Tuesday, 18 November 2025

 Jacinta ALLAN (Bendigo East – Premier) (14:10): We know there are no easy solutions to youth crime, but the best solution, the best approach, will always be preventing it before it starts. We know that we need to give kids the opportunity and the supports that they need to give them a future. That is why today I was so proud to be able to announce the government’s establishment of the violence reduction unit. The violence reduction unit that we are establishing here in Victoria is based on a model that is working in Glasgow and in London, where they have seen crime fall in those cities, but also importantly the violence reduction unit will bring together data and police intelligence. It will work across government to disrupt gangs and to target hotspots but also, importantly, it will work across all areas of government where we know we can prevent crime and address the root causes of crime. Whether it is in our schools or in mental health and across the vast swathe of crime prevention programs, it is about working across government and looking at new interventions to break this cycle of behaviour.

That is why I am delighted to also announce that the first program that will be supported through the violence reduction unit is the program 16 Yards. It is an incredibly powerful program that brings together young people with lived experience, yes, of the justice system and of being young people at risk. They get formally trained and are then paired with other young kids at risk not just to help them turn their lives around but to set them on a pathway of hope and personal growth for the future. That is why we are backing 16 Yards. It is also why we back our schools, we back our TAFEs and we back our hospital and health systems in only ways that Labor governments do, because that is how you not only prevent crime but support families to have a better future.