Legal Aid Queensland
OrganisationReferenced in 33 bills
Human Rights Bill 2018
This bill creates a Human Rights Act for Queensland, establishing statutory protections for 23 human rights drawn from international law. It requires all government agencies, councils, police and contracted public service providers to act compatibly with these rights, and sets up a complaints process through a renamed Queensland Human Rights Commission.
Health and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2023
This bill makes amendments across five health-related Acts to improve access to healthcare, strengthen patient safety, and modernise health legislation in Queensland. The most significant changes allow nurses and midwives to perform early medical terminations of pregnancy, count newborn babies as separate patients for maternity ward staffing ratios, and improve how patient safety information is shared across Queensland Health.
Child Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill clarifies that adoption is an option for achieving permanent homes for children in out-of-home care, responding to coronial recommendations following the death of Mason Jet Lee. It requires case plan reviews after two years for children under the chief executive's long-term guardianship, to ensure better permanency options are actively considered.
Forensic Science Queensland Bill 2023
This bill establishes Forensic Science Queensland as an independent statutory body responsible for providing forensic services to Queensland's criminal justice system. It responds to the 2022 Commission of Inquiry into Forensic DNA Testing, which found serious problems with DNA evidence handling and made 123 recommendations. Queensland becomes the first Australian state to have dedicated legislation governing forensic science services.
Criminal Code and Other Legislation (Double Jeopardy Exception and Subsequent Appeals) Amendment Bill 2023
This bill strengthens Queensland's criminal justice system in two ways: it allows convicted people to make further appeals when new evidence of their innocence emerges, and it expands the ability to retry people who were acquitted of serious crimes when fresh evidence comes to light. Queensland was one of the last Australian jurisdictions without a subsequent appeal framework, and the double jeopardy exception previously only applied to murder.
Corrective Services (Emerging Technologies and Security) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill modernises Queensland's corrective services and youth detention laws to address emerging security threats and improve emergency preparedness. It creates new criminal offences for flying drones over prisons and youth detention centres, authorises x-ray body scanners and surveillance devices, overhauls the emergency declaration framework to cover disasters and pandemics, and strengthens information sharing between corrective services and partner agencies.
Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill makes a broad package of reforms across over 30 Acts in the Queensland justice portfolio. It modernises the coronial system, streamlines criminal proceedings, strengthens protections for vulnerable witnesses, closes gaps in the dangerous prisoners scheme, updates legal profession regulation, and clarifies court jurisdictional limits.
Inspector of Detention Services Bill 2021
This bill creates an independent Inspector of Detention Services to oversee Queensland's prisons, youth detention centres, community corrections centres, work camps and police watch-houses. The Inspector, held by the Queensland Ombudsman, will conduct regular inspections and reviews of detention facilities and report findings directly to Parliament, with the aim of preventing harm and improving conditions for people in custody.
COVID-19 Emergency Response and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill extends Queensland's COVID-19 emergency response legislation from 31 December 2020 to 30 April 2021, keeping temporary measures in place across tenancy, courts, health and other areas. It also makes standalone reforms to support artisan distillers, reform local government vacancy processes, and enable COVID-safe by-elections.
Disability Services and Other Legislation (Worker Screening) Amendment Bill 2020
This bill establishes a nationally consistent worker screening system for people working with Australians with disability under the NDIS, replacing Queensland's existing yellow card system. It ensures that screening clearances are portable across all states and territories, introduces ongoing national criminal history monitoring, and streamlines the process for workers who also need a blue card to work with children with disability.
Child Protection (Offender Reporting and Offender Prohibition Order) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill updates Queensland's laws for monitoring convicted child sex offenders to address modern technology-based offending. It requires offenders to report their use of anonymising software, hidden vault applications and the digital identifiers of all their devices, and gives police stronger powers to inspect those devices and enter offenders' homes to do so.
Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill makes wide-ranging changes across more than 30 Queensland Acts covering the justice system, courts, the legal profession, elections, and criminal law. It introduces formal recognition of unborn children's deaths in criminal proceedings, reforms identification rules for defendants charged with sexual offences, strengthens oversight of Justices of the Peace, and modernises numerous administrative processes across Queensland's legal framework.
Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill tightens bail for serious repeat youth offenders, trials electronic ankle monitoring for 16-17 year olds in limited areas, gives police new powers to scan for knives in Gold Coast entertainment precincts, and strengthens owner onus rules for hooning offences. It responds to a small cohort of recidivist young offenders responsible for nearly half of all youth crime, recent knife murders on the Gold Coast, and ongoing community concern about dangerous driving.
Criminal Code (Non-consensual Sharing of Intimate Images) Amendment Bill 2018
This bill creates new criminal offences for sharing intimate images without consent, commonly known as 'revenge porn'. It criminalises both the actual distribution of intimate images and threats to distribute them, with penalties of up to 3 years imprisonment. Courts can also order offenders to remove or delete the images.
Community Based Sentences (Interstate Transfer) Bill 2019
This bill allows adults serving community-based sentences in Queensland — such as probation, community service, or drug and alcohol treatment orders — to have their sentences formally transferred to another state or territory when they move interstate. It replaces informal arrangements that had no enforcement powers with a proper legal framework based on nationally agreed model legislation.
Strengthening Community Safety Bill 2023
This bill toughens Queensland's response to serious repeat youth offending, particularly involving stolen motor vehicles. It increases maximum penalties for unlawful use of motor vehicles to up to 14 years imprisonment, makes it a criminal offence for children to breach bail conditions, creates a new 'serious repeat offender' declaration for sentencing, and establishes multi-agency panels in legislation to coordinate support for high-risk young people.
Child Death Review Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill creates a new independent Child Death Review Board and expands requirements for government agencies to review their involvement when a child known to Queensland's child protection system dies or suffers serious physical injury. It implements recommendations from the Queensland Family and Child Commission's review prompted by the death of 21-month-old Mason Jet Lee, replacing the existing Child Death Case Review Panels with a more independent, whole-of-system approach.
Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill amends ten pieces of legislation to update police powers, strengthen domestic violence protections, give the Prostitution Licensing Authority proper enforcement tools, and modernise weapons licensing rules. It also clarifies that law enforcement access to electronic devices extends to cloud-based and social media information.
Corrective Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill strengthens anti-corruption measures in Queensland prisons following the Crime and Corruption Commission's Taskforce Flaxton report, improves the parole system based on the Queensland Parole System Review, and tightens prisoner management rules. It also establishes a permanent firearms amnesty, clarifies rules for gel blaster and replica firearm possession, and increases penalties for assaults on corrective services officers.
Police Legislation (Efficiencies and Effectiveness) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill modernises Queensland Police Service operations by cutting red tape that takes officers away from frontline duties. It allows senior police to witness key documents instead of requiring a Justice of the Peace, expands powers to access locked digital devices during investigations, introduces faster saliva drug testing for officers after critical incidents, and updates firearms rules including extending temporary storage periods and supporting the permanent national firearms amnesty.
Police Service Administration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill modernises the security arrangements for Queensland government buildings by repealing the State Buildings Protective Security Act 1983 and moving its provisions into existing police legislation. It creates a single category of 'protective services officer' with standardised security powers and also streamlines identity card requirements for police officers working under Parks and Wildlife legislation.
Child Protection Reform and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill makes wide-ranging reforms to Queensland's child protection system and blue card (working with children check) framework. It strengthens the rights of children in care, ensures their voices are genuinely heard in decisions affecting them, modernises the regulation of foster, kinship and licensed care, and connects Queensland to a national system for screening people who work with children.
Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill makes a broad set of changes to Queensland's policing, corrective services and child protection laws. It expands police powers to ban people carrying knives in safe night precincts, creates tougher parole rules for the most serious murderers, strengthens the No Body No Parole framework, introduces new criminal offences for killing or seriously injuring police and corrective services animals, and updates child sex offender monitoring and blue card screening to cover additional Commonwealth offences.
Criminal Code and Other Legislation (Wage Theft) Amendment Bill 2020
This bill makes deliberate wage theft a criminal offence in Queensland, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment for stealing and 14 years for fraud. It also creates a simpler, faster and cheaper process for workers to recover unpaid wages through the Industrial Magistrates Court, with free conciliation offered before matters go to a hearing.
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.
Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill improves the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) and strengthens consumer protections for motor vehicle buyers. It raises QCAT's jurisdictional limit for motor vehicle disputes from $25,000 to $100,000, reinstates statutory warranty coverage for older second-hand vehicles sold by dealers, and introduces conciliation as a new way to resolve disputes at QCAT.
Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill reforms Queensland's youth justice system by creating stronger bail protections for children, reducing the time young people spend in custody on remand, and banning electronic tracking devices on children. It implements the Queensland Government's Youth Justice Strategy 2019-2023 and its principle that detention should be a last resort for young people.
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.
Public Sector Bill 2022
This bill replaces the Public Service Act 2008 with a new Public Sector Act that creates a unified employment framework for the entire Queensland public sector. It implements recommendations from two independent reviews — the Bridgman Review into public sector employment laws and the Coaldrake Report on public sector culture and accountability — to make the public sector fairer, more diverse and better governed.
Justice Legislation (Links to Terrorist Activity) Amendment Bill 2018
This bill implements a national agreement to make it harder for people with demonstrated links to terrorism to get bail or parole in Queensland. It amends four Acts to reverse the normal presumption in favour of bail for terrorism-linked defendants, create a presumption against parole for prisoners with terrorism connections, and impose stricter conditions on children with terrorism links in youth detention.
Criminal Code and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill strengthens Queensland's criminal law response to child homicide, following a Sentencing Advisory Council inquiry that found community expectations were not being met. It requires courts to treat a child's vulnerability as an aggravating factor in manslaughter sentencing, expands the definition of murder to include reckless indifference to human life, and increases the maximum penalty for failing to supply necessaries to dependants from 3 to 7 years.
COVID-19 Emergency Response and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill extends Queensland's temporary COVID-19 emergency laws until 30 September 2021, continuing protections and flexible arrangements across tenancy, courts, corrections, gaming, and other areas. It also gives local governments new powers to adjust rates mid-year, hold COVID-safe by-elections, and continue remote council meetings.
Superannuation (State Public Sector) (Scheme Administration) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill enables the merger of QSuper and Sunsuper into Australia's second largest superannuation fund, with around $200 billion under administration. It retires the QSuper Board as trustee, moves the trust deed out of legislation to allow a new corporate trustee structure, and ensures the merged fund must remain headquartered in Queensland.