Tuesday, 4 March 2025

 David ETTERSHANK (Western Metropolitan) (18:53): (1459) My adjournment is to the Minister for Youth Justice and relates to an innovative program that is aimed at tackling youth disadvantage and keeping kids in school in the west. Every second day we are told that we are in the midst of a youth crime wave, that our once safe suburbs are crime epicentres. We are being held to ransom by lawless young offenders running rampant, and nothing is being done about it. The only thing that will keep us safe is to go hard, toughen up on bail laws and lock up more children. Everyone has a right to feel safe, but we know that these policies do not work.

The ‘go hard’ approach simply kicks the problem down the road and our youth into the justice system. We know that young people who end up in the criminal justice system are overwhelmingly more likely to experience greater levels of poverty, social and economic exclusion, racism, family violence and housing insecurity. Kneejerk policies that funnel more children into the youth justice system do nothing to make our streets safer and do nothing to address the underlying causes that put young people on the path to criminalisation. In my electorate a child is more likely to be the victim of domestic violence than to have committed a crime. If you are not safe at home and you are not engaged at school, you really do not have much choice but to be out on the streets, and the cost to the taxpayer is astonishing. It costs $7500 a day to keep a child in detention, compared to $6000 a year to educate them.

Rather than write off our young people, communities in the west are standing up for them. Tired of waiting for government action, a coalition of concerned stakeholders, including Westjustice, Victoria Legal Aid and the Centre for Multicultural Youth have established an ambitious program titled Target Zero, which aims to reduce the number of young people in our criminal justice system to zero, alongside project 100, with a target of 100 per cent year 12 completion. Target Zero seeks to end the criminalisation and over-representation in the justice system of First Nations and multicultural young people and young people in residential care in Brimbank, Melton and Wyndham by supporting kids to stay in school and to be active and engaged in their community.

Wyndham community college is the site of the pilot project, and we certainly commend them for taking it on. This program has continuing community consultation and input. It is a true partnership and testament to how the people of the west look after their own. So I ask the Minister for Youth Justice to tour Wyndham community college with Westjustice so that he can meet with the Target Zero team and view this exciting program firsthand.