Queensland Labor MPs found out on Monday that they were expected to vote to suspend the state’s Human Rights Act, for a second time, to allow for the indefinite detention of children in adult police watch houses.
No one else seemed to have any warning. On Wednesday afternoon – on a particularly dreary day in state parliament – the police minister, Mark Ryan, tacked the law change on to an unrelated child safety bill, allowing it to pass through parliament the following day with no committee scrutiny.
