Hon Leanne Linard MP

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 a Sexual Violence Review Board to identify and address systemic issues in how sexual offences are reported, investigated and prosecuted. The bill was recommended by the Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce and the Independent Commission of Inquiry into Queensland Police Service responses to domestic and family violence.

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 Mason Jet Lee. It requires case plan reviews after two years for children under the chief executive's long-term guardianship, to ensure better permanency options are actively considered.

This bill makes wide-ranging reforms to Queensland's child protection system and blue card (working with children check) framework. It strengthens the rights of children in care, ensures their voices are genuinely heard in decisions affecting them, modernises the regulation of foster, kinship and licensed care, and connects Queensland to a national system for screening people who work with children.

This bill strengthens Queensland's environmental protection laws by modernising the powers and penalties available to regulators and creating new obligations for polluters. It implements recommendations from a 2022 independent review that found existing tools were too reactive, and introduces proactive measures including a new duty to restore contaminated environments and an offence for breaching the general environmental duty.