Chief Magistrate
Role / OfficeReferenced in 14 bills
Magistrates Amendment Bill 2015
This bill fixes a technical problem with the oaths taken by some Queensland magistrates and judicial registrars between April 2013 and April 2015. It confirms that their appointments and all their past decisions are legally valid, even though they took an outdated form of oath.
Domestic and Family Violence Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill reforms 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 electronic monitoring for high-risk perpetrators, and expanding video-recorded evidence across all Magistrates Courts statewide. It aims to reduce the operational burden on police while providing faster, longer-term protection for victim-survivors.
Criminal Law Amendment Bill 2016
This bill removes the so-called 'gay panic' defence by stopping killers from using an unwanted sexual advance as grounds for reducing murder to manslaughter, except in exceptional cases. It also packages a long list of other criminal law tidy-ups, covering criminal proceeds confiscation, court evidence, juries, Magistrates Court procedure, and sentencing enforcement.
Mental Health Amendment Bill 2016
This bill makes technical and protective amendments to the Mental Health Act 2016 before it starts on 5 March 2017. The key change stops statements made by a person during a court-ordered mental health assessment or examination from being used against them in civil or criminal proceedings, so patients can be frank with clinicians. The bill also tightens limits on detention, seclusion and restraint, fixes gaps affecting private mental health services, and makes small changes to the Public Health Act 2005 and Coroners Act 2003.
Criminal Code and Other Legislation (Double Jeopardy Exception and Subsequent Appeals) Amendment Bill 2023
This bill reforms Queensland's criminal appeals system in two significant ways. It creates a new right for convicted persons to make subsequent appeals to the Court of Appeal when fresh or new compelling evidence emerges, even after their original appeal has been decided. It also expands the double jeopardy exception — which previously only applied to murder — to allow retrials for 10 additional serious offences punishable by life imprisonment.
Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill makes wide-ranging changes across Queensland's justice system, courts, electoral processes, and victims' rights. Major reforms include formally recognising the deaths of unborn children in criminal sentencing, allowing media to identify sexual offence defendants before committal, improving accountability for Justices of the Peace, modernising legal costs disclosure, and saving postal votes affected by envelope errors.
Court and Civil Legislation Amendment Bill 2017
This bill bundles many small justice-portfolio reforms into one Act. It speeds up how courts and tribunals work, brings Queensland's film and game classification laws in line with the national scheme, strengthens the Ombudsman, creates an automatic domestic violence notation on criminal records, and updates a long list of rules on wills, trusts, legal practice and retail shop leases.
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, creates a pilot program allowing domestic violence victims' police-recorded statements to be used as court evidence, and establishes new rules for handling deceased persons' remains in criminal cases following the Daniel Morcombe inquest.
Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill makes permanent several temporary COVID-19 measures in Queensland's justice system. It modernises how legal documents are signed and witnessed by allowing electronic signatures and video link witnessing, improves access to domestic violence protection orders, lets licensed restaurants permanently sell takeaway wine with meals, and extends COVID-19 retail lease protections.
Criminal Law (Domestic Violence) Amendment Bill 2015
This bill toughens Queensland's response to domestic violence by increasing penalties for breaching protection orders, flagging domestic violence offences on criminal histories, and giving victims better protections when they give evidence in court. It delivers three recommendations from the 'Not Now, Not Ever' Taskforce report on domestic and family violence.
Respect at Work and Other Matters Amendment Bill 2024
This bill makes major reforms to Queensland's anti-discrimination laws, implementing recommendations from the national Respect@Work inquiry, the QHRC's Building Belonging review, and parliamentary committee reports on vilification. It also strengthens sentencing for workplace violence, clarifies judicial immunity, and gives magistrates access to parental leave.
Coroners (Mining and Resources Coroner) Amendment Bill 2025
This bill creates a dedicated Mining and Resources Coroner who must investigate and hold mandatory public inquests into all accidental deaths at coal mines, mines, quarries, and petroleum and gas sites in Queensland. It implements the government's election commitment to increase oversight of mining-related fatalities and ensure families receive answers about how their loved ones died.
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 to better protect victims of domestic, family and sexual violence, while also reforming how courts handle bail, sentencing and evidence in these cases.
Penalties and Sentences (Drug and Alcohol Treatment Orders) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017
This bill brings back a drug court in Queensland by creating a new sentencing option called a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Order. Designated magistrates can suspend a prison sentence of up to four years while the offender completes a court-supervised treatment program of at least two years. The bill also tightens the dangerous drug definition, clarifies that long prison sentences can never be 'spent', and gives extra court protections to victims of domestic strangulation.