Queensland Human Rights Commission
OrganisationReferenced in 21 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 the Sexual Violence Review Board to examine systemic problems in how sexual offences are reported, investigated and prosecuted. The bill transfers the Charter of Victims' Rights from the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 2009 and gives the Commissioner power to handle complaints when victims' rights are breached.
Human Rights Bill 2018
This bill creates Queensland's first Human Rights Act, establishing 23 protected human rights and requiring all government entities to act compatibly with them. It adopts a 'dialogue model' where Parliament remains sovereign but courts can declare laws incompatible, and a renamed Queensland Human Rights Commission handles complaints from the public.
Health and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2023
This bill makes a range of changes across five health-related Acts to improve healthcare access, strengthen patient safety, and update health legislation. Key reforms include allowing nurses and midwives to perform early medical terminations of pregnancy, counting newborns as separate patients for maternity ward staffing ratios, and enabling better sharing of patient safety information across Queensland Health.
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 toddler Mason Jet Lee. It requires mandatory case plan reviews after two years for children under the chief executive's long-term guardianship, to ensure better permanency options are actively considered.
Corrective Services (Emerging Technologies and Security) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill modernises Queensland's corrective services and youth justice legislation to address emerging security threats and improve emergency preparedness. It criminalises drone use over prisons and youth detention centres, authorises new search and surveillance technologies, strengthens information sharing between agencies, and creates a comprehensive emergency response framework for correctional facilities.
Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill amends over 30 Acts and regulations within the justice portfolio to improve how Queensland's courts, tribunals, and administrative agencies operate. It modernises the coronial system, strengthens protections for vulnerable witnesses, speeds up the handling of property offences, and fixes various anomalies across the justice system.
Health Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill makes wide-ranging amendments across Queensland's health laws to embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health equity, ban conversion therapy by health service providers, strengthen collaboration across the public health system, and update private hospital accreditation requirements. It also repeals the redundant Pap Smear Register and makes administrative changes to the Queensland Mental Health Commission.
Inspector of Detention Services Bill 2021
This bill creates an independent Inspector of Detention Services to oversee Queensland's prisons, youth detention centres, police watch-houses, work camps and community corrections centres. The Inspector's job is to prevent harm by regularly inspecting detention facilities and reporting publicly to Parliament on conditions and treatment of detainees. The role is held by the Queensland Ombudsman but operates independently with dedicated staff and resources.
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.
Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill tightens bail rules for serious repeat young offenders, gives police new powers to scan for knives in Gold Coast entertainment precincts, and makes it harder for hooning drivers to avoid identification. It responds to a small cohort of recidivist youth offenders responsible for nearly half of all youth crime, tragic knife murders in Surfers Paradise, and ongoing community concerns about dangerous driving.
Industrial Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill overhauls Queensland's industrial relations laws following a five-year review. It strengthens workplace sexual harassment protections, introduces minimum pay and conditions for independent courier drivers, updates parental leave to include stillbirth leave and flexible leave options, and requires gender pay gap disclosure during enterprise bargaining.
Police Powers and Responsibilities and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill modernises Queensland's search and inspection laws to recognise trans and gender diverse people, replacing outdated same-sex rules with gender-responsive safeguards across police, corrections, mental health and public health legislation. It also restricts how often prisoners can reapply for parole after being refused and expands the health professionals who can assess prisoners at risk of self-harm.
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.
Police Legislation (Efficiencies and Effectiveness) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill streamlines Queensland Police Service operations by cutting red tape and updating outdated processes. It lets senior police officers witness certain affidavits instead of requiring a Justice of the Peace, expands police powers to seek court-ordered access to seized digital devices, introduces faster saliva drug testing for officers after critical incidents, and makes several changes to weapons licensing administration.
Police Service Administration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill modernises the security framework for Queensland Government buildings by repealing the State Buildings Protective Security Act 1983 and integrating Protective Services into the Queensland Police Service. It creates a single category of protective services officer (PSO) with standardised powers and introduces new accountability measures including a register of enforcement acts.
Criminal Law (Raising the Age of Responsibility) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill sought to raise Queensland's minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years old, consistent with United Nations standards and medical evidence that children under 14 lack the brain development to fully understand the consequences of their actions. It was a private member's bill introduced by Michael Berkman MP (Greens) that failed at its second reading vote and did not become law.
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.
Corrective Services (Promoting Safety) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024
This bill amends Queensland's corrective services laws to improve safety for victims, frontline officers, prisoners, and the community. It strengthens the Victims Register, cracks down on prisoners misusing phone systems to perpetrate domestic violence, extends police monitoring powers for dangerous child sex offenders, and introduces body-worn cameras and gel blaster protections for corrective services officers.
COVID-19 Emergency Response and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill extends Queensland's temporary COVID-19 emergency legislation to 30 September 2021, gives local governments flexibility to adjust rates mid-year, creates a framework for holding COVID-safe local government by-elections and fresh elections, and extends temporary remote meeting arrangements for councils.
Local Government Electoral and Other Legislation (Expenditure Caps) Amendment Bill 2022
This bill introduces spending caps for Queensland local government elections, limiting how much candidates, political parties and third parties can spend on campaigning. It follows recommendations from a parliamentary committee inquiry prompted by the Crime and Corruption Commission's Belcarra report, which found that uneven financial competition was deterring candidates and distorting local government elections.
Health and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill makes wide-ranging amendments to Queensland's health legislation, with the most significant reforms to the Mental Health Act 2016. It strengthens the rights of people receiving mental health treatment by replacing 'best interests' tests with a rights-based approach, improves safeguards around electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), enables international patient transfers, and aligns confidentiality provisions across health agencies.