Late on 22 April 2020, the Queensland Parliament passed the Covid-19 Emergency Response Bill 2020 (the Covid-19 Act).
Late on 22 April 2020, the Queensland Parliament passed the Covid-19 Emergency Response Bill 2020 (the Covid-19 Act).
The purpose of the Covid-19 Act is:-
The Covid-19 Act allows the various Ministers to make extraordinary regulations that overrides other Acts only if that Minister is satisfied the regulation is necessary for the purposes set out in the Covid-19 Act. These are known as Henry VIII style clauses. Interestingly the Queensland Legislation Handbook states that Henry VIII style clauses should not be used. The Covid-19 emergency is considered so significant an impact on Queensland that such clauses are now being permitted in legislation in Queensland.
What this legislation does is allows the government to pass regulations without bringing them before the parliament and have them debated, in the ordinary course of parliament, and irrespective of whether the regulations are inconsistent with existing legislation.
At the time of writing this:-