Courts

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 fixes a technical problem with the oaths taken by some Queensland magistrates and judicial registrars between April 2013 and April 2015. It confirms that their appointments and all their past decisions are legally valid, even though they took an outdated form of oath.

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.

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.

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 is a wide-ranging omnibus that tackles metal theft with new criminal offences and penalties up to 25 years imprisonment, improves the coronial system to handle deaths in custody more efficiently and cover deaths of people with disability receiving Commonwealth supports, raises the District Court's civil jurisdiction from $750,000 to $1.5 million, and makes numerous other updates to justice and administrative legislation including repealing the Brisbane Casino Agreement Act.

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.

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.

This bill makes technical and protective amendments to the Mental Health Act 2016 before it starts on 5 March 2017. The key change stops statements made by a person during a court-ordered mental health assessment or examination from being used against them in civil or criminal proceedings, so patients can be frank with clinicians. The bill also tightens limits on detention, seclusion and restraint, fixes gaps affecting private mental health services, and makes small changes to the Public Health Act 2005 and Coroners Act 2003.

This bill reforms Queensland's criminal appeals system in two significant ways. It creates a new right for convicted persons to make subsequent appeals to the Court of Appeal when fresh or new compelling evidence emerges, even after their original appeal has been decided. It also expands the double jeopardy exception — which previously only applied to murder — to allow retrials for 10 additional serious offences punishable by life imprisonment.

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.

This bill strengthens Queensland's domestic violence laws in response to the 'Not Now, Not Ever' taskforce report. It changes how courts handle competing protection order applications, makes courts actively consider ordering perpetrators out of the family home, gives victims a stronger voice in decisions, and clearly authorises police to use body-worn cameras on duty.

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 toughens Queensland's political donation disclosure rules and removes voter ID requirements. It also sets up a judicial-style pension for the chairperson of the Crime and Corruption Commission.

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.

This bill sets up a new independent Land Access Ombudsman to help landholders and resource companies resolve disputes about the agreements that govern mining, petroleum and gas activity on private land. It also gives the Land Court power to decide these disputes and preserves technical mining rules that were due to expire.

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 reverses a set of yet-to-commence changes to Queensland's resource laws that would have reduced the public's right to object to mining projects and weakened protections for farmers and rural landholders. It restores community objection rights in the Land Court, writes protections for homes, schools and key farm infrastructure into primary legislation, and removes ministerial powers to grant mining leases over land without the landholder's consent.

This bill introduces a new criminal offence of industrial manslaughter in Queensland, with up to 20 years jail for employers or senior officers whose negligence causes a worker's death and up to $10 million for companies. It follows a government review prompted by the Dreamworld and Eagle Farm worker fatalities and also creates an independent WHS Prosecutor, expands workplace safety dispute powers to the Industrial Relations Commission, and brings back Workplace Health and Safety Officers.

This bill established temporary emergency powers to help Queensland respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. It protected renters and small businesses from eviction, allowed Parliament and courts to operate remotely, and gave government broad powers to modify legal requirements around documents, time limits, and proceedings. The entire Act expired on 31 December 2020.

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.

This bill aimed to reverse the Queensland Parliament's 1989 removal of Justice Angelo Vasta from the Supreme Court. It would have declared that removal invalid and treated him as having retired instead. The bill lapsed and did not become law.

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 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.

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 completely replaces Queensland's Mental Health Act 2000 with a new framework for treating people with serious mental illness who cannot consent to their own treatment, and for dealing with people with a mental illness who are charged with serious crimes. It tightens the criteria for involuntary treatment, strengthens patient rights, limits the use of restraint and seclusion, and creates a new role - the chief psychiatrist - to oversee the system.

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 strengthens Queensland's domestic and family violence protections following the 'Not Now, Not Ever' taskforce report. It gives police more power to protect victims on the spot, makes protection orders last longer, lets agencies share information to respond to serious threats, and joins the national scheme that recognises domestic violence orders across state borders.

This bill restores normal community objection and judicial review rights to bauxite mining projects at Aurukun on western Cape York. Since 2006, a special regime under the Mineral Resources Act 1989 had bypassed those rights for projects on Restricted Area 315. The bill brings Aurukun projects back in line with the standard mining approval process.

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 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.

This bill toughens Queensland's response to domestic violence by increasing penalties for breaching protection orders, flagging domestic violence offences on criminal histories, and giving victims better protections when they give evidence in court. It delivers three recommendations from the 'Not Now, Not Ever' Taskforce report on domestic and family violence.

This bill creates an independent Domestic and Family Violence Death Review and Advisory Board to examine why people are dying from domestic and family violence in Queensland and recommend changes to prevent future deaths. It amends the Coroners Act 2003 to set up the Board's membership, functions, powers, and reporting requirements, implementing a key recommendation of the Not Now, Not Ever report.

This bill re-establishes the Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council, an independent body that advises on sentencing, researches how sentences are set, and seeks community views. The council had been created in 2010 and dissolved in 2012; this bill brings it back in permanent legislation.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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.

This bill creates a dedicated Mining and Resources Coroner who must investigate and hold mandatory public inquests into all accidental deaths at coal mines, mines, quarries, and petroleum and gas sites in Queensland. It implements the government's election commitment to increase oversight of mining-related fatalities and ensure families receive answers about how their loved ones died.

This bill moves the disciplinary system for Queensland lawyers from QCAT to the Supreme Court. It implements the findings of a statutory review that recommended the Supreme Court as a more appropriate venue for hearing serious misconduct cases against legal practitioners, while keeping the process accessible and less formal than typical court proceedings.

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 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.

This bill brings back a drug court in Queensland by creating a new sentencing option called a Drug and Alcohol Treatment Order. Designated magistrates can suspend a prison sentence of up to four years while the offender completes a court-supervised treatment program of at least two years. The bill also tightens the dangerous drug definition, clarifies that long prison sentences can never be 'spent', and gives extra court protections to victims of domestic strangulation.

This bill increases the financial assistance available to victims of violent crime in Queensland, with the maximum payment for primary victims rising from $75,000 to $120,000. It recognises the seriousness of domestic and family violence by boosting the special assistance payment for those victim-survivors from $1,000 to $9,000. These are the first increases to most victim assistance caps since 2009.

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.

This bill tightens the rules for money in Queensland local council elections and makes a range of technical fixes to planning and building laws. It lowers the donation disclosure threshold to $500, paves the way for real-time online donation reporting, and clarifies when council approval is needed alongside a private certifier's approval for building work.

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 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.