"This is about holding killers to account for their actions," she said. "It is about ensuring justice is delivered for their victims, and those who are left devastated by their deaths - their families and friends." Ms Palaszczuk said that under the present laws, prosecutors who wanted to charge an offender with murder, rather than manslaughter, had to prove intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm. "My government intends to redefine murder so that murder includes the unlawful killing of another if the death is caused by an act or omission with reckless indifference to human life," she said. "We want to see stronger sentences imposed when people take the lives of our most vulnerable - children, the elderly and the disabled.

"The bill is also aimed at capturing those child manslaughter cases at the 'higher end' of culpability, involving violence or significant neglect but where intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm cannot be proved beyond a reasonable doubt." Loading Many Queenslanders expressed shock at sentences handed out for the deaths of children, including Mason Jet Lee, with the man who delivered the fatal blow which ruptured the toddler's small intestine about five days before his death ordered to spend the next four years in jail. Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath asked the Sentencing Advisory Council to review sentencing for child homicide. "QSAC found the system was not working when it came to child manslaughter sentences," she said.

The bill will also implement QSAC's recommendation to add an aggravating factor to manslaughter of a child under 12, which will increase the lengths of sentences. "Because it is difficult to establish intent, even when a vulnerable child or a vulnerable adult suffers a violent death, many killers are convicted of manslaughter, rather than murder," Ms D'Ath said. "This is why we are expanding the definition of murder in line with New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory and Tasmania." The bill also increases the maximum penalty for the offence of failure to supply necessaries from three years imprisonment to seven years. However, LNP leader Deb Frecklington described Labor's laws as "soft" and called for mandatory sentencing for manslaughter.

The LNP has proposed a new offence of child manslaughter that would include a mandatory 15-year jail penalty. The LNP would also increase the minimum non-parole period for the murder of a child from 20 to 25 years. Ms Frecklington brushed away a question of whether introducing mandatory sentences was a dangerous road. "I'm a mum of three girls, but any parent will tell you that if their child is killed then mandatory sentencing is probably the least of the population's concerns," she said. Last year, Ms D'Ath said courts needed to have discretion for manslaughter cases, while the Queensland Law Society also opposes mandatory sentencing.