Wednesday, 14 August 2024

Youth justice system

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (17:25): I will admit that my grievance is perhaps contextually going to make sense in the current circumstances, because on the one hand I am grieving the fact that the Libs do not want to raise the age to 12 and also the hypocrisy of their Shadow Minister for Youth Justice, who is on the public record as supporting raising the age to 14. I can actually reference the particular article, dated 27 May 2021: ‘Liberal MPs break ranks in push to raise age of criminality to 14’. So that is a bit confusing, and I wonder whether they are saying one thing and doing another. They were talking about ideology, but where do they sit on this issue? They do not know. It is very perplexing. Maybe on the one hand it is ‘Tough talk, tough talk’, but deep down maybe their shadow youth justice minister actually has another position. This was in the Age, so that is a well-known publication in the state of Victoria and it was stated on record. At the time it was reported that the shadow youth justice minister the member for Gembrook, now the member for Berwick, and:

… a former police officer and former Liberal spokesman for youth justice; former president of the upper house Bruce Atkinson; and former Liberal spokesman for child protection Nick Wakeling have split from their party’s official position, urging the government to end the ‘draconian’ law and keep children under the age of 14 away from the criminal justice system.

I am just pointing out the hypocrisy of that, the confusion that is emerging here, not knowing what to believe. We do not exactly know what to believe in these circumstances. So that is my grievance here, and I am laying it on the table quite clearly. It is deeply disappointing because on the one hand the Shadow Minister for Corrections has previously been pro raising the age to 14, and now he cannot find himself able to raise the age to 12. Shame on the division that exists with those opposite who are calling out the sensitivity of the issue. We are very mindful of that sensitivity.

What this really is about is that the age that we are talking about when we propose raising the age has not been randomly selected; there has been a lot of careful research and consultation in this regard because of the serious nature of the matters that we are referring to. It is all about investing in our young people and doing what needs to be done to get them off a life of offending. That is the objective, is it not: keeping them out of the juvenile justice system and all the while perpetuating and embedding community safety and the best interests of Victorians. I know as a government we have worked tirelessly to bring forward this set of reforms from prediversion to parole, driven by the expert advice of the professors of the Armytage–Ogloff review. So certainly there is extensive research and evidence that is backing these decisions, not randomly assigning an age-appropriate approach. And that is what it is about. It is really looking at a developmentally appropriate approach.

I am going to speak further to that issue because it is not resiling from accountability, not at all. I think that is a very important distinction here. No-one is resiling from consequences as such, but we are making sure that the consequences are age appropriate so that we keep our community safe. Sometimes one might think ‘If we do X, we’ll deliver Y’ – and I will explain that in a moment – where actually the opposite can be true, particularly when we are looking at 10- and 11-year-olds. Really what the bill is doing is providing comprehensive pathways to address the root causes of youth offending and maximising options for diversion. I know that when you go to the bill itself you can see the intricacies and the detail in terms of the various steps to enable police to be very specifically supported in that regard to ensure that we are very carefully and prudently diverting those young people aged 10 and 11 from, one, a life of offending, but moreover incarceration. That will not lead to safer outcomes for community.

Of course there will always be the need to address harmful behaviours, so I just want that to be absolutely clear. This is not about in any way resiling from the significance or the impacts of behaviour that is harmful. On the contrary, it is not in anyone’s interest to be enhancing bad or harmful behaviour. On the other hand, what it is about is looking at the evidence, as we have done and continue to do, and making sure that the treatment, so to speak, or the solutions provided actually help by on the one hand enhancing community safety, diverting young people from what might otherwise end up being a very tragic life of crime, but also keeping our community safe.

Coming back to the issue of raising the age, we of course are the first – we will be, I should say; the bill is obviously still being debated, and so here I am talking more about the broader concepts that underpin the rationale that is driving these reforms. Victoria will become the first state to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. Whilst you might say, ‘Okay, it’s a number, 10 to 11,’ and so forth, what we are really saying is these young children do not belong in custody. But I want to explain that further. Those kinds of statements cannot be left hanging, so to speak, because it is very important that the full thread and chain of diversion is well articulated in the chamber, otherwise you can leave a very open-ended statement that is subject to being manipulated in a way that is counterproductive and might actually cause some concern to those in the community. That is the opposite of what I am intending to do here owing to the very sensitive nature of the matters that we are transacting.

So why are we doing this? We are doing these reforms because it is the right thing to do, and I should say not only for the children involved but because it actually is the best thing for the safety of the community. That might seem like an ironic statement, but not at all, because when you look to the evidence you can see the rationale that underpins these specific reforms within the age group that I am talking about.

The evidence is clear that the younger a child is when they are first sentenced, the more likely they are to reoffend and reoffend more frequently, violently and, sadly, as adults. Focusing on helping these children address the underlying causes of their offending and getting them on the right path will keep the community safer in the long run. There is more to this matter, so again that is not the end of that sentence. I am being very, very prudent in the way that I am transacting this because of the potential ramifications for how these particular reforms may or may not be interpreted and the conclusions that one may draw as a result. On the one hand, we know that serious offending by 10- or 11-year-olds is very rare, as is a situation where a 10- or 11-year-old would come before our courts – thankfully so – and it is rarer still that a child that young would receive a custodial sentence. I should note also – and I think it is very important in this debate, when we are thinking about where things stand at present – we thankfully do not have any children in the system of this age, and with these important reforms we will never again either, so that is certainly a paramount consideration as well.

In the rare situation in which a 10- or 11-year-old does engage in criminal activity, obviously it stems from something going terribly wrong in their lives. If we think back even in the chamber, it is hard to reflect, but I think at 10 or 11 I was fortunate enough to be playing with friends and doing sports and having great education and other things that were stimulating, and I had parents who knew where I was and were taking care of me.

There are so many aspects to this issue, and I think in our party, Labor, we recognise that raising a well-rounded individual goes through everything, from investment in early childhood education, which is a paramount priority for our state, to prioritising education per se, and you see the latest reforms with regard to phonics and making sure that no-one slips to the cracks when it comes to having the best possible chance at being literate and being able to expand their choices in life through a great education. Also, with the investment in family violence arguably Victoria is leading the way. I am sorry that family violence persists. We know that for police it can take up to 60, 65 per cent of police time in terms of having to manage this great scourge on our society, and of course it is not exclusive to Victoria. But this is all the more reason why we are tackling these matters head-on when we recognise the holistic elements when we are looking at the contribution to what drives a person to be the best possible, most well rounded and balanced individual they could possibly be or alternatively where life does not follow a healthy pattern to the extent that they may cause harm to themselves or others, which is obviously a very tragic outcome.

Coming back to the purpose of my grievance, there may be some who disagree with raising the age, as I pointed out in the chamber – although it is a bit confusing where they sit – and want this so-called tough-on-crime approach with young children, but the evidence tells us that this approach does not work. That was the point I was making from the outside: sometimes X does not lead to Y, particularly when we are talking about children of 10 and 11 at such a vulnerable age. This is because very young children typically lack the maturity to form criminal intent, and their charges end up being withdrawn or not proven. That surely is counter-productive in the long run.

If we do not focus on helping these children get on the right path now, we end up paying for it with our criminal justice system needing more resources to go into policing their behaviour as adults to keep the community safe, and there we have this very dangerous and counter-productive cycle. But you will note that I have not been flippant when it comes to referencing the specific age groups that we are talking about when it comes to raising the age, because such delicate decision-making is contingent upon evidence-based reforms.

Coming back also to that other concern that may be considered: raising the minimum age does not mean the child escapes consequences, and I think that is extremely important when we are looking at community safety. It is entirely appropriate and expected that children will be held accountable for their behaviour, particularly where this leads to serious harm. What raising the age does is recognise that the criminal justice system as it stands is not the most appropriate way to hold a young child to account. What does work is developmentally appropriate and necessary supports that put a stop to their harmful behaviour. No-one is suggesting that harmful behaviour be allowed to continue. It does need to be stopped, as this is the overarching objective of the legislation, because ultimately we want on the one hand to be absolutely backing in community safety – it is of paramount importance – and, two, a victim-centred approach. The consideration of the impact on victims is absolutely paramount with any such reforms with regard to community safety, but so is interfering, interrupting, diverting from a very tragic life of crime and making sure that young Victorians get the right support to enable them to have productive and positive lives that are in the best interests of community and not the reverse. Hence our education, child protection and youth justice systems have a number of programs of supports in place to support young people struggling with trauma, challenging behaviours and complex issues.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Edbrooke): Before I call member for Warrandyte, I will just remind members of the principle of sub judice, where if matters are under judicial consideration they are therefore prohibited from being talked about in public.