- The Crisafulli Government has introduced the Queensland Protection Commission Bill 2026 into Parliament.
- The Bill delivers core recommendations from the In Plain Sight report.
- The Bill centralises key safeguarding functions, including the Reportable Conduct Scheme, Working with Children Check Scheme (Blue Card), and Disability Worker Screening Scheme (Yellow Card).
- The Crisafulli Government is delivering the strongest child protection reforms in the country, fixing Labor’s broken child safety system, to make Queensland safer.
The Crisafulli Government is delivering nation-leading changes to strengthen Queensland’s safeguarding systems through the introduction of the Queensland Protection Commission Bill 2026 in response to the landmark In Plain Sight report.
The Bill will establish the Queensland Protection Commission from 1 February 2027 as Queensland’s first centralised child and vulnerable person safeguarding entity.
The Queensland Protection Commission consolidates the Reportable Conduct Scheme, Working with Children Check (Blue Card) Scheme and Disability Worker Screening Scheme and removes information silos between these functions to strengthen oversight, accountability, coordination and information sharing, better protecting children.
The Bill also lays the foundation for a new Intelligence Hub to be established within the Queensland Protection Commission, which will proactively identify risks of harm to children.
Penalties will also be strengthened for relevant offences under the Working with Children (Risk Management and Screening) Act and Child Safe Organisations Act, to ensure the Commission receives necessary information to make children safer. 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 failures identified in the landmark report In Plain Sight, 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 following the 2017 Royal Commission’s recommendation.
Following years of delays and broken promises by the former Labor Government, the Reportable Conduct Scheme recently 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.
Queensland is also the first jurisdiction in Australia to implement key commitments under the national Working with Children Check Agreement, delivering nationally consistent disqualifying and serious offences through the Bill. The Bill also enables Queensland’s participation in the national continuous checking capability system pilot.
Attorney-General, Minister for Justice and Minister for Integrity Deb Frecklington said the reforms would fundamentally strengthen Queensland’s approach to safeguarding children and vulnerable people.
“These nation-leading reforms are about putting stronger safeguards around Queensland’s children and vulnerable people, while restoring confidence in the systems designed to protect them,” the Attorney-General said.
“We are doing what Labor failed to do – delivering Queensland’s first centralised child and vulnerable person safeguarding authority, strengthening oversight and penalties, and ensuring information about risks is shared so action can be taken earlier.
“I want to thank the children, families and survivors who courageously shared their experiences and helped shape this important work.
“I also thank Child Death Review Board Chairperson Luke Twyford and the Board for their comprehensive work in exposing the failures that must never be allowed to happen again.
“The Crisafulli Government is committed to making Queensland a national leader in child safeguarding and ensuring children, vulnerable people and their families get the protection they deserve.”
