Queensland Says Its Own Tough-on-Crime Law Breaks Human Rights

On 27 August 2026, the Queensland government admitted that its new "breach bail, go to jail" law breaks human rights. It is rare for an Australian government to formally say its own proposed law goes against the state's human rights rules (The Guardian).

The law would send some children as young as 10 to jail for at least a year. It applies to anyone charged with a "significant offence" while on bail. Bail means being released while you wait for your court case, with conditions. For children, a significant offence includes things like dangerous driving, robbery, or breaking into a building to commit a crime. For adults, it also includes sexual offences against children and coercive control.

The law works in two steps. First, if you are on bail and accused of a significant offence, you must be kept in custody unless a court or police officer is very confident you will not commit another one. Second, if you are convicted of a second significant offence, you get a mandatory 12-month sentence with no parole. This applies even if you are found not guilty of the first offence.

Because the law breaks the Queensland Human Rights Act, the government has to use a special override to pass it. The Act says an override is only allowed in exceptional circumstances, like a state of emergency. Attorney-General Deb Frecklington said the exceptional circumstances were "the prevalence of serious offending committed while on bail."

The government's own admissions are wide-ranging. The documents say the law limits the right to liberty, the right that people awaiting trial should not automatically be locked up, and the right of children to be protected in their best interests. The government also admitted the law will worsen overcrowding in jails and youth detention centres, which affects the right to humane treatment when locked up. Queensland's jails and detention centres are already under strain.

The law is part of a bigger package. In 2026, Queensland added 12 new offences to its "Adult Crime, Adult Time" sentencing scheme. The Youth Justice (Circuit Breaker) Amendment Bill 2026 creates a new sentencing order and bail condition only for children. The Youth Justice (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Act 2026 further changes the Youth Justice Act 1992. Premier David Crisafulli has called the bail law "the strongest bail laws in the country."

The Human Rights Law Centre said the government's own admissions show "clear and deep" limits on human rights from applying adult penalties to children and removing detention as a last resort. The University of New South Wales Human Rights blog noted that the government overrode its human rights laws because of a perceived rise in youth crime.

Legal experts have challenged both the legal and evidentiary basis of the law. Human rights lawyer Bridget Burton, of the University of Queensland, said there appeared to be no exceptional circumstances justifying the laws. She argued that mandatory sentencing stops judges from considering the circumstances of an offence, which could lead to unreasonable sentences. She warned it could produce "cruel outcomes," especially when someone who is a victim also commits an offence.

William Wood, a criminology lecturer at Griffith University, said there was little evidence that a mandatory 12-month sentence would deter young people from offending. He noted that courts can already consider previous offending when deciding bail, and that the law removes that discretion. He also said the bill would probably affect only the least serious offenders, because someone convicted of a violent offence would already get more than 12 months.

The broader context here is the gap between what the government says and what it has admitted. The override in the Human Rights Act was meant to be an emergency valve, not a routine tool for laws the government itself says break rights. The question is whether "exceptional" means a serious ongoing crime problem or something more extreme — and the government's own concessions suggest it may not meet that higher bar.

In my view, the criticism from Wood and Burton comes down to one point: mandatory sentencing takes sentencing power away from judges and gives it to politicians. When a judge cannot look at the circumstances of a case, the mandatory minimum, not the crime itself, decides the outcome. For serious violent crimes, the sentence would already be longer than 12 months. For lesser offences, the law could produce sentences that no judge would have chosen. And with the government admitting this will worsen overcrowding, the right to humane treatment when locked up is at stake — not just because people are detained, but because of the conditions they face.