Advocacy has continued regarding the community’s frustration around the length of time for civil court decisions. Following Sandy’s Question on Notice in Parliament, which can be viewed on our April 2024 Noosa 360 update, and the 2024 State Election, Sandy wrote to the new Queensland Attorney General regarding, with the following provided in response.

According to the Productivity Commission’s 2024 Report on Government Services, Queensland’s courts had the third highest number of civil cases finalised compared to their interstate counterparts. They were also above average in the percentage of case finalised of cases lodged annually at 93.5% versus the national average of 90.8%. However, cases that are more complex and involve more issues will generally take longer to finalise. The courts do not drive civil cases through the system in consideration of the cost to the parties of each court step and to give the parties the time to negotiate a mutually satisfactory result.

As no benchmark for the completion rates was provided, we sought clarify on this, with below provided regarding.

The 93.5% figure quoted relates to ‘clearance rates’ in the civil jurisdiction (Report on Government Services Table 7A.26). The clearance rate shows whether the court finalised more or less cases than were lodged in the reported year. It indicates whether a court’s active caseload has increased or decreased over that period.

The clearance rate is derived by dividing the number of finalisations in the reporting year, by the number of lodgements in the same period. For example, if 1,000 cases were lodged and 1,000 cases were finalised in any one reporting year, the court would record a 100% clearance rate, and the pending caseload would be the same as it was 12 months earlier. A figure lower than 100% indicates the court finalised less cases than were lodged, and the pending caseload has increased. Finalised, regardless of the age of the particular case.

Additional sources for obtaining Queensland Courts performance statistics can be found on the Queensland Courts’ website here.

The 2024 RoGS referenced is 2022-23 data. The latest (2025) RoGS was released earlier this month, which contains data up to 2023-24  – it can be found here.

Sandy will continue to monitor this, if any Noosa Electorate residents have any feedback on above to inform our ongoing advocacy, please email us via noosa@parlaiment.qld.gov.au.

Further information

Sandy as Noosa’s Independent Member of Parliament (MP) and other MPs are unable to intervene in court procedures. There is a clear separation of powers between the Legislature who make the laws and those that apply them in the Judiciary (magistrates, judges and the courts). Further information is available at www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Visit-and-learn/About-Us/Separation-of-Powers.

Our previous Noosa 360 updates related to this are available at www.sandybolton.com/?s=Court+timeframes.

To contact the Queensland Attorney General, email attorney.general@ministerial.qld.gov.au. Please cc’ our office in via noosa@parliament.qld.gov.au.