Queensland parliament updates: Labor warns of ‘Newman-era attack on workers’

The union representing prison staff has demanded the state government increase its workforce before passing new laws which experts say will put more detainees into a system they say is already at capacity.

The call comes ahead of the release of a parliamentary report into proposed breach of bail go to jail laws, which will include a mandatory year in prison for the new offence.

Together surveyed 620 prison officers across the state, with 93 per cent of respondents telling the union they can’t safely take more prisoners at current staffing levels, and three quarters of officers surveyed saying they already felt unsafe most of the time.

A Queensland Audit Office report from June 2025, cited by the union, found Queensland’s prison population of 11,278 was a 54 per cent rise over the past decade.

“The government can count beds, but our officers are telling us that’s not the same as having the capacity to run a prison safely,” assistant branch secretary Michael Thomas said.

“Every additional prisoner needs officers to supervise them, infrastructure that can support them and staff who can respond when something goes wrong.”