Will FOWLES (Ringwood) (14:26): My question is to the Attorney-General. This Labor government has for many years committed to reducing youth incarceration. In 2023 the Premier announced that the minimum age of criminal responsibility would be raised, first from 10 to 12 and then to 14, by 2027. In 2024 the Parliament passed the Youth Justice Act, which embedded diversion-first principles, restorative justice processes and the staged-age reform. The government has also maintained a ‘detention as a last resort’ framework, expanded youth diversion programs and implemented the Wirkara Kulpa: Aboriginal Youth Justice Strategy, which aims to make sure that Aboriginal children are not in the youth justice system and says that detention must be minimised wherever possible. These measures were built on the Armytage–Ogloff youth justice review and were further supported by research from the Sentencing Advisory Council, which advises government and courts on sentencing trends and has found that the younger a child is when they are first incarcerated, the more likely they are to return to detention. In light of these longstanding commitments, is it still the government’s objective to reduce youth incarceration in Victoria?
Sonya KILKENNY (Carrum – Attorney-General, Minister for Planning) (14:27): Speaker, thank you for your instruction around the bill that is currently before the Parliament. I thank the member for Ringwood for his question. In short, the answer is yes. The answer is yes. I do not think there is anyone in this place that wants to see children pursue a path down the criminal justice system. We want to be doing everything in our power to ensure that we are turning lives around. It is the very reason why we have announced recently the establishment of a national first here in Australia in our violence reduction unit. We are creating a unit which will be specific to Victoria but modelled on a model that is working, that is working well and has been working well in Glasgow and in London to significantly reduce youth offending and turn lives around. We are working on the data. We are using data to show that we need to address the rising incidence of crime, particularly crime committed by children, that is driving fear and harm in our communities. Without pre-empting debate in this place, we have introduced a bill into this place that will address that.
At the same time we have said it is not just about consequences, it is about early intervention. We need both, and that is exactly what the Allan Labor government is doing. We are doing it by listening to victims, listening to the victims of crime who are telling us we need more consequences. There need to be boundaries, boundaries for children to show them that there are consequences for this kind of violent, high-harm repeat offending. At the same time we need early interventions, because as the Premier has said again and again, violence is preventable, it is not inevitable. We need to treat it as a preventable harm, a public health approach, and that means identifying the risks, stepping in early and wrapping the support around these young people and these children to turn their lives around.
So yes, member for Ringwood, we do want to make sure that we are reducing the rates of incarceration, but we will do it by ensuring that there are serious consequences for very serious offending that is driving harm, significant harm, in our communities. And we will do it by a new model, a new approach, the violence reduction unit, which will be early intervention to help turn around the lives of these young people and put them on a path of opportunity and hope.
Sonya KILKENNY (Carrum – Attorney-General, Minister for Planning) (14:31): To the member for Ringwood, I absolutely reject the categorisation of ‘celebrate’. I think that is a poor choice of words here. What we have done time and time again is to say that we are listening to victims. We are listening to those victims of crime, those who are saying that when their home is invaded it is an invasion of their security, their home, their place of safety. The impacts that it has on them, but the impacts on children at home as well – these impacts, this harm – can be lifelong for some of these victims. We need to recognise that harm. That means ensuring that there are consequences for this very serious, brazen offending that we are seeing. And I should say it is offending like we have not seen before. VicPol have been very clear that this is a new kind of offending that requires a new kind of intervention – (Time expired)