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The Bill

On 13 August 2020, Hon Yvette D’Ath MP, Attorney General and Minister for Justice introduced the Criminal Code (Consent and Mistake of Fact) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020 (the Bill) and referred it to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee (the committee) for detailed consideration.

Objectives of the Bill

The policy objectives of the Bill are to:

• implement the recommendations of the Queensland Law Reform Commission in its Review of consent laws and the excuse of mistake of fact report
• enable additional payments to be made from the Legal Practitioners’ Fidelity Guarantee Fund to claimants who made claims prior to 2016 and were subject to statutory caps
• implement the second tranche of the Government’s legislative response to the final evaluation report of the Tackling Alcohol-Fuelled Violence Policy
• rectify an unintended omission in the Co-operatives National Law Act 2020
• exempt the Queensland liquor accords and the Safe Night Precinct local boards from the cartel provisions of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010
• prohibit inducements to open an account, or refer a friend to open an account, with an online wagering provider or racing bookmaker
• provide that a wagering provider must pay the declared minimum dividend if rounding would result in a dividend that is lower than a declared minimum dividend.

Bill lapsed

The 56th Queensland Parliament has been dissolved by proclamation dated 6 October 2020. Therefore the Criminal Code (Consent and Mistake of Fact) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2020 has lapsed.

At some time after the State election, a new parliament will commence and new committees will be appointed. The date of commencement is not yet known.

For bill inquiries, it will be a matter for the new parliament whether to make a fresh referral to a committee of any re-introduced bill. If a new committee continues an inquiry commenced before the dissolution, it can have regard to evidence and submissions received by its predecessor committee.

Related information

To subscribe to the committee mailing list, please click here.

Call for submissions

The committee invites written submissions on the Bill from interested stakeholders and members of the public. The committee would appreciate you passing its call for submissions on to anyone you believe might be interested in the inquiry. The closing date for lodging written submissions is Tuesday 29 September 2020.

Guidelines on making a submission can be found here.

To assist the committee in its consideration of the Bill, please clearly identify in your submission which clause or aspect of the Bill you are commenting on. 

After considering a submission’s relevance and content, the committee will decide whether to accept it, and whether to publish it. The committee can decide to keep a submission confidential but cannot promise to do so in advance. If you want all or part of your submission to be kept confidential, you should state this clearly and explain the reasons in a covering email or letter.