Friday, 14 August 2026

 Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (18:21): (2706) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Youth Justice, and I ask that the minister raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14. I rise to speak tonight in the context of a recent report from the Commission for Children and Young People which has been released. The report is titled With Us, Not against Us: A Systemic Inquiry to Learn from the Experiences of Children Who Entered the Criminal Justice System before 14 and was recently tabled in Parliament. I am speaking on this topic again, and it is frustrating because I feel that this is a very necessary and worthy inquiry that reinforces the work that has gone on in this space and the asks that have been put before this government so many times before. The findings of the report are familiar. They show that children who have had encounters with the criminal justice system frequently have had institutional paths that have led to this point. Just some of the stats that were found: the 26 children in the inquiry’s file review were collectively the subject of 250 child protection reports around their safety and wellbeing. Many of them were the subject of such reports before they even turned five. Family violence was a very commonly identified harm. Many of the children, 88 per cent in fact, live with disability, and many of them experience chronic absence from school. There were so many vulnerabilities identified in this cohort.

What the report crucially found is that once the children came into contact with the criminal justice system, they were exposed to further harms. The contact with the criminal justice system at an early age undermined their capacity for positive changes. It did not lead to a rehabilitative path. It did not, in many cases, help them turn away from that path. It actually institutionalised and furthered harms and entrenched disadvantage that the kids were already experiencing. Crucially, it found that it actually increased the likelihood that these young people would reoffend.

This is just another iteration of evidence that has been put before the government. It reiterates how disappointing this government’s backflip from its previous position that it would raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 is. The backflip that occurred under this Labor government when Jacinta Allan became the Premier and continues under Ben Carroll says that it will ignore the evidence. I plead with the government to reconsider its position and reinstate its support for raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14. Kids deserve care, not prison.