Queensland children as young as 10 will now face adult sentences for serious crimes, following the passage of the government’s “adult crime, adult time” laws.
The controversial bill, which passed in the final parliament sitting of 2024 late on Thursday, was a key election promise from Premier David Crisafulli.
“Today we take the first step towards striking back against the youth crime crisis,” Crisafulli said.
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The Liberal National Party (LNP) premier had been aiming to pass the laws by Christmas, in response to “community outrage over crimes being perpetrated by young offenders”.
Crisafulli said the laws were necessary, as there were more than 50,000 youth crime offences so far this year.
The change applies to 13 of the most serious offences including murder, manslaughter, unlawful striking causing death, grievous bodily harm, wounding, serious assault, home and business break-ins and robbery, and dangerous operation of vehicles.
The laws underwent a week of committee scrutiny after the government urgently introduced the legislation.
Bills are usually scrutinised for six weeks.
But critics fear the legislation will only cause more harm, as the state’s jails have been operating at overcapacity for a decade.
The laws have also been met with opposition outside parliament, with human rights advocates arguing they won’t make the community safer.
“This is actually going to more deeply entrench the kinds of criminogenic circumstances that lead young people to offend in the first place,” Greens MP Michael Berkman told reporters on Thursday.
“It’s going to make the whole state less safe in the long term.”
Crisafulli admitted “there will be challenges in the short term but this is a line in the sand while we work on early intervention and rehabilitation”.
The LNP had previously conceded the laws would violate human rights, increase pressure on already packed detention centres, “directly discriminate” against children and impact Indigenous kids.
“We must deliver a youth justice system that puts victims first,” Crisafulli said.
Crisafulli was flanked by the likes of Cindy Micallef, whose 70-year-old mother Vyleen White was fatally stabbed outside a shopping centre in an alleged carjacking.
“What happened with mum could have been prevented. We all know that and it’s a case of no one else should be dying in vain,” she told reporters.
Another victim breathed a sigh of relief on Thursday.
Russell Field lost his son Matthew and daughter-in-law Kate Leadbetter — pregnant with unborn child Miles — when they were struck by a stolen car driven by a juvenile on Australia Day 2021.
Now an LNP MP, Field said the laws sent a “crystal clear” message to juveniles committing serious crimes.
“You will serve adult time,” he said.
-With AAP