Childrens Court Act 1992
LegislationReferenced in 10 bills
Making Queensland Safer Bill 2024
This bill implements the government's 'adult crime, adult time' policy, allowing children convicted of serious offences like murder, robbery, burglary and dangerous driving to receive the same penalties as adults. It also removes the principle of detention as a last resort, makes victim impact the primary consideration in sentencing young offenders, and creates an automatic process to transfer 18-year-olds from youth detention to adult prisons.
Criminal Code (Child Sexual Offences Reform) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill reforms Queensland's criminal justice system to better protect children from sexual abuse and improve access to justice for survivors. It implements key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, strengthens sentencing for child exploitation material offences, and criminalises child abuse objects such as life-like child replicas.
Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill undoes tougher youth justice laws from 2012 and 2014 and returns to a more rehabilitative approach. It closes youth justice proceedings to the public (but lets victims attend), raises the age for transfer to adult prison from 17 to 18, and brings back court-referred restorative justice conferencing as a way to divert young offenders from the formal court system.
Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Bill 2022
This bill replaces Queensland's 2003 births, deaths and marriages registration law with a modernised framework. Its most significant change removes the requirement for surgery to alter the sex recorded on a birth certificate, replacing it with a self-declaration model. It also updates parenting registration rules for same-sex and gender diverse families, strengthens anti-discrimination protections, and tightens fraud prevention for name changes.
Meriba Omasker Kaziw Kazipa (Torres Strait Islander Traditional Child Rearing Practice) Bill 2020
This bill creates Australia's first legal framework to recognise Torres Strait Islander traditional child rearing practice (Ailan Kastom), where children are permanently placed with cultural parents within the extended family network. It establishes a Commissioner to decide applications for cultural recognition orders that legally transfer parentage, resulting in new birth certificates that reflect a person's cultural identity.
Director of Child Protection Litigation Bill 2016
This bill creates a new independent Director of Child Protection Litigation who will decide when to apply for child protection orders and run those cases in the Childrens Court, a role currently performed by the child safety department. It implements a key recommendation from the 2013 Queensland Child Protection Commission of Inquiry to improve evidence standards and accountability in child protection cases.
Child Protection Reform Amendment Bill 2016
This bill reforms Queensland's child protection court system by implementing ten recommendations from the 2013 Carmody Inquiry. It strengthens the voice of children and families in Childrens Court proceedings, clarifies which agency applies for which kind of order, and introduces a new duty of disclosure.
Youth Justice and Other Legislation (Inclusion of 17-year-old Persons) Amendment Bill 2016
This bill raises the age of a 'child' in Queensland's youth justice system from under 17 to under 18, so 17-year-olds are treated as young people rather than adults in the criminal justice system. It also sets up transitional rules to move 17-year-olds currently in adult prisons, on remand or in adult court proceedings into the youth justice system. Queensland was the last state to treat 17-year-olds as adults, and the change aligns with national practice and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Working with Children (Risk Management and Screening) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill overhauls Queensland's blue card (Working with Children Check) system. It introduces a new risk-based decision-making framework replacing the current 'best interests' test, expands the types of work and businesses that require blue cards, simplifies the disqualification process, removes blue card requirements for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kinship carers, and improves information sharing between agencies.
Queensland Community Safety Bill 2024
This bill implements a wide-ranging package of community safety reforms across policing, criminal law, weapons regulation, youth justice, domestic violence protections, and road safety. It expands police powers to scan for knives in more public places, introduces Firearm Prohibition Orders against high-risk individuals, creates new offences to protect emergency workers, and establishes a framework for removing criminal content from social media.