Magistrates Court
OrganisationReferenced in 28 bills
Vegetation Management and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill reinstates and strengthens Queensland's vegetation clearing laws, delivering on the government's election commitment to end broadscale tree clearing. It removes the ability to clear remnant vegetation for agriculture, extends regrowth protections to freehold and indigenous land, expands watercourse protections to all Great Barrier Reef catchments, and significantly increases penalties for unlawful clearing.
Strong and Sustainable Resource Communities Bill 2016
This bill requires large mining and gas projects in Queensland to share the benefits with the regional towns near them. It bans future projects from staffing their entire operational workforce as fly-in fly-out (FIFO), makes it illegal to discriminate against local residents when hiring, and requires every project to do a social impact assessment. It also permanently bans underground coal gasification (UCG), a controversial gas-extraction method.
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 It confirms that their appointments and all their past decisions are legally valid, even though they took an outdated form of oath.
Planning and Development (Planning Court) Bill 2015
This bill would have created a separate Act to govern the Planning and Environment Court, which hears disputes about planning, development and environmental decisions. It moved the court out of the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 into its own legislation, and expanded the powers of an Alternative Dispute Resolution Registrar to handle simpler matters cheaply. The bill was part of a 2015 LNP planning reform package and did not become law.
Work Health and Safety and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill overhauls Queensland's workplace health and safety framework by implementing recommendations from two major reviews. It strengthens health and safety representatives, gives registered unions a direct role in workplace safety matters, makes it easier to prosecute the most serious safety offences by adding negligence as a fault element, and bans insurance against WHS fines.
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.
Stock Route Network Management Bill 2016
This bill replaces the 2002 Stock Route Management Act with a new framework for managing Queensland's 72,000km stock route network that runs through 44 local government areas. It puts local councils firmly in charge as day-to-day managers of the network, lets them keep all fees and fines they collect, and brings stock travel, grazing and pasture harvesting under a single Act instead of four.
Child Protection (Offender Reporting) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill merges Queensland's two child sex offender laws into a single combined Act, tightens the rules that reportable offenders must follow, and gives police new powers to inspect the phones and computers of offenders most at risk of reoffending. It responds to a 2013 review by the Crime and Corruption Commission and is aimed at helping police intervene before further offences occur.
Domestic and Family Violence Protection and Another Act Amendment Bill 2015
This bill strengthens Queensland's domestic violence laws in response to the 'Not Now, Not Ever' taskforce report. It changes how courts handle competing protection order applications, makes courts actively consider ordering perpetrators out of the family home, gives victims a stronger voice in decisions, and clearly authorises police to use body-worn cameras on duty.
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.
Community Based Sentences (Interstate Transfer) Bill 2019
This bill establishes Queensland's participation in a national scheme for transferring community based sentences — such as probation, community service and intensive correction orders — between Australian states and territories. It replaces informal interstate supervision arrangements that had no enforcement powers, ensuring offenders who move interstate can be properly supervised and held accountable for breaches in their new jurisdiction.
Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2023
This bill makes several changes to policing and emergency services laws in Queensland. It expands the Police Drug Diversion Program so people caught with small quantities of any dangerous drug — not just cannabis — can be diverted to health services instead of going to court. It also increases the maximum penalty for drug trafficking to life imprisonment, creates tougher penalties for evading police in dangerous circumstances, and introduces a new offence for assaulting fire and emergency services workers.
Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill amends ten pieces of legislation to modernise police powers, strengthen domestic violence protections, improve prostitution regulation enforcement, and reform weapons licensing. It clarifies that police can access cloud-based and social media data from digital devices under warrant, and makes a range of operational improvements for the Queensland Police Service.
Mental Health Bill 2015
This bill completely replaces Queensland's Mental Health Act 2000 with a new framework for treating people with serious mental illness who cannot consent to their own treatment, and for dealing with people with a mental illness who are charged with serious crimes. It tightens the criteria for involuntary treatment, strengthens patient rights, limits the use of restraint and seclusion, and creates a new role - the chief psychiatrist - to oversee the system.
State Penalties Enforcement (Modernisation) Amendment Bill 2022
This bill modernises Queensland's fines enforcement system by centralising the management of camera-detected and tolling offence fines under the Queensland Revenue Office and SPER, so people deal with one agency instead of several. It also reduces land tax for Special Disability Trusts, guarantees the security of rental bonds held by the Residential Tenancies Authority, and updates government confidentiality rules.
Tobacco and Other Smoking Products (Dismantling Illegal Trade) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025
This bill gives Queensland Health significantly stronger powers to shut down shops selling illegal tobacco and vapes, and hold their landlords accountable. It responds to the rapid growth of the illicit tobacco and vaping market, which is increasingly linked to organised crime and poses serious public health risks, particularly for young people.
Domestic and Family Violence Protection and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill strengthens Queensland's domestic and family violence protections following the 'Not Now, Not Ever' taskforce report. It gives police more power to protect victims on the spot, makes protection orders last longer, lets agencies share information to respond to serious threats, and joins the national scheme that recognises domestic violence orders across state borders.
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.
Motor Accident Insurance and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill makes it a criminal offence to engage in 'claim farming' — the practice of cold-calling Queenslanders after car accidents and pressuring them to make CTP insurance claims, then selling their details to lawyers for a fee. It also strengthens the Motor Accident Insurance Commission's powers to investigate law practices involved in claim farming.
Tobacco and Other Smoking Products Amendment Bill 2023
This bill overhauls Queensland's smoking product laws to reduce smoking rates, combat the illicit tobacco trade, and protect more people from second-hand smoke. It introduces mandatory licensing for all tobacco and vaping product sellers, creates new offences for supplying illicit tobacco, expands smoke-free zones to outdoor dining areas, markets, and school carparks, and strengthens protections for children.
Serious and Organised Crime Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill dismantles Queensland's 2013 anti-bikie laws and replaces them with a new Organised Crime Regime. It repeals the VLAD Act and Criminal Organisation Act 2009, removes mandatory minimum penalties targeting gang members, and introduces a new consorting offence, control orders, public safety orders and a mandatory seven-year jail 'top-up' for serious organised crime. It also toughens laws on online child exploitation, boiler-room fraud and drug trafficking, and restores fair process rights for people applying for licences in regulated industries such as tattooing and security.
Tobacco and Other Smoking Products (Vaping) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill gives Queensland much stronger powers to crack down on the illegal sale of vaping products and illicit tobacco. It creates new offences for supplying, possessing, advertising and promoting vaping products, with penalties of up to 2,000 penalty units or 2 years imprisonment. It also introduces powers to shut down non-compliant businesses and makes it a specific offence to litter vaping devices.
Public Records Bill 2023
This bill replaces Queensland's 20-year-old public records law with a modern framework suited to the digital age. It makes government records in the State Archives open to the public by default, strengthens protections against the destruction or tampering of records, and formally recognises the importance of public records for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
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.
Land, Explosives and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017
This bill is an omnibus package that makes changes across nine Queensland laws in the natural resources and mines portfolio. It strengthens explosives security, modernises gas safety, protects two Cape York properties from mining, gives Indigenous communities more flexibility over land and social housing, and updates state land compliance powers and property titling.
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.