Wednesday, 3 December 2025

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (19:13): (1465) My adjournment is for the Premier, and the action I seek is for the Victorian Labor government to walk away from the punitive and panicked laws they put through the Victorian Parliament this week to lock up kids for life. Well, we must be in an election season, because Labor and the Liberals are again in a race to the bottom about who can be harsher and who can be crueller when it comes to criminal justice policy. But, you know what, I did not expect the Victorian Labor Party to be taking a lead on criminal justice policy from the right-wing Liberal Party in Queensland. But here we are: that is exactly what Victorian Labor have done.

Victorians have every right to be angry about this, because everybody deserves to feel safe in their homes and on their streets, and right now many Victorians do not. But in response to community fears, I would expect a good government to actually sit down, look at the evidence and do what works to keep people safe, rather than just panicking and adopting the Herald Sun’s latest brain fart. Do you know what works to keep communities safe? Making sure kids have a stable home. Instead, Labor is demolishing public housing right across Melbourne.

Do you know what works to keep the community safe? Making sure kids have a sense of belonging and achievement so that they are not dragged in when organised crime comes knocking, asking them to steal cars and do their dirty work. Instead, Labor has cut funding for youth programs. And do you know what works? Mental health support and drug and alcohol support, but these are also chronically underfunded in Victoria. There is barely a single public drug rehab bed available in the whole state right now. And do you know what works? Investing in programs that prevent crime before it happens. But instead, again, Labor has cut crime prevention programs by half. Here in Victoria Labor spends billions on prisons and police dealing with crime after it has already happened but peanuts on crime prevention.

But do not just take it from me: if we want to see what works to reduce crime and keep communities safe, we only need to look to Glasgow. Twenty years ago Glasgow had the highest violent crime rate in Western Europe, and they halved it. But they did not do it by locking up kids for life. Instead, Scotland built a system that treated violence as a public health issue. They identified kids at risk and intervened early. They brought them together with family and mentors. They gave them real opportunities to get on a better path. Sure, there were consequences, but there were also genuine opportunities to help them turn their lives around. And lo and behold, it actually worked. Because the evidence – yes, the evidence – shows that longer sentences actually push young people further into criminal activity, because when young people see no hope for a way out, that is when they believe crime is their only option. It is not just bad for the kids, it is bad for all of us, because it makes our community less safe. But Labor does not seem to care about the community being less safe in the long term; they just care about winning enough votes to win the next election. But for what? What even is the point of Labor winning when all they do with power is copy the Liberals from Queensland?