I rise to offer my support for the Police Powers and Responsibilities (Making Jack’s Law Permanent) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. This is an incredibly important piece of legislation that honours the life of a young Queenslander—Jack Beasley. On 13 December 2019 Brett and Belinda Beasley got that call from the police—the call or the knock on the door that no parent wants to hear. They received the devastating news that their son Jack, who was only 17 at the time, had been attacked and fatally stabbed in a violent knife attack. This was a senseless act of violence while out with his friends in Surfers Paradise—a night like any other that thousands of young people do all too often throughout the state: going out with their mates and having fun but expecting to come home safe and well. Jack was a talented footballer and had recently started an apprenticeship. He had his whole future ahead of him. The Beasleys, like far too many other Queenslanders, had to deal with the overwhelming grief of losing a family member to youth crime.
Like many others before them, and since, they were determined to have something good come out of this tragedy. This led them to establish the Jack Beasley Foundation—a foundation or legacy which aims to deliver knife crime education and, most importantly, drive change around youth violence. I want to thank Brett and Belinda for their courage and their tireless advocacy to protect our community from the scourge of knife crime. This bill, which will make Jack’s Law permanent, was introduced into the House on 2 April 2025 by the Minister for Police and Emergency Services and referred to the Justice, Integrity and Community Safety Committee for consideration. The committee received numerous written submissions and heard from stakeholders such as the Queensland Police Service and the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties. The committee made one single recommendation—that the bill be passed.
This bill also builds on earlier legislation such as the Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2021 which authorised a trial allowing police officers to use handheld scanners without a warrant to detect if a person is carrying a knife. This initiative enabled police to use handheld metal detectors similar to the security scanning at our nation’s airports, making it easier for police to detect and remove dangerous weapons. That initial trial was confined to within the Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach safe night precincts, or SNPs, and expired in April 2023. On the expiration of that trial, the Police Powers and Responsibilities (Jack’s Law) Amendment Act 2023 was passed with bipartisan support. This extended the trial to all 15 SNPs across the state as well as other locations, such as public transport hubs, which were termed ‘relevant places’. This act officially recognised the Beasley family story in law. That 2023 act also introduced considerations that would be required for a senior police officer to authorise any other police officer to use the handheld scanners. These considerations included the history of the offending at the relevant place as well as the likelihood of further offending.
On 30 August 2024 the Queensland Community Safety Act 2024 further expanded the areas that were to be considered relevant places under Jack’s Law to include other public places such as shopping centres, sporting and entertainment venues as well as licensed venues. The expiry of this provision was extended for an additional 12 months to the end of next year on 30 October 2026. We could not sit back and allow Jack’s Law to expire, and this is yet another key election commitment that our government committed to.
(Continuing 3:06pm): The Crisafulli government is serious about giving our police the tools they need to do their job, and making Jack’s Law permanent will only increase their capabilities. That is why the Queensland Police Union back these new laws. My message to our police officers out there working tirelessly to keep our community safe is this: we hear you and we are here with you every step of the way.
There are also a number of secondary objectives in this latest legislation, including: extending the operational period for the Terrorism (Preventative Detention) Act 2005 from 16 December 2025 to 16 December 2040; amending the Marine Rescue Queensland Act 2024 to confirm that Marine Rescue Queensland is a charitable institution for particular purposes; and amending the State Emergency Service Act 2024 to clarify the validity of previous SES member appointments.
Across Queensland, police have now scanned more than 115,000 people, resulting in 3,000 people charged with various offences which were mostly weapons and drug related. These wanding operations were carried out at safe night precincts, transport hubs, shopping centres, and sporting and entertainment venues around the state. In the last two years alone since April 2023, over 1,100 weapons were seized during these operations. To reiterate, Jack’s Law has been responsible for taking over 1,100 weapons off our streets during that time—I repeat: 1,100 bladed weapons in the last two years. That has saved anywhere between one and 1,100 lives, as each weapon detected and seized is a potential stabbing and each of these weapons could have been used to senselessly take the life of another Queenslander just like Jack. Making Jack’s Law permanent will continue to take weapons off the street and it will save lives. It is that simple.
In Queensland it is already illegal to carry a knife, including a machete, in a public space. This is spelt out in the Weapons Act 1990, and we already have serious Criminal Code offences prohibiting the use of machetes, as a weapon, as a circumstance of aggravation for assaults, robberies, burglaries, carjacking and going armed offences. Queensland already has laws that ban the sale of bladed weapons to minors. This was done last year in the summary offences amendment bill, a bill that the LNP supported.
Queenslanders have the right to feel safe when they are out in public. There is no excuse for anybody to be carrying a knife, machete or even axes in a public place. Making Jack’s Law permanent is just another way that the Crisafulli government is placing the rights of victims over the rights of offenders, and builds on our commitment to restore community safety. With the passing of this bill, Queenslanders will feel safer. This is the outcome that the Crisafulli government will always strive for. I urge the House to support this bill.
