Mr PERRETT (Gympie—LNP) (4.54 pm): I rise to speak on the Youth Justice and Other Legislation Amendment Bill. This bill has a number of policy objectives regarding the detention of young people within our justice system. It is always concerning to realise how many youth are becoming familiar with our justice system. The statistics are confronting. Too many times we hear about the crisis in our youth justice system. The crisis comes from the government’s own hands; they have created it.
This has been going on for a long time and the government has dithered because it is incapable of actually fixing things.
Since Annastacia Palaszczuk became Premier, youth crime in Queensland has skyrocketed.
Robbery is up 128 per cent, armed robbery is up 88 per cent, unlawful use of a motor vehicle is up 49 per cent, assault is up 33 per cent, serious assault is up 31 per cent and unlawful entry is up 34 per cent. A brief time line shows that this government is clueless.
It was bad enough when the Minister for Police had to correct the parliamentary record when he confidently said that he thought that young offenders in watch houses were visited by a teacher and received education packs. It was bad enough when the Premier thought that a ticking off for youth crime offenders would solve the problem. We were told that the government had a pathetic goal of cutting youth offending by just five per cent by 2022. They are clueless on youth crime.
In May this year an ABC investigation exposed harrowing cases of children as young as 10 who were being held in maximum security watch houses designed for adults only. More than 500 files showed traumatic stories of children held for weeks on end. It exposed distressing incidents including cases of self-harm and of a young female placed in a pod with two alleged sex offenders. No wonder the police overtime budget tripled in the past year. This is a direct consequence of a weak government’s failure to plan for enough youth detention beds while simultaneously adopting a policy to move 17-year-olds out of adult prisons.
The LNP understands what is going on. That is why we will move amendments to attempt to close the loophole in legislation. The LNP will move those amendments to restrict the length of time children can be held in watch houses to 72 hours, because children need to be detained in appropriate facilities such as youth detention centres. Under Labor, children as young as 10 have been held in watch houses for weeks on end while they wait for space available in overcrowded detention centres.
The longest time a child has stayed in the watch house is 45 days.
As at 10 May 2019 there were 89 children held in watch houses across the state. Labor should be ashamed of the conditions children were held in. As I said earlier, the claim that a young girl was placed in the same cell as two alleged paedophiles is distressing. We also heard claims of fingers being cut off by cell doors and numerous suicide attempts. Two days after those revelations the Premier revealed that while 75 children were held in watch houses-
Ms FARMER: Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I ask you to rule on the member misleading the House by claiming as fact something which has been established as pure allegation and not fact.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Kelly): Resume your seat, member. I will take some advice. Minister, that is not a point of order. If you believe the member is misleading the House there is a mechanism to deal with that, and it involves writing to the Speaker.
Ms FARMER: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will.
Mr PERRETT: By keeping children in watch houses, Labor has shown a blatant disregard for children’s human rights, something which Amnesty International and even the newly established Human Rights Commission has protested. Stakeholders including the Public Guardian and Sisters Inside are also advocating for time limitations for which children may remain in watch houses. The Human Rights Commissioner has recommended that the average time for children to be detained in watch houses should not extend beyond 24 hours and considered 72 hours as the outside limit.
This is why the LNP is moving amendments to restrict the length of time that children can be held in watch houses to 72 hours. I urge all members to support this amendment. The Human Rights Commissioner said that the 72-hour limit certainly would protect children, as we sadly discovered this year, subjected to horrendous conditions, for weeks on end in some cases.
The LNP will move also to restore breach of bail as an offence. The LNP opposes clause 10, which substantially amends the bail decision-making framework. It is obvious that Labor is weakening the bail laws because it wants to reduce the number of children entering overcrowded youth detention centres. It is weakening laws to massage the statistics. Simply, Labor’s amendments help take the pressure off its youth detention centre crisis, a crisis sparked because of Labor’s failed transition of 17-year-olds from adult prisons to the youth detention system in 2016.
Under Labor’s bill, more youths will commit serious offences, putting the community at risk. This is a serious concern when we consider that 10 per cent of juveniles were responsible for 40 per cent of all proven offences, as reported in the 2017-18 Childrens Court annual report. Townsville residents are at their wits’ end. The last thing they want is more youth offenders out on bail going on more crime sprees. Under Labor, more repeat offenders will be let out on the streets only to reoffend. This is why the LNP is moving amendments to restore breach of bail as an offence.
Juveniles must be held accountable for their crimes but they belong in dedicated facilities instead of a police watch house. The government and the Premier were warned time and again that they risked a disaster by putting children in watch houses. The youth justice system is chaotic and in crisis. This crisis is a result of breathtaking incompetence. It is important that the balance is struck between holding offenders in appropriate facilities and keeping repeat offenders off Queensland’s streets. The safety of the community is paramount, and community safety should always be favoured over offenders. I urge support of the LNP amendments.