{"id":567738,"date":"2026-03-27T11:59:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T11:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/567738\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T11:59:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T11:59:13","slug":"proposed-new-laws-allow-police-to-move-people-on-for-causing-anxiety-without-committing-a-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/567738\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed new laws allow police to move people on for ‘causing anxiety’ without committing a crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Young people could be moved on by police for “causing anxiety” without ever committing a crime under proposed Queensland laws.<\/p>\n

The new bill would create “Designated Business and Community Precincts” \u2014 zones which grant police new move-on powers.<\/p>\n

The proposal was debated at a public hearing today as part of the Queensland government’s bid to expand its Adult Crime, Adult Crime laws.<\/p>\n

The zones would allow police to order “troublemakers” to leave a public space and not come back for 24 hours if they are deemed to be exhibiting “anti-social” behaviour.<\/p>\n

Targeting the vulnerable\"A<\/p>\n

Fiona Caniglia says the laws would disproportionately harm vulnerable people. (ABC Radio Brisbane: Kenji Sato)<\/p>\n

Q Shelter chief executive Fiona Caniglia told the hearing she feared the ambiguous wording of the laws would give police discretion to target young, Aboriginal, and homeless people.<\/p>\n

“We are very concerned in the context of a deep and worsening housing crisis that this bill risks responding to visible disadvantage with enforcement, rather than addressing the underlying causes,” Ms Caniglia said.<\/p>\n

Protecting the community\"Angus<\/p>\n

Angus Nardi says there has been an increase in violent offending involving weapons at shopping centres.\u00a0 (ABC News: Robert Hill)<\/p>\n

Shopping Centre Council of Australia chief executive Angus Nardi told the hearing the laws would help proactively protect shoppers, staff and security guards.<\/p>\n

“Our strong preference is violence and criminal incidents do not occur in the first place, so we support measures that will deter such incidents,” Mr Nardi said.<\/p>\n

Under the proposed laws, police would no longer need to obtain approval from a senior officer if operating within a designated zone.<\/p>\n

Anyone who disobeys a move-on order could face a fine of over $6,600.<\/p>\n

\"woman<\/p>\n

Katherine Hayes says “causing anxiety” is a low bar to hurdle. (ABC NEWS)<\/p>\n

Youth Advocacy Centre chief executive Katherine Hayes said making somebody uncomfortable should not be a sufficient reason for police enforcement.<\/p>\n

“We are concerned about the low threshold for the move-on laws, that is the threshold of ‘causing anxiety,'” Ms Hayes said.<\/p>\n

“We have many young people who sleep rough, including those who are 16 and younger, and there’s just nowhere for them to go.”<\/p>\n

Queensland Police Service acting director Jessica Mudryk said the laws would allow police to more quickly de-escalate incidents.<\/p>\n

“The intention is to not allow the anti-social behaviour to continue and simply relocate it; it’s to act as a disruption to that particular behaviour,” Ms Mudryk said.<\/p>\n

“Officers will try to de-escalate in other avenues, but if they’re unable to do so, removing them from the environment which may be contributing to the anti-social behaviour, can be beneficial.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Young people could be moved on by police for “causing anxiety” without ever committing a crime under proposed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[279303,64,63,279304,279309,279305,44,279308,279306,701,15878,10471,279307],"class_list":{"0":"post-567738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-adult-crime-adult-time","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-fiona-caniglia","12":"tag-jessica-mudryk","13":"tag-katherine-hayes","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-q-shelter","16":"tag-qshelter","17":"tag-queensland","18":"tag-queensland-government","19":"tag-queensland-police-service","20":"tag-youth-advocacy-centre"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}