February 13, 2026
Attorney-General and Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington has welcomed the passing of new youth bail monitoring laws through Parliament.
The Youth Justice (Electronic Monitoring) Amendment Bill 2025 means courts can impose a GPS device as a bail condition for any youth offender aged 10-17, including first-time offenders.
“These reforms are about putting community safety first while ensuring young offenders are held accountable” Mrs Frecklington said.
“We promised Queenslanders we would continue to strengthen youth crime laws to restore safety and that’s exactly what we are doing.”
The Bill has made permanent a trial which has been running, with some amendments and extensions, since 2021.
The trial, which had aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of electronic monitoring, had set a minimum age at 15 but that has now been scrapped.
The trial had also only been allowed to run in defined areas, ie. Cairns, Fraser Coast, Gold Coast, Ipswich, Logan, Mackay, Moreton, Mt Isa, North Brisbane, Rockhampton, South Brisbane, Toowoomba and Townsville.
The new legislation removes these restrictions which means electronic monitoring can be imposed as a condition anywhere in Queensland.
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