Tuesday, 28 October 2025

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (22:39): (2034) Last week a Victorian coroner delivered the findings on the death of 15-year-old Solomone Taufe’ulungaki, who was fatally stabbed in a Melbourne car park in 2020. In delivering her findings, the coroner wrote:

Solomone’s mother described him as happy, kind, helpful, and cheerful. He loved his family and was loved by them in return.

Her report outlines that of the 245 victims of knife homicides in Victoria over the past decade, 18 were children. Six of these victims died in family violence related homicides and 11 victims in gang-related homicides, and nine of the 11 victims in gang-related homicides were members of a migrant community. The coroner’s investigation took evidence from Victoria Police, the youth justice commissioner and the western community legal centre, Westjustice, and the coroner found that the evidence:

… demonstrates that effectively addressing the incidence of youth knife crime requires not only appropriate responses from police and youth justice, but also community-based measures to address its root causes.

Her report makes for sober reading, especially in the context of the current febrile and unproductive debate on law and order. Fulfilling statutory responsibilities under the Coroners Act 2008, the coroner made findings that will help to prevent deaths and promote public health and safety. She wrote:

… police and justice responses should not be pursued in isolation.

And she concluded:

I urge the Victorian Government and relevant government agencies, including Victoria Police and Youth Justice, to continue to collaborate with community groups to ensure that any criminal justice responses to youth knife crime are coordinated and aligned with, and not counter-productive, to evidence-based community initiatives. In particular, the evidence I have received in these proceedings demonstrates that, while appropriate police and justice responses are critical, sole reliance on “law and order” responses to youth offending can risk further criminalising already marginalised groups of young people, and in doing so, produce further harm in both the short and the long-term.

By recognising the importance of a whole-of-community approach now, I am hopeful that Victoria may see a future reduction in youth offending and in doing so, prevent future deaths in similar circumstances.

We know that evidence-based community approaches are woefully underfunded or ignored. My adjournment matter is to the Premier, and the action I seek, as the coroner has requested, is that the government collaborate with community groups to ensure that any criminal justice responses to youth knife crime are coordinated and aligned with, and not counterproductive to, evidence-based community initiatives.