Cairns
PlaceReferenced in 17 bills
Waste Reduction and Recycling (Waste Levy) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill introduces a waste levy on waste delivered to landfill sites in Queensland, starting at $70 per tonne from March 2019. It aims to discourage landfill disposal, encourage recycling, stop interstate waste dumping, and fund a $100 million resource recovery program. Households are protected from direct cost increases through annual payments to local governments.
Victims' Commissioner and Sexual Violence Review Board Bill 2024
This bill establishes a Victims' Commissioner as an independent statutory officer to promote and protect the rights of victims of crime in Queensland. It also creates a Sexual Violence Review Board to identify and address systemic issues in how sexual offences are reported, investigated and prosecuted. The bill was recommended by the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce and the Independent Commission of Inquiry into Queensland Police Service responses to domestic and family violence.
Local Government Electoral (Implementing Stage 1 of Belcarra) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill bans political donations from property developers to politicians and political parties at both State and local government levels in Queensland. It also strengthens the rules for how local councillors must declare and manage conflicts of interest. The reforms implement the Government's response to the Crime and Corruption Commission's Operation Belcarra report, which investigated corruption risks in local government following the 2016 council elections.
Work Health and Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill strengthens Queensland's workplace health and safety laws by implementing recommendations from two major reviews. It enhances the powers and protections of health and safety representatives, makes it easier for registered unions to participate in safety matters, lowers the prosecution threshold for the most serious safety offences from recklessness to negligence, and bans insurance that covers workplace safety fines.
Pharmacy Business Ownership Bill 2023
This bill replaces Queensland's 20-year-old pharmacy ownership law with a modern licensing and regulatory framework. It establishes the Queensland Pharmacy Business Ownership Council as an independent body to oversee who can own pharmacies, introduces mandatory annual licensing, and strengthens protections against commercial interference in pharmacy health services.
Land Tax and Other Legislation (Empty Homes Levy) Amendment Bill 2022
This bill proposed an Empty Homes Levy to tackle Queensland's housing crisis by taxing vacant residential properties and undeveloped land at 5% of their capital improved value each year. Modelled on Vancouver's empty homes tax, which reduced vacancies by 24%, it aimed to push an estimated 20,600 vacant homes back onto the rental market over four years. This was a private member's bill introduced by Dr Amy MacMahon MP (Member for South Brisbane). It was discharged and did not become law.
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.
Crocodile Control and Conservation Bill 2024
This bill was discharged and did not become law. It would have established a Queensland Crocodile Authority based in Cairns to take charge of all crocodile management across the state. The bill responded to rising crocodile numbers and increasing attacks in North Queensland by creating 'zero-tolerance zones' in populated waterways and expanding commercial opportunities including egg harvesting and Indigenous land management rights.
Crocodile Control, Conservation and Safety Bill 2024
This bill would have established a Queensland Crocodile Authority based in Cairns to take charge of all crocodile management across the state. It aimed to make North Queensland waterways safer by creating zero-tolerance zones where crocodiles would be killed or relocated within 48 hours, while also building a commercial crocodile industry and empowering Indigenous landholders to manage and profit from crocodiles on their land. This bill lapsed at the end of the 57th Parliament and did not become law.
Safer Waterways Bill 2018
This bill sought to create a Queensland Crocodile Authority based in Cairns to manage saltwater crocodile populations across the state. It responded to growing community concern about increasing crocodile numbers and attacks in North Queensland, with 25 recorded attacks between 1985 and 2015 (seven fatal) and three attacks in the year before the bill was introduced (two fatal). The bill's second reading failed and it did not become law.
Youth Justice (Monitoring Devices) Amendment Bill 2025
This bill extends Queensland's trial of electronic monitoring devices for children on bail by one year, to 30 April 2026. The trial allows courts to order children aged 15 and over who are charged with serious offences and have a history of offending to wear a monitoring device as a condition of bail. The extension gives the government time to properly evaluate whether the devices are effective before deciding the trial's future.
Crocodile Control and Conservation Bill 2025
This bill sought to create the Queensland Crocodile Authority, a new Cairns-based body responsible for managing all aspects of crocodile control across the state. It aimed to protect North Queenslanders from crocodile attacks by removing crocodiles from populated waterways, while expanding the commercial crocodile industry and empowering Indigenous landholders to manage crocodiles on their land. The bill's second reading failed and it did not become law.
Meriba Omasker Kaziw Kazipa (Torres Strait Islander Traditional Child Rearing Practice) Bill 2020
This bill creates a legal framework to recognise Torres Strait Islander traditional child rearing practice (Ailan Kastom), under which children are permanently placed with cultural parents within the extended family. It establishes a new Commissioner to decide applications for cultural recognition orders that transfer legal parentage, so that a child's birth certificate and legal identity match their cultural reality. This is the first legislation of its kind in Australia.
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.
Criminal Law (Raising the Age of Responsibility) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill sought to raise the age of criminal responsibility in Queensland from 10 to 14 years old. Children under 14 would no longer have been charged, prosecuted, detained, or given criminal records. It also required the release of children already in custody and the expungement of their records. This bill failed at the second reading and did not become law.
Mineral and Energy Resources (Financial Provisioning) Bill 2018
This bill establishes a Financial Provisioning Scheme to protect Queensland from the cost of cleaning up mine sites when resource companies fail to rehabilitate the land. It replaces the old individual financial assurance system with a pooled fund model, where companies pay annual contributions based on their risk level, and introduces enforceable Progressive Rehabilitation and Closure Plans to ensure mined land is progressively restored throughout the life of a mine.
Revenue and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill implements revenue measures from the 2019-20 Queensland Budget. It raises land tax rates on large corporate landholdings and foreign owners, increases the petroleum royalty rate from 10% to 12.5%, adjusts payroll tax thresholds and rates, and provides targeted tax relief for regional employers and businesses that employ apprentices and trainees.