdated sexual offence terminology and makes unrelated changes to the Coroners Act, Oaths Act, and Telecommunications Interception Act.
Working with Children (Risk Management and Screening) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill overhauls Queensland's blue card system, which screens people who work or volunteer with children. It introduces a fairer risk-based assessment, expands the types of jobs and businesses requiring blue cards, and begins removing the blue card requirement for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kinship carers. It also enables sharing of child protection court records with family law courts across Australia.