Originally introduced in October last year, Queensland’s child protection (offender reporting and offender prohibition order) and other legislation amendment bill started life as an extremely routine housekeeping law.
The bill updated a range of rules for people convicted of sexual offences, and modernised the child protection registry scheme, among other changes. Probably its most interesting element was to allow police to enter the home of more convicted offenders without a warrant to inspect their electronic devices, retrospectively.
It was expected to pass with little opposition, after sailing through a parliamentary committee process in February. It then sat on the notice paper for months.
That all changed at 3.29pm on Wednesday when minister for police Mark Ryan stood up in parliament to announce 57 pages of amendments to the bill – with minutes’ notice.
Now the bill would change everything from the operation of a north Queensland mining lease to the policing of sex workers, as well as requiring the suspension of the state’s Human Rights Act, to allow for children to be kept indefinitely in adult watch houses.
But by introducing the changes so late in the process, the government ensured they wouldn’t be scrutinised by parliamentary committees as most bills are.
Here’s a list of the 14 amendments attached to the bill and passed by Queensland’s parliament on Thursday.
The first amendment removed the requirement for offenders on the sex crimes registry to report the location of every digital device they own or have access.
The government acted on longstanding inquiry recommendations, decriminalising the offences of begging and public drunkenness. The offences have a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Queenslanders and homeless people, and are perceived as criminalising people for simply being poor. Minister Ryan said “these behaviours require a health and social welfare-based response” rather than a criminal one.
In a related amendment, the laws limit the ability of police to punish people for public urination. Police will retain the power to issue an infringement notice to a person for public urination, in order to protect business in the CBD and the nightclub district of Fortitude Valley, according to Ryan’s speech.
The government also moved to overturn a decision by the Queensland court of appeal which prevented it from imposing disciplinary sanctions on a number of police officers. The cops had to be reappointed to their sometimes senior positions as a result of a “technical error” in the way they were referred to the office of state discipline, Ryan said.
The next amendment implements a recommendation of the 2021 inquiry into legalising sex work in Queensland. The bill will now eliminate the power of police to move on a sex worker for soliciting, and eliminate covert powers relevant to sex work. Ryan said the reform was a step towards legalising sex work entirely.
Amendment six clears up some ambiguous language relating to the Queensland police service’s anti-pedophile squad, Taskforce Argos.
The government amended a mining lease to allow the small privately owned town of Glendon, built as a mining camp, to continue once its associated coalmine closes.
Modifications to the Mental Health Act.
Changes to regulation of the supreme court of Queensland.
The big one, eliminating a legal loophole that could have overturned the state’s youth justice system. The law had previously required that a child detained in a watch house be taken to a youth detention centre “as soon as practicable” – and a police lockup may not have satisfied this requirement under the law.
Allows police to transfer a child from one police watch house to another, or to a holding cell at a police station. This includes a section allowing police actions to “have effect despite being incompatible with human rights”.
Retroactively exempts police from potential liability if the use of lockups was illegal.
Allows the government to declare a police watch house or an adult jail as a “youth detention centre” to permit jailing a child there. It sunsets on 31 August 2027, although the government can extend this for an additional 12 months.
Corrects a drafting error to allow young people over the age of 18 to be transferred from a youth detention facility to an adult jail.
