Disability worker screening in Queensland 

This article states the law of Queensland. Worker screening is the point at which State law and the Commonwealth disability scheme meet most directly: the Commonwealth defines what a screening law does, but the decision itself is made under a State Act. In Queensland that Act is the Disability Services Act 2006 (Qld)¹. The prior question is which kind of clearance is in issue, because the Act creates two.

Clearances and exclusions

Section 50(1) defines a clearance as a declaration, issued by the chief executive to a person, that screening of the person has been conducted under the part and the person is permitted to carry out disability work.

Section 51(1) defines an exclusion in mirror terms: a declaration that screening has been conducted and the person is excluded from carrying out disability work.

Both are declarations rather than licences, and both rest on the same predicate — that screening has actually been conducted under the part. A person who has not been screened holds neither, which is a different position from holding an exclusion.

Two kinds of each

The Act then divides both categories according to the application that produced them.

An NDIS clearance is a clearance issued to a person who made an NDIS worker screening application (s 50(2)); a State clearance is one issued to a person who made a State disability worker screening application (s 50(4)). Sections 51(2) and 51(4) draw the same distinction for exclusions.

The Act also recognises a clearance or exclusion, however called, issued under a corresponding law — that is, another jurisdiction's screening law that corresponds to the Queensland category.

The practical consequence is that "cleared in Queensland" is not a single status. A person may hold a State clearance permitting Queensland disability work without holding an NDIS clearance, and the two arise from different applications. An answer that treats them interchangeably has missed the distinction the Act draws twice.

How this meets the Commonwealth layer

The Commonwealth Aged Care Act 2024 (Cth) defines an aged care worker screening law as a law of a State or Territory prescribed by the rules, and ss 380 and 381 of that Act deem an NDIS clearance decision to be an aged care clearance decision and an NDIS exclusion decision to be an aged care exclusion decision.

Read together with the Queensland provisions, the architecture becomes clear. Queensland decides, under its own Act, whether a person is cleared or excluded. The Commonwealth then determines what that decision counts for elsewhere in the national system — including in aged care, a sector Queensland's disability statute does not itself regulate.

A student should therefore keep three questions apart: which jurisdiction made the screening decision, which category it falls into, and what the Commonwealth recognition provisions make of it.

Screening reaches spent convictions

Section 42 provides that the part applies *despite the Criminal Law (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act 1986 (Qld)*.

That provision is doing significant work. The rehabilitation statute ordinarily relieves a person from disclosing a conviction after a rehabilitation period, and requires others aware of it to disregard it. Section 42 displaces that protection for disability worker screening, so material that would be spent for other purposes remains available to the screening decision.

This is a deliberate policy choice about the balance between rehabilitation and the safety of people with disability, and it is the kind of provision a student should identify expressly rather than assume. Compare the Commonwealth position under the NDIS provider registration rules, which preserve the operation of Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) on spent convictions in assessing an applicant's suitability. The two schemes resolve the same tension differently.

Applying this in a problem question

1. Identify whether the person holds a clearance, an exclusion, or neither; the third is a distinct position.
2. Determine which category applies — NDIS or State — by reference to the application made, not the work performed.
3. Where the decision was made in another jurisdiction, consider whether it is a clearance under a corresponding law.
4. For aged care consequences, go to ss 380 and 381 of the Aged Care Act 2024 (Cth) rather than to the Queensland Act.
5. Where criminal history is in issue, apply s 42 and do not treat a conviction as spent for screening purposes.
6. Keep the screening decision distinct from the provider's own obligations; they are separate questions with separate consequences.

Self-check

• Have I identified which kind of clearance or exclusion is in issue?
• Have I avoided treating an NDIS and a State clearance as interchangeable?
• Have I applied s 42 where the criminal history would otherwise be spent?
• Have I gone to the Commonwealth Act for aged care recognition rather than the Queensland Act?