About Law Week

Law Week (13–19 May) is observed nationally and is an opportunity to raise awareness of our legal system and the important role it serves in our lives.

Law Week 2024

This year, the Queensland Law Week theme is Consent first: enabling healthy and respectful relationships. This year’s theme promotes new sexual consent laws that were passed by Queensland Parliament earlier this year.

Asking for consent is how we make sure we feel safe, and that our partner(s) feel safe too. Law Week 2024 will also promote ways the community can support healthy and respectful relationships by practising the affirmative model of consent.

New sexual consent laws

The Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024 passed on 6 March 2024, after the Bill was introduced to Parliament on 11 October 2023.

Once commenced, these changes to the law move Queensland toward an affirmative model of consent that requires free and voluntary agreement to participate in any sexual activity.

These landmark reforms better reflect community expectations of equality and mutual respect in sexual relationships. They address recommendations from the Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce.

Rape myths and narratives around ‘implied consent’ exist in our society. Once the new laws commence, the affirmative model of consent will give more clarity around consent and better support for victim-survivors in court. This includes:

• introducing jury directions for sexual offence proceedings
• imposing a duty on the court to disallow improper questions.

As part of the reforms, stealthing—the non-consensual removal of a condom during sex—will also now be expressly recognised as rape.

Find out more about sexual consent.

Law Week activities

During Law Week, community activities will be hosted to highlight the legal system for all legal professionals and the public.

These include the:

• LawRight Legal Walk in Brisbane on Tuesday 14 May, which raises funds to increase access to justice for disadvantaged and marginalised Queenslanders.
• Every day is pro bono day lunchtime session, a free event for students and the community to hear about the important role pro bono plays in improving access to justice nationwide.

Help us promote our theme

To help us promote Law Week and the new affirmative model of consent, access our Law Week 2024 promotional toolkit. The toolkit includes social media tiles and posts, newsletter copy and more.