Youth Justice Act 1992
LegislationReferenced in 55 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.
Mental Health (Recovery Model) Bill 2015
This bill replaces Queensland's Mental Health Act 2000 with a new framework for treating people with mental illness who cannot consent to their own care. It is built around a recovery model that treats people in the community wherever possible, strengthens patient rights, and provides clearer ways to divert people with mental illness from the criminal justice system while protecting the community.
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.
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.
Expanding Adult Crime, Adult Time and Taking a Strong Stance on Drugs and Anti-Social Behaviour Amendment Bill 2026
This bill expands the Adult Crime, Adult Time youth sentencing scheme to 12 additional serious offences, replaces the existing police drug diversion program with a stricter one-chance framework, and creates new Designated Business and Community Precincts where police have enhanced powers to tackle anti-social behaviour.
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.
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.
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.
Emergency Services Reform Amendment Bill 2023
This bill restructures Queensland's emergency services by transferring the State Emergency Service and marine rescue functions from Queensland Fire and Emergency Services to the Queensland Police Service. It establishes a new State Disaster Management Group chaired by the Premier to provide faster strategic oversight during disasters, and makes consequential amendments across more than 20 pieces of legislation to ensure workers' compensation, civil liability protections, and Blue Card requirements continue for volunteers.
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.
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.
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.
Police Service Administration and Other Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2022
This bill makes operational improvements to the Queensland Police Service and Queensland Fire and Emergency Services. It reforms police discipline processes, introduces automatic dismissal of officers sentenced to imprisonment, creates stronger protections for confidential police information, streamlines weapons licensing, and modernises fire safety and emergency management laws.
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 showing first responders experience mental health conditions at substantially higher rates than the general workforce.
COVID-19 Emergency Response and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020
This bill extends Queensland's COVID-19 emergency response legislation from 31 December 2020 to 30 April 2021, keeping in place temporary measures across tenancy, court proceedings, health, and other areas. It also reforms by-election procedures during the pandemic, allows artisan distillers to sell spirits directly to the public, changes how local government councillor vacancies are filled, and bolsters youth detention centre staffing powers.
Child Protection (Offender Reporting and Offender Prohibition Order) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill updates Queensland's child protection offender registry scheme to address technology-based offending that has become more prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic. It strengthens police monitoring powers over convicted child sex offenders, particularly their use of digital devices, anonymising software, and online platforms.
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.
Education and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026
This bill delivers reforms across Queensland's education and arts portfolios. It reduces red tape for non-state schools, creates a legal framework for programs that re-engage disengaged students, expands international delivery of the Queensland Certificate of Education, modernises governance of five arts statutory bodies, and introduces anti-scalping protections for QPAC ticket resales.
Tow Truck and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2017
This bill brings private property towing under the Tow Truck Act for the first time, capping charges and requiring licensed operators with written consent from property occupiers. It also keeps 17-year-old drivers subject to mandatory disqualifications and SPER enforcement, and lets toll operators combine multiple unpaid tolls into a single demand notice.
Criminal Justice Legislation (Sexual Violence and Other Matters) Amendment Bill 2024
This bill implements the third wave of reforms from the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce, focusing on sexual violence and improving how women and girls experience the criminal justice system. It creates new offences to protect young people from sexual exploitation by people in authority, strengthens protections for vulnerable witnesses, allows expert evidence to help juries understand victim behaviour, and modernises rules about how past behaviour evidence can be used in criminal trials.
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.
Strengthening Community Safety Bill 2023
This bill toughens Queensland's response to youth crime by increasing penalties for motor vehicle theft (up to 14 years for aggravated offences), strengthening bail conditions for young offenders, and creating a new 'serious repeat offender' declaration that prioritises community safety in sentencing. It also establishes multi-agency collaborative panels to coordinate support services for at-risk children.
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.
Youth Justice (Monitoring Devices) Amendment Bill 2025
This bill extends Queensland's trial of electronic monitoring devices for children on bail by one year, to 30 April 2026. The trial allows courts to order children aged 15 and over who are charged with serious offences and have a history of offending to wear a monitoring device as a condition of bail. The extension gives the government time to properly evaluate whether the devices are effective before deciding the trial's future.
Criminal Law (Domestic Violence) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2015
This bill responds to the Not Now, Not Ever report by the Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence. It creates a new criminal offence of strangulation in a domestic setting, makes domestic violence an aggravating factor that increases sentences, and restores the power of lawyers to suggest specific sentences to the court.
Justice and Other Legislation (COVID-19 Emergency Response) Amendment Bill 2020
This bill made temporary amendments to over 20 Queensland Acts as the state's third legislative response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It addressed issues that could not be dealt with under the existing COVID-19 Emergency Response Act 2020 modification framework, providing financial relief for workers, property owners and businesses, strengthening public health and emergency powers, and enabling corrections, disability and mental health services to operate safely during the emergency. Most provisions expired on 31 December 2020.
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.
Public Health and Other Legislation (Further Extension of Expiring Provisions) Amendment Bill 2021
This bill extended most of Queensland's temporary COVID-19 emergency laws until 30 April 2022, continuing the legal basis for public health directions, quarantine requirements, and support measures across multiple sectors. It also reformed the quarantine fee system to allow prepayment and third-party liability, and clarified that quarantine directions could be issued electronically.
Health and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill makes a set of changes across health, research and criminal law. It equalises Queensland's age of consent at 16 for all sexual activity, gives GPs access to hospital records through a system called The Viewer, streamlines research use of patient data, lets schools share student details with immunisation and dental providers, and frees QIMR Berghofer to pay research bonuses up to $10 million a year without Cabinet approval.
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.
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.
Child Protection Reform and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
This bill reforms Queensland's child protection system to give children in care stronger rights and a genuine voice in decisions about their lives. It also strengthens the blue card screening system by connecting Queensland to a national database and allowing domestic violence information to be considered in working with children checks.
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.
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.
Tow Truck and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2018
This bill reforms Queensland's tow truck industry to protect motorists from unfair private property towing practices, reinstates driving penalties for 17-year-old drivers following their inclusion in the youth justice system, and reduces toll road administration charges by allowing demand notices to be combined.
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.
Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2019
This bill reforms Queensland's youth justice laws to keep more children out of custody and ensure they receive appropriate support. It creates a new bail framework with a clear presumption in favour of releasing children, bans electronic tracking devices on young people, enables better information sharing between government agencies and service providers, and authorises body-worn cameras in youth detention centres.
Bail (Domestic Violence) and Another Act Amendment Bill 2017
This bill strengthens protections for domestic violence victims by making it harder for accused offenders to get bail and giving victims more information about what happens next. It reverses the presumption in favour of bail for domestic violence offences, allows GPS tracking as a bail condition, and requires victims to be notified when a defendant applies for or is granted bail.
Domestic and Family Violence Protection (Combating Coercive Control) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2022
This bill strengthens Queensland's response to domestic and family violence by implementing recommendations from the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce. It recognises coercive control as a pattern of behaviour, modernises stalking laws to cover technology-facilitated abuse, reforms how courts handle competing domestic violence claims, and improves evidence rules so juries better understand DFV dynamics. It also makes unrelated changes to the Coroners Act, Oaths Act, and Telecommunications Interception Act.
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.
Criminal Code and Other Legislation (Mason Jett Lee) Amendment Bill 2019
This bill sought to introduce mandatory minimum prison sentences for the murder of children and create a new criminal offence of 'child homicide'. Named after Mason Jett Lee, a toddler who was killed, it aimed to ensure sentencing for child deaths reflects community expectations and aligns with other Australian jurisdictions. The bill was defeated at the second reading and did not become law.
Justice Legislation (Links to Terrorist Activity) Amendment Bill 2018
This bill implements a national agreement to make it much harder for people with links to terrorism to get bail or parole in Queensland. It amends four Acts to create a presumption against bail and parole for anyone convicted of a terrorism offence or subject to a Commonwealth control order, requiring them to prove exceptional circumstances before being released.
Family Responsibilities Commission Amendment Bill 2015
This bill updates the Family Responsibilities Commission Act 2008 to strengthen how the Commission works in the five welfare reform communities (Aurukun, Coen, Doomadgee, Hope Vale and Mossman Gorge). Its main change adds a domestic violence 'trigger' so courts must notify the Commission when a protection order is made against a community resident, implementing Recommendation 93 of the 'Not Now, Not Ever' report.
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.
Child Safe Organisations Bill 2024
This bill creates a mandatory child safe organisations system for Queensland, requiring organisations that work with children to meet 10 child safe standards and report allegations of child abuse by their workers. It implements key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and gives the Queensland Family and Child Commission new powers to oversee child safety across sectors including schools, childcare, health services, religious bodies, sport clubs, and government agencies.
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.
Fighting Antisemitism and Keeping Guns out of the Hands of Terrorists and Criminals Amendment Bill 2026
This bill responds to the December 2025 Bondi Beach terrorist attack by strengthening Queensland's laws against hate speech and antisemitism, and significantly toughening firearms regulations. It bans hate symbols of terrorist organisations, criminalises prohibited expressions that incite hatred, creates new protections for worshippers at religious sites, and imposes some of Australia's strongest penalties for weapons offences including new crimes targeting 3D-printed firearms.
Youth Justice (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill 2025
This bill makes electronic monitoring of children on bail a permanent feature of Queensland's youth justice system, available statewide. Following an independent evaluation that found monitoring reduced reoffending, improved bail completion, and reduced time in custody, the government is removing the trial's restrictions on age, offence type, and geographic location. The bill commences on 30 April 2026.
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.
Making Queensland Safer (Adult Crime, Adult Time) Amendment Bill 2025
This bill expands Queensland's 'Adult Crime, Adult Time' policy by adding 20 serious offences to the list of crimes for which young offenders can be sentenced as adults. It is part of the Government's Making Queensland Safer Plan and follows advice from an Expert Legal Panel. The bill also improves victim notification arrangements.
Monitoring of Places of Detention (Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture) Bill 2022
This bill creates a Queensland law to allow the United Nations Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to visit and inspect all places of detention in the state. It implements Australia's commitments under the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT), ratified in 2017, by giving UN inspectors access to prisons, youth detention centres, mental health facilities, the forensic disability service, police watch-houses, court cells, and prisoner transport vehicles.
Victims of Crime Assistance and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2016
This bill strengthens support for victims of crime in Queensland. It makes financial assistance easier to claim, extends it to victims of domestic and family violence including elder abuse and economic abuse, and creates a new Charter of Victims' Rights. It also introduces legal protection for sexual assault counselling records and automatically treats sexual offence victims as 'special witnesses' in court.
Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2015
This bill rolls back a package of tough-on-youth-crime laws introduced in 2013 and 2014. It abolishes youth boot camps, ends the offence of breaching bail for children, restores a ban on naming children in the media, and reinstates the principle that detention or imprisonment should only be used as a last resort.