- Crisafulli Government passes Bill to establish new Queensland Protection Commission (Commission) as Queensland's first centralised child and vulnerable person safeguarding entity.
- Delivers on key recommendations of the landmark In Plain Sight report, and consolidates key safeguarding functions, including the Reportable Conduct, Blue Card and Yellow Card Schemes.
- The Crisafulli Government is delivering the strongest child protection reforms in the country, fixing Labor's broken child safety system.
The Crisafulli Government has delivered nation-leading reforms to strengthen Queensland's child safeguarding systems, with the Queensland Protection Commission Bill 2026 passing Parliament, fixing failures from the former Labor Government identified in the landmark In Plain Sight report.
The new law establishes the Queensland Protection Commission (Commission) from 1 February 2027 as Queensland's first dedicated child and vulnerable person safeguarding authority, consolidating key functions including the Reportable Conduct Scheme, Working with Children Check (Blue Card) Scheme and Disability Worker Screening Scheme (Yellow Card) under a single regulator to strengthen oversight, improve information sharing and better protect children and vulnerable people.
As recommended by In Plain Sight, the reforms also lay the foundation for a new nation-leading Intelligence Hub within the Queensland Protection Commission to proactively identify and assess risks of harm to children, enabling earlier intervention and stronger safeguarding responses.
Penalties will also be strengthened for relevant offences under the Working with Children Check Act and Child Safe Organisations Act, to ensure the Queensland Protection Commission receives necessary information to keep children safe. This includes increased maximum penalties for:
- knowingly providing false or misleading information or documents to Blue Card Services or the Reportable Conduct Scheme;
- failing to comply with requests for information for audit or compliance purposes; and
- a failure by a head of a reporting entity to disclose reportable conduct allegations or relevant convictions to the regulator.
These reforms address critical safeguarding failures identified through the Queensland Child Death Review Board's In Plain Sight review, which found that one of Australia's worst paedophiles, Ashley Paul Griffith, could have been stopped on up to five separate occasions if Labor had implemented a Reportable Conduct Scheme as recommended by the 2017 Royal Commission.
Following years of delays and broken promises by the former Labor Government, the Reportable Conduct Scheme commenced on 1 July 2026 after the Crisafulli Government invested more than $4 million to fast-track its implementation by up to 12 months for all relevant sectors.
Attorney-General, Minister for Justice and Minister for Integrity Deb Frecklington said the Crisafulli Government was delivering the reforms to protect vulnerable children, and make Queensland safer.
"The consequence of Labor's failure to deliver a Reportable Conduct Scheme was exposed in the In Plain Sight report, shaking community confidence and highlighting the need for stronger safeguards to protect Queensland children," the Attorney-General said.
"These reforms deliver the stronger safeguards Queensland families deserve, so when parents drop their children off at childcare, sport or other community activities, there is greater accountability, stronger oversight and earlier intervention to better protect our kids.
"Importantly, these laws also deliver tougher enforcement and stronger penalties to ensure organisations understand and meet their safeguarding obligations, to ensure the Queensland Protection Commission is provided with the critical information it needs to protect children.
"I want to thank the children, families, survivors and members of the Child Death Review Board, led by Chairperson Luke Twyford, whose courage and advocacy shone a light on serious failures and helped drive these important reforms.
"With these laws now passed, Queensland is strengthening protections for children and vulnerable people and building a safer future for generations to come."
