Community Services

This bill rewrites large parts of Queensland's Child Protection Act 1999 to give children in long-term out-of-home care more stability and to strengthen cultural protections for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. It introduces a new 'permanent care order' lasting until age 18, limits successive short-term orders to two years, extends support for young people leaving care up to age 25, and simplifies how agencies share information to protect children at risk.

This bill creates a portable long service leave scheme for Queensland's community services industry, covering workers in areas like disability support, family violence, homelessness, counselling and youth justice. It allows workers to accumulate long service leave credits as they move between employers in the sector, addressing the high job mobility caused by short-term funding contracts. The bill also fixes an anomaly where employees dismissed due to illness were denied pro rata long service leave.

This bill recognises the contribution of Queensland's diverse communities and sets up a framework for government to be more responsive to cultural, linguistic and religious diversity. It creates a Multicultural Queensland Charter, an Advisory Council to guide the Minister, and requires a multicultural policy and action plan with regular public reporting.

This bill creates a mandatory screening system for people who work with Queenslanders with disability. It implements the nationally agreed NDIS worker screening scheme and establishes a separate state system for disability services funded outside the NDIS. The bill also strengthens how the blue card system works alongside disability screening to protect children with disability.

This bill modernises Queensland's framework for incorporated associations and charitable organisations. It introduces governance standards for management committees, reduces duplicate financial reporting for organisations registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission, and provides simpler processes for dispute resolution, voluntary administration, and cancellation of incorporation.

This bill creates a new independent state body called the Healthy Futures Commission Queensland, focused on helping children and families live healthier lives. The Commission will fund community projects, partnerships and research aimed at promoting healthy eating, physical activity and reducing health gaps between different Queensland communities.

This bill overhauls how Queensland collects unpaid fines through the State Penalties Enforcement Registry (SPER). It creates Work and Development Orders so people in hardship can clear their fines through unpaid work, medical treatment, counselling or courses instead of paying cash, while giving SPER stronger tools against people who refuse to engage.

This bill modernises Queensland's adoption laws after a five-year statutory review. It opens adoption to same-sex couples, single people and people undergoing fertility treatment, improves access to adoption records (including information about possible birth fathers), and removes an old criminal offence for breaching pre-1991 contact statements. It also tightens the step-parent adoption process and allows in-person contact between adopted children and their birth families during interim orders.

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.

This bill updates five Queensland housing laws to give more protection to people living in manufactured home parks, retirement villages, boarding houses and rental properties. It was part of the 2017-2027 Queensland Housing Strategy and introduces new disclosure rules, dispute processes, behavioural standards, and a head of power for minimum rental housing standards.

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.

This bill extends Queensland's disability safeguards to providers funded through the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) as the scheme rolls out from 2016. It makes sure NDIS participants keep the same state-based protections - worker screening, complaints handling, community visitor checks and coroner oversight - that currently apply to people funded directly by the Queensland Government.