Disability Services

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 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 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 updates Queensland's disability services laws for the full rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme from 1 July 2019. It ensures state-level protections for people with disability continue under the new national framework, strengthens criminal screening of disability workers, and maintains coronial oversight and community visitor programs for NDIS participants receiving high-level supports.

This bill creates a new independent board to oversee Queensland's Public Trustee, which manages the financial and legal affairs of vulnerable people. It was introduced after the Public Advocate found significant issues with the Public Trustee's fees, charges and practices in a 2021 review.

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 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 expands Queensland's Disability Parking Permit Scheme to include people who are legally blind, and doubles the fine for misusing disability parking bays from $266 to $533. It also makes technical updates to rail safety definitions to align with national law.

This bill ensures that sole traders providing disability services under the NDIS in Queensland must undergo the same criminal history screening (yellow card system) as employees of disability service providers. It also enables Queensland Police to share expanded criminal history information with interstate worker screening units to support nationally consistent NDIS worker screening.

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.

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 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 was discharged and did not become law. It would have allowed people who are blind or have severe vision impairment to apply for disability parking permits in Queensland. Currently, only people with impaired walking ability qualify, even though four other Australian jurisdictions already include vision impairment as an eligible condition.

This bill updates Queensland's guide, hearing and assistance dog laws so that people with disability who need a support person to handle their dog (like a child with autism and their parent) are properly recognised. It also cuts red tape by letting approved trainers issue handler ID cards directly, and gives inspectors stronger powers to enforce the Act.

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 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 would have let Community Justice Groups in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities recommend that a local person be issued a blue card to work with children in their own community, even if a past non-sexual conviction would normally block one. The card would be valid only in that community. The bill was introduced by Mr Robbie Katter MP and lapsed at the end of the 55th Parliament, so it did not become law.

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 introduces a 'No Card, No Start' policy for Queensland's blue card system, meaning no one can begin paid work with children without first holding a working with children clearance. It also modernises the blue card application process with online options, expands the criminal offences that automatically disqualify a person from working with children, closes loopholes that allowed high-risk people to rely on exemptions, and creates a centralised register of home-based care services.

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.

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.