Queensland police have charged 32 people with 59 offences and laid the state’s first ever charge for breaching a police banning notice, four weeks into a policing trial in Maryborough’s town centre. Officers also ran 397 street checks and scanned 179 people with handheld metal detectors during the same stretch.
The Queensland government, led by Premier David Crisafulli, is calling that a vindication of its Designated Business and Community Precinct, the first zone of its kind in the state. But the tally released this week counts enforcement activity, not any independent measure of whether Maryborough’s central business district, known locally as the CBD, is safer than it was on 30 June. And the same law being credited with steering one homeless resident into housing is the one civil liberties and Indigenous legal groups say risks being used to push the town’s most vulnerable people out of sight instead.
Four Weeks, 397 Checks and a First-of-Its-Kind Charge
The precinct covers Maryborough’s town centre and took effect on 1 July. Since then, according to figures released by Queensland Police and the state government, officers have logged the following inside the zone.
| Enforcement Action (First Four Weeks) | Count | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Street checks | 397 | Police-initiated stops inside the precinct |
| People scanned under Jack’s Law | 179 | Warrantless wanding for knives and weapons |
| People charged | 32 | Across 59 separate offences |
| Drug-related offences | 18 | Part of the 59 total charges |
| Public nuisance or good-order offences | 8 | Part of the 59 total charges |
| Weapons-related offences | 4 | Part of the 59 total charges |
| Banning notices issued | 11 | Bar entry to the precinct for up to a month |
| Move-on directions issued | 12 | Require a person to leave for 24 hours |
| Contravening a banning notice | 1 | Queensland’s first charge of this kind |
Police have not itemised the remaining offences beyond those three named categories, so the 18, eight and four figures are a partial picture of the 59 total, not a full breakdown.
Minister for Police and Emergency Services Dan Purdie pointed to the banning notice charge as proof the framework has teeth.
We’ve already seen the first person charged with Contravening an Initial Police Banning Notice, proving there are real consequences for those who ignore police directions and continue disrupting the community.
Purdie made the comment in a statement crediting the precinct with restoring order after what he described as a decade of Labor policy that let youth crime and antisocial behaviour spiral. He also said reforms have connected vulnerable Queenslanders with support services, pointing to one person experiencing homelessness who has since been helped into accommodation.
Local Pressure Built Queensland’s First Precinct
The precinct did not appear out of nowhere. It followed sustained lobbying from John Barounis, the state Member for Maryborough, and what the government describes as extensive consultation with residents and traders who wanted a harder line on repeat disorder in the town centre.
The legal architecture is not new. It borrows from Queensland’s existing Safe Night Precinct model, extending similar move-on and banning powers from nightlife strips into a daytime business district for the first time. A government statement, which extended the precinct model to targeted areas statewide, described Maryborough as the first application of a framework meant to reach multiple Queensland towns. A separate release confirmed the precinct’s first month of results and framed the rollout as proof the wider legislative push is working.
Inside the zone, police can now use several tools that did not exist in Maryborough’s CBD before 1 July:
- 24-hour move-on directions that force a person to leave the precinct for a full day.
- Banning notices lasting up to a month for people considered repeat or serious offenders.
- Warrantless wanding under an expanded version of Jack’s Law, letting officers search for knives or weapons without needing a warrant first.
- A standalone criminal charge for anyone who breaches a banning notice or ignores a move-on direction.
Barounis credited the change to residents who kept pushing for it. The Crisafulli government listened to the community, acted on its concerns and delivered practical reforms making a real difference in Maryborough, he said, thanking local police for using the new laws to send what he called a clear message that antisocial behaviour will not be tolerated.
The Population Math Behind a Month of Charges
Maryborough is a small town for this kind of enforcement density. Population figures put it at roughly 19,290 residents in 2026, up from 18,558 at the 2021 census.
Measured against that base, 397 street checks in a single month works out to roughly one stop for every 49 residents, though that comparison is rough. The tally almost certainly counts some people more than once and includes shoppers, workers and visitors who do not live in Maryborough at all.
Independent crime-mapping analysis of local police data, compiled by property research site RedSuburbs, shows theft, disorderly conduct and drug offences were already the town’s three most common reported crime categories before the precinct existed, with overall crime down about 2.6 percent between 2023 and 2024. That is the baseline the new precinct is being measured against, and it points to a town where disorder was a real, named problem well before 1 July, not one invented to justify the new powers. It also means the four-week enforcement count cannot, on its own, show whether the underlying rate of offending has actually changed, only that police activity inside the zone has increased sharply.
Who Do Rights Groups Say Will Carry the Cost?
Civil liberties and Indigenous legal advocates argue the same enforcement powers Queensland is celebrating in Maryborough carry a real risk of pushing homeless and First Nations residents out of public space rather than helping them, even as the government points to one successful housing referral as proof the model works.
The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties has warned that precinct-style zones can be declared over areas with concentrated homelessness specifically to justify moving people on, arguing that casting vulnerable people out of public view tends to entrench disadvantage rather than reduce it. The group has also flagged that officers can now record the names and addresses of people given move-on directions, expanding a criminal-penalty regime around repeated low-level conduct.
A 2025 peer-reviewed legal article by Evita Dickson framed the reforms as punitive populism, arguing the wider Making Queensland Safer legislative programme, of which the Maryborough precinct is one strand, reflects the politics of youth crime more than an evidence-based response to it. Amnesty International Australia has separately described the broader package as a threat to fundamental freedoms. Indigenous legal advocates told the National Indigenous Times this month that expanding punitive street powers compounds existing overrepresentation of First Nations children in the youth justice system, warning the approach entrenches cycles of contact with police rather than breaking them.
Acting Superintendent Brad Inskip, who is overseeing the trial locally, describes the response on the ground differently. Maryborough’s CBD is integral to the liveability of the city, he said, and sentiment around the boosted police presence has been positive, particularly among small business owners.
Where the two sides land is captured in how differently each reads the same four weeks of data.
- Queensland Police and government ministers point to the charge count, the banning notices and positive feedback from traders as evidence the precinct is restoring order.
- The Queensland Council for Civil Liberties warns the underlying legal model risks targeting homelessness and low-level conduct rather than serious crime.
- Indigenous legal advocates say the same powers, applied at scale, will fall hardest on First Nations children already overrepresented in the system.
Jack’s Law Shows Where This Trial Could Be Headed
Acting Superintendent Inskip has been careful to call Maryborough’s precinct a trial, one running alongside other local operations with a range of stakeholders to tackle the root causes of antisocial behaviour. That word, trial, has a track record in Queensland worth noting.
Jack’s Law followed almost exactly this path. Named for Jack Beasley, a 17-year-old fatally stabbed in Surfers Paradise in 2019, the wanding power began as a two-year trial confined to the Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach Safe Night Precincts in 2021, during which police seized 266 weapons. Parliament passed it into permanent law in March 2023, then expanded it that April to all 15 Safe Night Precincts and every public transport station in the state.
By 2025, Jack’s Law had gone further still, becoming a permanent, statewide power letting officers wand for weapons anywhere they judge knife crime a risk, not just in a fixed list of locations. Queensland Police scanned more than 82,000 people statewide in the six months after that expansion, seizing 603 weapons and laying 2,424 charges.
That is the pattern the Maryborough trial fits into: a narrow pilot, a burst of enforcement statistics, then expansion well beyond the original footprint. Nothing in the government’s messaging suggests this rollout will end differently, and the precinct’s own enabling framework was explicitly designed to reach multiple towns, not just one.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is a Designated Business and Community Precinct?
It is a defined zone where Queensland Police get expanded move-on, banning notice and wanding powers, built on the legal framework already used in the state’s 15 Safe Night Precincts. Maryborough, from 1 July 2026, is the first place that framework has been applied to a daytime business district rather than a nightlife strip.
Who Was Jack’s Law Named After?
It is named for Jack Beasley, a Gold Coast teenager fatally stabbed in Surfers Paradise in 2019. His parents, Brett and Belinda Beasley, campaigned for the wanding powers that Queensland Parliament eventually passed in March 2023.
How Many Weapons Has Jack’s Law Found Statewide?
In the six months after the power became permanent and statewide in 2025, police scanned more than 82,000 people, seized 603 weapons, made 1,280 arrests and laid 2,424 charges across Queensland, according to Queensland Police’s own figures.
Could Other Queensland Towns Get a Similar Precinct?
The enabling legislation was written to cover targeted areas across the state, not Maryborough alone, and police have described the current rollout as a trial. Given Jack’s Law’s own path from a two-year local pilot to a permanent statewide power, further precincts in other regional centres look more likely than not.
