Wednesday, 7 February 2024

Motions

Youth crime

Debate resumed.

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (14:03): I will continue my contribution. As I said earlier, unfortunately the facts are that under this Labor government the vast majority of youth offenders who leave the youth justice system end up reoffending and back within 12 months. Our youth crimes are at a 10-year high, and now is not the time to weaken youth bail laws. How many times under this government have you heard that an offender has committed a horrific crime just as they were released on bail?

In relation to this, it is about community safety and supporting our youth. They are the future of our society. So in support of this motion, I commend it to the house. It has my full support.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:04): I rise to speak to this motion. There are two focuses in this motion: first is the concern about the rates of youth crime in Victoria, and second, the level of government expenditure on the youth justice system.

The first concern alleges that youth crime rates are at their highest in 10 years. Indeed there have been some recent tragic incidents involving youth crime, including in my own region of South-Eastern Metro. But when we look at data collected on crime, we get a clearer picture of the long-term trends. On the whole, there is less crime than there was a decade ago, including for those from 10 to 24 years of age. Victoria Police also stated that overall youth offending remains below COVID levels. This rhetoric of an out-of-control crime wave is harmful. We should not be treating youth crime this way. Doing so just stokes community fears and fuels further violent behaviour.

The second concern in this motion relates to expenditure. It notes that compared to other jurisdictions Victoria spends much more on detention-based supervision and that rehabilitation measures are more often than not unsuccessful. Proper rehabilitation services increase the average cost of a young person per day in detention. Isn’t it a given that you would have to spend more money on rehabilitation rather than the young person ending up back in detention? Relative to population, Victoria’s total expenditure on youth justice is less than the national average. Victoria has the lowest rate of young people in youth justice detention, being 1.1 per 10,000 compared with the national average of 2.7 per 10,000.

Unfortunately, rehabilitation is not foolproof, and often those that enter the justice system do end up returning. But what this is testament to is the need for justice reinvestment and preventive measures. We should be focused on getting young people on pathways away from the criminal justice system before they even enter it. In Victoria we have had calls from major figures, including the Victorian Ombudsman Deborah Glass and Victoria’s former deputy chief magistrate Jelena Popovic, to investigate justice reinvestment, particularly for the role it can play in reducing youth offending.

A part of these measures needs to focus on community connection. Often young people join gangs or similar groups to find connection when they do not receive it in their family home or their immediate social circles. Measures that focus on indirect lifestyle and social factors often have a significant preventative benefit when it comes to young people entering the criminal justice system. Community initiatives like child healthcare services, early childhood education and programs for at-risk young people all make a difference in addressing the underlying causes of crime. Initiatives like Empowering Communities, which invests in the Casey community in my region, help to address the local issues impacting youth crime and perceptions of safety. These localised initiatives get the community onboard and are more likely to be effective than top-down measures.

We commend the government on its work to keep people out of the criminal justice system. Focus on justice reinvestment, providing funding for community organisations and social support mechanisms are all tools this government needs to use better to support our young people. This motion stokes fear. It does not seek to make our community safer through support services and justice reinvestment. Accordingly, we will not be supporting this motion.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (14:08): I rise to make a contribution on this motion standing in Ms Crozier’s name on youth justice. I have had the opportunity to listen to the contributions made by others in the chamber today but also have read the content of the motion, and I think the motion is poorly considered and poorly formed and conflates a number of things in regard to crime, the age of criminal responsibility and a number of other things.

I note my colleagues have spoken at length to address some of the points in the motion, but I might just go to some of the statistics, which I think those opposite really were basing a lot of their information on in trying to suggest that there is some kind of out-of-control youth crime wave. Effectively, Victoria has the lowest rate of young people in youth justice detention at a rate of 1.1 per 10,000 versus the national average of 2.7 people per 10,000. So Victoria, as I said, does have a lower rate of younger people who are incarcerated, but we also have the lowest rate of young people in youth justice community supervision, at a rate of 1.1 per 10,000 versus the national average again of 2.7 persons per 10,000.

We also have the second-lowest rate of Aboriginal young people in detention behind the ACT. These are important statistics, and I know these are statistics that those opposite would not necessarily want to hear or acknowledge because I note there has been no real consideration of the actual facts in regard to this. I heard Minister Erdogan talk in his ministers statement earlier in question time today and try to explain some of the detail. The detail and the facts are lost on those opposite because, again, what they want to do is just a crime-scare kind of motion in regard to this. But the facts do not lie, and clearly what I have outlined to the chamber is that Victoria has the lowest rate of young people in youth justice: 1.1 persons per 10,000 compared to the national average of 2.7 persons per 10,000. Those stats do not lie.

So in terms of costs – and again this is from the Report on Government Services, so this is tabled, and it is an important report that details and compares government spending and information on the cost of detention and people in detention – the Liberals’ motion, when we are talking about cost comparison and the costs of detention, focuses on the detention cost per young person per day. These statistics are misleading, because the success in reducing young people in custody inherently increases the average cost per person. The comparison also ignores the impact of fixed costs and investments in keeping people out of custody, and we all know that really the best bang for buck that comes when you are dealing with youth crime is in actually assisting people to stay out of the youth justice system through appropriate diversion programs but also through important programs like –

A member interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Those opposite want to bag us about our huge reforms and massive investments in early childhood education, but one of the key areas in helping young people stay out of the youth justice system or the justice system is early childhood education. It is a significant and important social policy that helps young children who may be from larger families or poor socio-economic backgrounds. The earlier children can get into quality childhood education, their trajectory is better, if they are in an at-risk cohort. Those facts do not lie – it is well documented.

Just getting back to the Report on Government Services, that report goes down into some granular detail. It explores the total expenditure, not just in detention, compared against the population size – so that is per young person in the population of that particular jurisdiction. This shows that relative to population, Victoria’s total expenditure on youth justice is actually less than the national average. The national average total expenditure on youth justice per person – and that looks at youth offenders in the 10- to 17-year age bracket – for 2022–23 in Australia was $508.25 per person, and Victoria was at $482.78 per person. So clearly we are spending less than the national average.

The most important aspect about helping young offenders is actually keeping them out of the justice system – to have diversion programs in place or through our early childhood education and care systems to make sure that we can pick up any children who may be on a trajectory that way or to particularly help with their families that may be struggling, and to provide those early interventions so that those children do not end up on a trajectory that begins in juvenile offending and ends up later on in more serious offending. As I said, this motion is a disappointing motion because trying to scare the community into thinking that we are in the midst of a youth crime epidemic, it is never –

Georgie Crozier: Tell that to the family of Dr Gordon.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Ms Crozier, I will take up your interjection, because I just think it is really a low-rent opportunity for you to use the death of someone in this context to try and attack the government. I do not know whether the family would actually appreciate you bringing that up, and I do not know if you have actually spoken to them about it.

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Sonja TERPSTRA: No-one is denying the fact that when –

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! This is not a discussion across the chamber. If the member could return to her contribution and desist from conversation across the table. I ask Ms Crozier to also desist from conversation.

Sonja TERPSTRA: Thank you, Deputy President, but I did say I would take up that interjection, and I am entitled to do that in my contribution, which I did do. That is my right as a speaker in this chamber.

I will just make the point that when we are discussing crime, we need to be mindful that there are victims of crime and their families that are impacted by that. As politicians, when we stand here and talk in this chamber about someone who has lost their life, we need to be mindful that there are people attached to this crime, rather than using it for poor political pointscoring, which always reflects poorly on those people who do it.

I make a contribution in opposition to this motion. It is a poorly thought-out, ill-informed motion designed to score petty political points. It really is poorly wanting in terms of the facts and truth of the information, so we will be opposing this motion.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (14:16): This is an important motion and one that I think needs to be taken quite seriously. I know my colleague Dr Heath made some great points in regard to police station closures, and other members for Northern Metropolitan might be interested in this point: in 2021 the then Andrews government actually invested $15 million in a new Reservoir police station – quite good. It was to be open 24/7. Lisa Neville showed up and did a great ceremony about what Labor was delivering, only for them to at the end of last year reduce the hours to just 8 hours a day – just 8 hours a day. In a part of the world, in my electorate, where crime is on the increase this is how they treat community and also treat taxpayer funds. If you expand a facility to make sure it is open 24/7, surely you have got the resources to be able to keep it open. I was pretty shocked when that was savagely closed.

But I just want to go to some of the points Ms Terpstra was raising. She said what we are putting forward is a big scare. It is actually quite a sensible motion. It does talk about justice reinvestment, and it does talk about making sure there are proper rehabilitation programs that are not being cut by Tim Pallas. Offender incidents amongst 10- to 14-year-olds are up 32 per cent. That is a fact. And it is 33 per cent amongst 15- to 17-year-olds. But here you have got the government, in the same cohort in which those figures are increasing by record levels, wanting to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

I mentioned the Declan Cutler issue, a teenager who was brutally murdered by another group of teenagers in my electorate, which affected many people in the northern suburbs. How can anyone on the government side look Declan’s mother in the eye and say that 14-year-old should not have got 10 years jail for killing her son? I know I could not. I do not understand how they are even contemplating raising the age of criminal responsibility, but this is what we have when a government is out of touch with community sentiment. Lots of people have been affected by crime. I have never seen so many people that have firsthand and second-hand accounts of incidents and are affected by crime. We saw it just in the CBD last night, where 15 youths got on a tram and started robbing people and shoving people up against the wall. Thankfully, police arrested three of them, but these are the kinds of issues Victorians have to deal with every single day.

I also heard Ms Terpstra – and I think it is quite preposterous – actually make the link and try to say the way that we can keep people out of prison is with free kinder. Seriously? You have got Tim Pallas cutting crucial rehabilitation programs to keep people out of prison, but apparently free kinder – ‘free’ kinder, taxpayer-subsidised kinder – is a way to keep people out of prison.

I think we need a government with serious solutions. As you know, Deputy President, I am very interested in this space. I have done a lot of research in this space. I was chatting the other day to Jesuit Social Services, who have a lot of great ideas on how we can reform the justice system and actually invest in rehabilitation and reform, because criminal justice reform is not only an economic good, it is a moral good for society, for a person, for redemption and to get people back on track. They will then contribute to their communities and the economy as well and get the best start in life. Yet we have got a situation where we are paying upwards of $150,000 a year, every year, to keep people in prison and the recidivism rate keeps going up. When you have got almost half of all prisoners, particularly in youth justice, returning to prison within two years, that is a deep concern. We should actually be investing into those programs that get people out of prison. I think this motion should be supported.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (14): Melina Bath, Jeff Bourman, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, Moira Deeming, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Evan Mulholland, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell

Noes (20): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Enver Erdogan, Jacinta Ermacora, David Ettershank, Michael Galea, Shaun Leane, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Rachel Payne, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Samantha Ratnam, Harriet Shing, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Motion negatived.