Attorney-General Kerry Shine, who initially refused to commit to a review, announced Wednesday that an inquiry into the so-called "accident defence", already underway, would now include an audit of the provocation defence.
The review comes after a Supreme Court jury last month found Gold Coast man Damian Karl Sebo, 30, guilty of bashing to death his girlfriend Taryn Jessica Hunt, 16, using a steering-wheel lock.
Using the provocation defence, Sebo was jailed for 10 years for the lesser charge of manslaughter.
The decision prompted Ms Hunt's family to join the Queensland Homicide Victims Support Group in a campaign to force the government to review the provocation defence.
Mr Shine had refused to commit to a review, saying the defence had been in place for more than a century and was rarely used successfully.
The accident defence - which says a person is not criminally responsible for an event occurring by accident - came under attention after defendants were acquitted in the trials relating to the deaths of David Stevens and Nigel Lee.
Stevens, 26, and Lee, 31, died in separate inner-city Brisbane assaults in 2005.
"The audit will detail how often these defences have been used, the nature of the use and for what outcome," Mr Shine told a parliamentary estimates committee on Wednesday.
"I want the audit to be completed so I can consult stakeholders about the results and gauge their feedback."
Murder trials over the past five years will be audited first, to fast-track the process.
There is no proposal to amend the defences at this stage.