Wednesday, 17 June 2026

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:57): (2595) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Youth Justice, and the action that I seek is for the minister to outline why, in the middle of a youth crime crisis, youth crime prevention and early intervention projects have seen a $1.3 million cut and why the funding has been rephased into the 2028–29 period. Minister, we are experiencing a youth crime crisis now. The budget papers show that almost $20 million is going to be invested into youth crime prevention programs but that that is only expected to, first of all, service 330 kids and that only 13 per cent of those are expected to finish the program. I am going to give a few statistics just to explain why this is absolutely unacceptable. First of all, even the Chief Commissioner of Police, Commissioner Bush, has said this:

If a young person commits a serious crime, three hours later they’re back out on the street with their peer group and their mates, already to go and do it again, what has been achieved?

He went on to say:

That’s really destructive and we’ve missed the opportunity to announce consequence, to provide the opportunity for reflection and intervention, all missed opportunities.

This week a young guy, Judo, who was a criminal himself – locked up for six years – added to that. He said it is simply not working. He credits the Youth Activating Youth program for beginning to turn his life around – something that helped him take responsibility and something that a Liberals and Nationals government would commit to funding to reach a generation of young people.

This is quite serious because, Minister, our communities are not safe. Not only that, we are losing a generation to crime. A generation that could be contributing and having a meaningful life are walking down a path that could see them locked up for life when the government is failing to provide programs that can help them turn it around. I hope that the minister can explain to me why this is being done, why money is being redirected, when right now we could be reaching a generation of kids. I believe that it is shooting far too low when there are 750 new victims of crime every single day. If you add those up over a year, that is over 270,000 new victims of crime – and this government thinks it is acceptable to reach 45 young kids to turn them around and get them out of the justice system. That is unbelievable, and you need to do better.