Guides and legal updates

What we publish and why

Most legal content online is written to rank, not to inform. It repeats the charge back at you, tells you the situation is serious, and asks you to call. That is not useful when you are sitting at a kitchen table with a notice to appear and a court date twelve days away.

So we write the other kind. Every guide names the Act and the section, states the maximum penalty and any mandatory minimum, explains what the prosecution has to prove, and sets out the decisions you will actually face. Where the law has changed, we say when it changed and what it used to be, because half the material online still describes the old position.

How to use this section

Start with the charge or the document in front of you rather than a general topic. The offence named on your notice to appear is the fastest way in.

1. Find the guide for your charge or your situation in the topic hubs below.
2. Check which court will hear it. That single fact changes the timeline, the cost and the maximum penalty you are exposed to.
3. Read the section on what the prosecution has to prove, and work out which element is the weakest.
4. Check any time limit. Appeals, special hardship orders and licence applications all run on short clocks, and missing one usually cannot be fixed.
5. Then decide whether you need a lawyer for it. Sometimes you will not, and the guide will say so.

Penalty units are indexed on 1 July each year in Queensland, so a dollar figure that was right last financial year may not be right now. Where we quote one, check the current value before relying on it.

A note on what these guides are not

These are general guides to Queensland law. They are not legal advice about your matter, because advice depends on facts we do not have: the wording of the charge, what is in the brief, your history, and what you have already said to police.

Two people charged with the same offence can properly receive completely different advice. Use these pages to understand the landscape and to ask better questions, then get advice on your own facts before you make a decision that cannot be reversed.