Youth Justice Act 1992
LegislationReferenced in 43 bills
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.
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.
Domestic and Family Violence Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill strengthens Queensland's response to domestic and family violence by giving police the power to issue 12-month protection directions without going to court, piloting GPS ankle bracelet monitoring for high-risk perpetrators, and expanding video-recorded evidence to all Magistrates Courts statewide. It also improves oversight of providers delivering DFV intervention programs.
Expanding Adult Crime, Adult Time and Taking a Strong Stance on Drugs and Anti-Social Behaviour Amendment Bill 2026
This bill expands Queensland's youth crime laws, overhauls the drug diversion system, and creates new police powers in designated business precincts. It adds 12 new offences to the Adult Crime, Adult Time scheme so young offenders face adult penalties for more serious crimes, replaces the three-chance Police Drug Diversion Program with a stricter one-chance framework, and allows the Minister to declare business and community precincts where police have enhanced powers to address anti-social behaviour.
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.
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.
Emergency Services Reform Amendment Bill 2023
This bill makes the administrative and legal changes needed to restructure Queensland's emergency services following independent reviews. It transfers the State Emergency Service and the new Marine Rescue Queensland under the Queensland Police Service, establishes a State Disaster Management Group chaired by the Premier for faster disaster response, and updates more than a dozen laws to reflect the new arrangements. The reforms are backed by $578 million in funding over five years.
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.
Criminal Code (Child Sexual Offences Reform) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill reforms Queensland's criminal justice response to child sexual abuse, implementing key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It creates mandatory reporting obligations for all adults, introduces new offences for possessing child abuse objects, strengthens sentencing for child sexual offenders, and establishes a pilot scheme to help vulnerable witnesses give evidence in court.
Police Service Administration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2022
This bill amends several Acts to improve operations for the Queensland Police Service and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services. It reforms the police discipline system, introduces automatic dismissal for officers sentenced to imprisonment, strengthens protections for confidential police information, streamlines weapons licensing, and modernises fire and emergency services legislation.
Workers' Compensation and Rehabilitation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill makes it easier for first responders to claim workers' compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It creates a presumptive system where PTSD in eligible workers is automatically assumed to be caused by their work, removing the burden on injured workers to prove the connection. This responds to evidence from Beyond Blue and other reviews that first responders experience mental health conditions at substantially higher rates than the general workforce.
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 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.
Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill updates search and forensic procedure safeguards across Queensland law to recognise gender diversity, following the passage of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 2023. It replaces sex-based requirements with gender-responsive ones, giving people being searched the right to express a gender preference. The bill also restricts how often prisoners can reapply for parole after refusal, expands who can assess at-risk prisoners, and clarifies planning rules for corrective services facilities.
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.
Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill makes several changes to policing and emergency services law. Its centrepiece is a major expansion of the Police Drug Diversion Program, allowing people caught with small quantities of any dangerous drug to be diverted to health-based programs instead of going to court. It also increases the maximum penalty for drug trafficking to life imprisonment, creates tougher penalties for evading police in aggravated circumstances, and introduces a standalone assault offence for attacks on fire and emergency services workers.
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.
Justice and Other Legislation (COVID-19 Emergency Response) Amendment Bill 2020
This bill amends over 20 Queensland Acts to respond to the COVID-19 public health emergency. It provides temporary financial relief for workers, businesses, body corporate owners, and local governments, adjusts operational rules for health, disability, corrective services, and youth detention facilities, and creates new enforcement powers including court-ordered COVID-19 testing of people who cough, sneeze, or spit on others during an offence. Most provisions expired on 31 December 2020.
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.
Public Health and Other Legislation (Further Extension of Expiring Provisions) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill extends Queensland's temporary COVID-19 emergency laws from 30 September 2021 to 30 April 2022. It keeps in place the Chief Health Officer's powers to issue public health directions, require quarantine, and restrict movement, while also reforming the quarantine fee system to allow prepayment by prescribed traveller cohorts and third-party liability for fees.
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.
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.
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.
Tow Truck and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill regulates the tow truck industry's removal of vehicles from private property, reinstates driving offence accountability for 17-year-olds, and simplifies toll road demand notices. It was prompted by an independent investigation into predatory towing practices at private car parks across Queensland.
Respect at Work and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2024
This bill makes wide-ranging changes to Queensland's anti-discrimination, sentencing and judicial laws. It strengthens workplace protections against sexual harassment and discrimination, adds new grounds on which people are protected from unfair treatment, and requires employers to actively prevent discrimination. It also increases penalties for violence against workers and clarifies judicial immunity.
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.
Criminal Code and Other Legislation (Mason Jett Lee) Amendment Bill 2019
This bill sought to introduce mandatory minimum prison sentences for the murder of children and create a new criminal offence of 'child homicide'. Named after Mason Jett Lee, a toddler who was killed, it aimed to ensure sentencing for child deaths reflects community expectations and aligns with other Australian jurisdictions. The bill was defeated at the second reading and did not become law.
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.
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.
Child Safe Organisations Bill 2024
This bill creates a mandatory child safe organisations system for Queensland, requiring organisations that work with children to meet 10 child safe standards and to report and investigate allegations of child abuse by their workers. It implements key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, with the Queensland Family and Child Commission overseeing the system.
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.
Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill makes coercive control a criminal offence in Queensland and introduces an affirmative model of consent for sexual offences. It implements recommendations from the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce and other inquiries to strengthen protections for victim-survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence across the criminal justice system.
Fighting Antisemitism and Keeping Guns out of the Hands of Terrorists and Criminals Amendment Bill 2026
This bill responds to the December 2025 Bondi Beach terrorist attack by strengthening laws against antisemitism and hate crimes, and significantly tightening firearms controls in Queensland. It introduces new offences for hate expressions and intimidation near places of worship, dramatically increases penalties for weapons offences, bans 3D-printed firearm blueprints, restricts weapons licences to Australian citizens, and expands police powers to disrupt criminal activity.
Youth Justice (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill 2025
This bill makes electronic monitoring of children on bail a permanent feature of Queensland's youth justice system, available statewide. Following an independent evaluation that found monitoring reduced reoffending, improved bail completion, and reduced time in custody, the government is removing the trial's restrictions on age, offence type, and geographic location. The bill commences on 30 April 2026.
Queensland Community Safety Bill 2024
This bill introduces a comprehensive package of community safety measures across policing, criminal law, firearms regulation, youth justice, domestic and family violence, and road safety. It creates new offences and increases penalties for knife crime, dangerous driving, attacks on emergency workers, and posting criminal content online, while also modernising police operations through electronic document service and signatures.
Making Queensland Safer (Adult Crime, Adult Time) Amendment Bill 2025
This bill expands Queensland's 'Adult Crime, Adult Time' policy by adding 20 serious offences to the list of crimes for which young offenders can be sentenced as adults. It is part of the Government's Making Queensland Safer Plan and follows advice from an Expert Legal Panel. The bill also improves victim notification arrangements.
Monitoring of Places of Detention (Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture) Bill 2022
This bill creates a legal framework for the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to visit and monitor Queensland detention facilities. It implements Australia's obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), ratified in 2017, which aims to prevent torture and cruel treatment through independent international inspections of places where people are held against their will.