Child Protection Act 1999
LegislationReferenced in 27 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Working with Children Legislation (Indigenous Communities) Amendment Bill 2018
This bill proposed giving Indigenous Community Justice Groups the power to approve Blue Cards (working with children checks) for community members who would otherwise be denied due to certain non-sexual criminal offences such as stealing, burglary, and drug offences. It was a private member's bill introduced by Mr R Katter MP. 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.
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.
Civil Liability and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill implements key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It amends the Civil Liability Act 2003 to reverse the burden of proof so institutions must demonstrate they took reasonable steps to prevent child sexual abuse, and creates a legal framework for suing unincorporated organisations like churches that could previously avoid liability.
Disability Services (Restrictive Practices) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill reforms Queensland's framework for authorising the use of restrictive practices (such as physical restraint, chemical restraint, seclusion and containment) for people with disability. It replaces the current guardianship-based system with a clinician-based model centred on a new, independent Senior Practitioner who will make all authorisation decisions. The bill also expands protections to include children with disability and aligns Queensland's approach with national NDIS standards.
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.
Education (General Provisions) Amendment Bill 2025
This bill amends Queensland's main education law to reduce administrative burden on schools, parents and students, and to strengthen student safety protections. It makes transfer notes mandatory when students change schools (implementing a Royal Commission recommendation), creates a streamlined framework for online learning services in state schools, modernises P&C Association rules for multi-campus schools, and extends home education eligibility to age 18.
Working with Children (Risk Management and Screening) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill implements Queensland's 'No Card, No Start' policy, requiring everyone to hold a blue card (working with children clearance) before starting child-related work. It modernises the blue card application process with online applications, creates a register of home-based care services to better monitor children's safety in foster care, kinship care and family day care settings, and expands the list of offences that permanently disqualify a person from working with children.
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.
Information Privacy and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill modernises Queensland's privacy and information access laws. It introduces mandatory data breach notification for government agencies, creates a single set of Queensland Privacy Principles to replace two existing sets, strengthens the Information Commissioner's enforcement powers, and supports the proactive release of Cabinet documents recommended by the Coaldrake Report.
Working with Children (Indigenous Communities) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill sought to reform Queensland's Blue Card system for Indigenous communities by giving Community Justice Groups the power to approve restricted working with children clearances for community members who would otherwise be refused due to certain past criminal offences. It was a private member's bill introduced by Mr R Katter MP that failed at the second reading stage and did not become law.
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.