Office of Industrial Relations
OrganisationReferenced in 9 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.
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.
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.
Electrical Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill makes two sets of changes. First, it strengthens Queensland's electrical safety framework by confirming electricity distributors can issue defect notices and by giving the regulator clearer powers to ban unsafe electrical equipment. Second, it removes an uncommenced provision that would have given workplace safety representatives a new way to request information from the regulator.
Queensland Building and Construction Commission and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill modernises the Queensland Building and Construction Commission by removing the requirement for physical licence cards and enabling digital alternatives via the Queensland Digital Licence app. It also allows the QBCC to serve documents electronically and streamlines workplace safety reporting so that building industry licensees only need to notify one regulator of serious safety incidents, rather than reporting the same incident to both the QBCC and workplace safety regulators.
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.
Electrical Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill updates Queensland's electrical safety and workplace safety laws across several areas. It modernises the electrical safety framework to cover emerging technologies like e-scooters and battery storage systems, strengthens the industrial manslaughter offence to protect bystanders as well as workers, adds negligence as a basis for prosecuting the most serious safety breaches, and gives worker representatives new powers to document workplace hazards with photos and testing equipment.
Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill reforms Queensland's workers' compensation scheme based on a five-yearly independent review. It strengthens rehabilitation and return-to-work requirements, expands cancer coverage for firefighters, creates faster weekly payments for injured workers, introduces new enforcement tools, and lays groundwork for future gig worker coverage. It also increases flexible parental leave and adds superannuation as a Queensland employment standard.
Health and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill makes a range of amendments to health and other portfolio legislation. It repeals Queensland's separate medicinal cannabis approval process in favour of the Commonwealth system, creates a register to track occupational dust lung diseases like black lung and silicosis, gives Queensland Health new powers to require public notification of pollution events, streamlines radiation safety licensing, clarifies rules for tissue removal in medical research including for children, and ensures retirement village residents with freehold units receive payment within 18 months of leaving.