Limitation periods for survivors to take legal action against an institution will be removed under amendments to a Bill currently before state parliament.

The move will also allow both incorporated and unincorporated institutions to be held accountable, while a reverse onus on institutions will be introduced.

It means institutions will need to prove they took all steps to prevent the abuse of children in their care.

Only survivors of child sexual abuse are currently able to pursue historical claims in Queensland, with the new rules expanding to include serious physical abuse and psychological abuse.

"It is so important that we recognise this form of abuse that happened in institutions, and that people have felt like no one was listening to them," Attorney General Yvette D'Ath said on Tuesday.

"Ultimately the court has to be persuaded, the evidence has to be put forward ... but it's important that we don't close the door on these people and stop them from even getting that first step into the court to put their case and be heard."

Ms D'Ath said institutions should not be able to brush aside allegations of abuse by claiming they did not know it was occurring.

"The onus is on you as an organisation, just as it is on government agencies every single day to keep children safe," she said.

"It is not enough to have a parent or child walk in the door and say 'I've been abused' and to ignore them; that will not be acceptable."

Bob Atkinson, who served as a commissioner in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, said the amendments would give victims the chance to pursue justice.

"Some of that physical abuse was sadistic, and brutal and repeated," he said.

"It almost defied belief that the people who had the care of these children, many of whom were in orphanages, could conduct themselves in the way they did, and it had a profound lifelong harmful effect on those kids."

Victims and survivors of physical or psychological abuse cannot access compensation under the national redress scheme.

Australian Associated Press