Copyright brisbanetimes
The government had been keen to focus on the planned passage of its laws establishing a child sex offender register in honour of murdered Sunshine Coast teen Daniel Morcombe. The laws were passed on Thursday, but the week had more in store. First was the Supreme Court’s ruling on Tuesday that the government’s January pause on gender-affirming care for kids was unlawful, finding in favour of the parent of a transgender teenaged who launched the legal challenge on the grounds there had not been proper consultation. Within hours of what was, on-paper, his director-general’s struck-down direction, Health Minister Tim Nicholls had issued a fresh ban – later defending this by citing the fact he was not bound by the same requirements to consult and only had to consider human rights. So it was on human rights and discrimination grounds that new action was launched against the new ministerial direction by late Wednesday. Nicholls and Premier David Crisafulli were dogged by questions, in and outside parliament, about the promised but so far unknown annual ambulance ramping target as the key figure goes up instead of down.
