Case Explained:This article breaks down the legal background, charges, and implications of Case Explained: New Qld laws to target stalking, abuse and other offences – Legal Perspective
Twelve new offences will be added to the Crisafulli government’s “adult crime, adult time” laws when Queensland parliament meets this week, the premier announced on Sunday.
The addition of the 12 new offences will bring the total to 45.
“This is the third round of changes, and we have a long way to go in terms of where we want to see the state in terms of safety and how we want to return this state to people who want to feel safe, be safe and know that their kids are safe,” David Crisafulli said.
Added to the Making Queensland Safer Act will be: assault occasioning bodily harm; conspiring to murder; unlawful stalking, intimidation, harassment or abuse; riot; abuse of persons with an impairment of the mind; indecent treatment of a child under the age of 16; choking, suffocation, or strangulation in a domestic setting; disabling in order to commit an indictable offence; stupefying in order to commit indictable offence ; endangering the safety of a person in a vehicle with intent; aiding suicide; and administering poison with intent to harm.
Youth Justice Minister Laura Gerber conceded some of the new offences, such as aiding suicide and conspiracy to commit murder, were not prevalent in youth crime.
“The metric is, do these offenders cause serious harm to the community?” she said.
“We’re acting on the advice of the expert legal panel, which took into account the measure of harm caused by these offenders and recommended that these charges be included as adult crime, adult time.”
Gerber said the panel’s recommendations would eventually be publicly released through the parliamentary committee process.
The panel consisted of five members – chair April Freeman, KC, barrister Douglas Wilson, victims’ rights activist Lyndy Atkinson, former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Service chief executive Randal Ross, and retired detective superintendent Robert Weir – and has now been disbanded.
But Gerber said that did not mean this was the end of expanding the adult crime, adult time laws.
“We will not take a step backwards,” she said. “If further changes are needed, we will make them.”
An opposition spokesman said Labor would assess the bill “calmly and methodically” once it was introduced.
“The expert legal panel can finally answer why certain offences were recommended when they appear before the committee,” he said.
Parliament was also expected to pass controversial antisemitism laws, which Crisafulli described on Sunday as “the best legislation in the country”, despite drawing some criticism over their free speech implications.
The laws would allow parliament to restrict the use of specific phrases, the first of which are “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada”.
While they would not be banned as such, using them to “cause menace, harassment or offence” would be a crime.
Attorney-general Deb Frecklington said she was confident the legislation would not be an impediment to free speech.
“Our courts are so well versed and responsible for determining whether that prescribed expression had the intention of menacing, harassing or offending, and it also has to be well known to represent extreme prejudice,” she said.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.