Civil Law

This bill removes the requirement for transgender people to be unmarried before they can update their birth certificate to reflect their sex reassignment. The change was prompted by the introduction of federal marriage equality in December 2017, which made the old restriction both unnecessary and potentially discriminatory under Commonwealth law.

This bill modernises Queensland's guardianship laws to better protect adults with impaired decision-making capacity and align them with international human rights standards. It also makes separate, unrelated changes to integrity advice rules for senior public servants and resolves a conflict between state and federal whistleblower laws for government-owned corporations.

This bill was a complete rewrite of Queensland's planning laws, aimed at replacing the 700-page Sustainable Planning Act 2009 with a simpler, faster system. It simplified development categories, cut State planning instruments from four to two, increased maximum fines for illegal development to over $500,000, and gave councils new powers over party houses. The bill was introduced by the Newman LNP government shortly before the 2015 election and did not pass; Queensland's planning system was instead replaced by the Labor government's Planning Act 2016.

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.

This bill changes 67 Queensland Acts so they line up with a proposed new planning system (the Planning and Development Bill 2015 and Planning and Environment Court Bill 2015) that would have replaced the Sustainable Planning Act 2009. Most changes are technical — swapping old planning terms for new ones — but the bill also streamlines environmental approvals for major coordinated projects and clarifies the Coordinator-General's power to authorise entry onto land in State Development Areas such as the Galilee Basin.

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.

This Greens private member's bill sought to implement key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It would have created a legal duty for institutions — such as schools, churches, and care facilities — to prevent child abuse and made it easier for survivors to sue by reversing the burden of proof. This bill was discharged and did not become law.

This bill forces banks and other lenders to offer farmers mediation before they can enforce a farm mortgage, giving struggling farmers a structured chance to negotiate outside of court. It also renames QRAA as the Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority, lets industry bodies run their own biosecurity accreditation schemes, clears the way for viruses to be used as pest control, and allows Queensland cannabis growers to supply seed to medicinal cannabis producers.

This bill sought to amend the Sugar Industry Act 1999 to require mandatory arbitration when sugar mill owners and sugar marketing entities cannot agree on 'on-supply' contracts for selling a grower's share of sugar. It aimed to give cane growers a genuine choice over who markets their sugar and ensure contracts are finalised before each crushing season. The bill failed at its third reading and did not become law.

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.

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.

This bill overhauls how subcontractors get paid in Queensland's building and construction industry. It creates 'Project Bank Accounts' that quarantine money owed to subcontractors in trust, combines existing security of payment laws into a single Act, and gives the Queensland Building and Construction Commission stronger powers to tackle unlicensed work and illegal phoenixing.

This bill closes a legal loophole that prevented survivors of institutional child abuse from holding institutions accountable when their abuser was not a formal employee. It responds to the High Court's 2024 decision in Bird v DP, which ruled that vicarious liability only applies to employment relationships, by extending it to persons in relationships akin to employment, such as religious clergy, volunteers, and contractors.

This bill replaces Queensland's 50-year-old Trusts Act 1973 with modernised trusts legislation. It clarifies what trustees must and can do, makes it easier to deal with common trust problems without going to court, and strengthens protections for people who benefit from trusts.

This bill modernises Queensland's defamation laws as part of a nationally agreed reform. It raises the bar for defamation claims by requiring proof of serious harm, introduces mandatory pre-court notices to encourage early resolution, and creates new defences for public interest reporting and academic peer review. It also fixes a minor heavy vehicle enforcement issue.

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.

This bill sought to amend Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 to make it unlawful to penalise someone for using traditional binary gender language like 'he', 'she', 'Mr', 'Mrs', 'husband' or 'wife'. It also aimed to protect organisations from being disadvantaged for only providing male/female facilities. Introduced by Mr R Katter MP, the bill failed at the second reading and did not become law.

This bill amends the Sugar Industry Act 1999 so cane growers can choose who markets the sugar they have an economic interest in, and can take disputes with mill owners to arbitration. It was introduced by independent MP Shane Knuth and passed with amendments in 2015.

This bill creates a no-fault insurance scheme that pays for lifetime treatment, care and support for people catastrophically injured in Queensland motor vehicle accidents, regardless of who caused the crash. It sets up a new agency and fund paid for by a levy on CTP insurance premiums, and applies to serious injuries suffered from 1 July 2016 onwards.

This bill would have removed time limits on civil lawsuits for child abuse, allowing survivors to sue institutions no matter how long ago the abuse happened. It also let survivors undo past settlements forced by expiring deadlines, stopped institutions from getting cases dismissed over delays they themselves caused, and restored jury trials for these cases. The bill failed at the second reading and did not become law.

This bill replaces Queensland's 50-year-old Trusts Act 1973 with a modernised framework for managing trusts. It implements recommendations from the Queensland Law Reform Commission's review, updating trustee powers and duties, strengthening beneficiary protections, and making trust disputes easier and cheaper to resolve through expanded District Court jurisdiction.

This bill restores the right for adult couples of any gender in Queensland to hold an official civil partnership ceremony before registering their relationship. It renames the Relationships Act back to the Civil Partnerships Act, sets up a new scheme for registering civil partnership notaries who can conduct ceremonies, and modernises the Births, Deaths and Marriages registry by moving to electronic lodgement of birth and death records.

This bill does four things at once. It removes the time limit for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse to sue for damages (even for abuse that happened decades ago), creates a modern class action system in the Supreme Court, closes a trust fund that helped pay for legal services, and makes permanent the scheme that lets Justices of the Peace hear minor civil disputes in QCAT.

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.

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.

This bill expands what the Energy and Water Ombudsman Queensland (EWOQ) can do. It opens the free dispute resolution service to small businesses with higher electricity use, lets EWOQ handle credit reporting complaints against energy and water providers, and fixes a small drafting error in another energy law.

This bill restores the right of injured Queensland workers to sue their employer for damages at common law, even for minor injuries, by scrapping the 5% impairment threshold introduced in 2013. It also treats 12 listed cancers as work-related injuries for long-serving firefighters and stops employers from checking a job applicant's workers' compensation claims history.

This bill restores the right of community members to formally object to mining projects' environmental authorities, even when the Coordinator-General has already set the conditions. It also clarifies that Land Court judges, registrars, lawyers and witnesses have full legal immunity when handling mining objection matters, fixing uncertainty caused by a recent Supreme Court decision.

This bill amends the Environmental Protection Act 1994 so that when a mining or industrial company collapses or walks away from a polluting site, the government can force the people and companies behind it to pay for the clean-up. It was introduced urgently after several high-profile failures including the Yabulu Nickel Refinery.

This bill decriminalises sex work in Queensland by repealing criminal offences that made most forms of sex work illegal and abolishing the brothel licensing system. It implements recommendations from the Queensland Law Reform Commission to treat sex work as legitimate work, while introducing new offences specifically targeting the exploitation of children and coercion in commercial sexual services.

This bill modernises Queensland's guardianship laws to better protect adults who lack capacity to make their own decisions. It aligns the system with international human rights standards, strengthens safeguards against financial exploitation by attorneys and administrators, and creates new protections for people who report abuse or neglect. It also makes separate amendments to the Integrity Act and government corporation corruption reporting laws.

This bill implements key recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It shifts the burden of proof so institutions must show they took reasonable steps to prevent child sexual abuse, and creates a legal framework so survivors can identify and sue the right defendant even when the responsible institution is unincorporated or has changed over time.

This bill improves Queensland's main tribunal (QCAT) and strengthens consumer protections for vehicle buyers. It raises QCAT's jurisdictional limit for motor vehicle disputes from $25,000 to $100,000, reinstates statutory warranty protections for older used vehicles sold by dealers, and introduces conciliation as a new dispute resolution option.

This bill overhauls how Queensland authorises the use of restrictive practices — such as physical restraint, chemical restraint and seclusion — on people with disability. It replaces the current system where guardians approve these practices with a new clinician-led model under a Senior Practitioner, aligning Queensland with national standards endorsed by all other states and territories.

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.

This bill creates a lifetime no-fault scheme for Queensland workers who suffer catastrophic injuries at work, such as spinal cord injury, major brain injury, severe burns or loss of limbs. It guarantees them ongoing treatment, care and support regardless of who caused the accident, starting from 1 July 2016. The bill also reforms self-insurance rules, blocks injury costs being shifted onto subcontractors, and protects compensation payments from dropping when wages fall.

This bill modernises Queensland's defamation laws for the digital age by implementing nationally agreed reforms. It creates new protections for digital platforms and online service providers regarding defamatory content posted by third parties, gives courts stronger powers to order removal of defamatory material online, and extends absolute privilege to complaints made to police.

This bill replaces Queensland's entire planning and development system with a simpler framework, repealing the Sustainable Planning Act 2009 and introducing a new Planning Act. It reduces red tape, streamlines how councils make planning schemes, clarifies the rules for approving or refusing development applications, and increases penalties for breaking planning laws.

This bill gives the Planning and Environment Court its own stand-alone Act instead of being buried inside the Sustainable Planning Act 2009. It keeps the existing court running, pairs with the Planning Bill 2015 to handle development disputes, and encourages more use of mediation and other alternative dispute resolution to settle cases faster and more cheaply.

This bill creates a scheme for people to apply to have historical convictions or charges for consensual adult homosexual activity wiped from their criminal records. It covers offences from before homosexuality was decriminalised in Queensland on 19 January 1991. Once expunged, a person is treated in law as never having been convicted or charged.

This bill would have made institutions legally responsible when children in their care are sexually or seriously physically abused by staff, volunteers or contractors. It implemented recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The bill lapsed when the 55th Parliament ended and did not become law.

This bill creates a new, independent system for handling complaints about Queensland councillors. It sets up an Independent Assessor to investigate complaints, a Councillor Conduct Tribunal to hear serious cases of misconduct, and a Local Government Remuneration Commission to set councillor pay. The changes apply to every Queensland council except Brisbane City Council.

This bill replaces Queensland's Industrial Relations Act 1999 with an entirely new framework governing work for the state's public service, local councils and Brisbane City Council. It sets new minimum employment conditions, makes collective bargaining the main way to negotiate pay and conditions, introduces paid domestic and family violence leave for the first time, and makes Easter Sunday a public holiday from 2017.