On 24 June 2022, the Community Support and Services Committee (Committee) was directed to consider changes to legislation and operational policing responses to decriminalise the public intoxication and begging offences in the Summary Offences Act 2005 (Qld), as well as the compatibility of proposed legislative amendments, and health and social welfare-based service delivery responses to public intoxication and begging, with rights protected under the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld).

The report, which was tabled before the Legislative Assembly on 31 October 2022, recommends that Queensland Parliament repeal sections 7, 8 and 10 of the Summary Offences Act 2005 (Qld), subject to appropriate community-based diversion services being in place. These provisions collectively make public urination, begging and public intoxication criminal offences in Queensland.

Existing offences relating to intoxication, begging and urination share a common characteristic: they criminalise that behaviour only when it occurs in a public place. Repeal of these provisions is supported by 15 other recommendations, which together will introduce a co-responder, health-led response to public intoxication, begging and public urination in Queensland.

Queensland is the only jurisdictions in Australia in which these specific offences remain criminal offences, with Victoria being the most recent state to decriminalise public intoxication, effective 7 November 2022 through the Summary Offences Amendment (Decriminalisation of Public Drunkenness) Bill 2020 (Vic). The Report takes into account the path taken in other Australian jurisdictions to decriminalise, including the model proposed in the more recent Report to the Victorian Attorney-General, Seeing the Clear Light of Day: Expert Reference Group on Decriminalising Public Drunkenness.

The object of this reform is to mitigate the discriminatory impact these laws have on populations and their antiquated application to the criminal justice system in Queensland.