Committee Details

Committee's Report

The committee tabled its report on Friday 12 February 2021. The report is available here. The Bill was passed on Wednesday 24 February 2021.  Links to the transcript of the debate are below.

About the Bill

On 3 December 2020, Hon Yvette D'Ath, Minister for Health and Ambulance Services, introduced the Public Health and Other Legislation (Extension of Expiring Provisions) Amendment Bill 2020 (Bill). The Bill was referred to the Health and Environment Committee for detailed consideration and report by Friday, 12 February 2021.

As set out in the explanatory notes, on 29 January 2020, a public health emergency was declared under section 319 of the Public Health Act 2005 due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in China. The declared public health emergency was extended until 31 December 2020 through regulation.

The explanatory notes detail the legislation passed to support the Queensland Government’s health response to COVID-19. The amendments made to Chapter 8 of the Public Health Act allowed for:

• the Governor-in-Council to extend the declared public health emergency for up to 90 days (Public Health (Declared Public Health Emergencies) Amendment Act 2020, which received assent on 7 February 2020);
• increased powers for emergency officers and the Chief Health Officer to limit, or respond to, the spread of COVID-19 in Queensland (Public Health and Other Legislation (Public Health Emergency) Amendment Act 2020, which received assent on 19 March 2020);
• the chief executive to delegate their powers to the Chief Health Officer or a person with expertise or experience in public health issues and improving the operation of the provisions of emergency officers (medical) to support the Queensland Government’s response to COVID-19 (Justice and Other Legislation (COVID-19 Emergency Response) Amendment Act 2020, which received assent on 25 May 2020); and
• a person to be required to enter hotel quarantine at their own cost (Community Services Industry (Portable Long Service Leave) Act 2020, which received assent on 22 June 2020).

Amendments were also made to the Mental Health Act 2016 through the Justice and Other Legislation (COVID-19 Emergency Response) Amendment Act 2020 to allow:

• declarations to be made about a mental health service through an expedited process; and
• mental health patients to be granted leave to comply with public health directions.

The Bill extends the expiry dates of these provisions for a further six months until the end of September 2021 and also aligns the expiry dates for all the amendments made to Health portfolio legislation.

Submissions

Submissions closed on Wednesday 13 January 2021.  The submissions are available under the 'View Submissions' tab.

Timeline

Related Information

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