Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise today to make a very important statement on something that I didn't think I would need to spell out and highlight to the parliament of this country in 2021. But here we are. Children do best when they are in loving and caring environments and have access to great health care, education and community sport. But in the 'Land of Oz' that's not afforded to everybody, especially those aged from 10. Children as young as 10 are being thrown into jail in Australia for low-level offences like stealing a chocolate bar, or having a bite of the friend's chocolate bar. Having such a low age of legal responsibility is impacting First Nations children the most. Separating children from their families, their communities, their education and, for First Nations children, their culture and connection is causing lasting damage to our youngest.

Our young people are our future, right? But this government, this country, locks our young people up and makes them more likely to get trapped in the quicksand of the criminal legal system before they have reached their teenage years. Research shows that, when someone enters the 'quicksand' of the criminal legal system, the system makes it incredibly difficult to escape. Children belong in schools and playgrounds, connected to their families, communities and culture, not placed in handcuffs, held in watch houses and locked away in prisons.

In just one year across this country, close to 600 children aged 10 to 13 years were locked up and thousands more were hauled through the criminal legal system. Really? These are children that we are keeping in jails in this country. Some of these children still have baby teeth. Where's their tooth fairy? Is it the prison guard? It's absolutely disgusting! It's disgusting that we have people in this place and in the Victorian government who continue to lock up babies who still have baby teeth. To all parents in this chamber: what if this was your child? Think about that. There's been a chorus of calls both nationally and internationally—from First Nations organisations and advocates, expert United Nations bodies, human rights organisations, medical and legal bodies, and academics—for this country to raise the minimum age of legal responsibility.

You talk about medical science and COVID and you come up with all the evidence around coal-fired power stations and how great they are. But you decide what evidence you choose. In this case, you don't care that 10-year-old children with baby teeth are being incarcerated at the rate they are in this country. Children need to be loved and supported so they can reach their full potential, not locked up. It is just over a year since a meeting of Attorneys-General decided to do something about our low age of legal responsibility. They talked and talked, but what did they do? They scrapped it. They took it off the priority list. This do-nothing Morrison government recently defied calls from 31 United Nations member states to raise the age. Shame on this country. Shame on the Morrison government. Imagine being the government that was happy to let children as young as 10—children who are nowhere near developing, so much so that they still have baby teeth—go to jail. They are just cowards. Are they cowards? What is this? What kind of people do this in this country?

I'm proud to be in a party that as a matter of urgency is committed to raising the age of legal responsibility from 10 to 14. It would see so many children released back to their families and communities and into programs that make them the people they want to be. Raising the age of legal responsibility has been identified as an area of urgent reform to ensure the physical and psychological health of children, their families and their communities. Instead of jailing children for minor crimes, we would support children to get back on the right path through culturally safe and supportive diversionary programs, as well as supportive bail and community corrections programs to divert people away from prisons. No matter who we are, the legal system needs to protect all of us equally. Our legal system fails too many people.

How was the legal system invented in the first place? It is based on colonisation, patriarchy and locking them all up, especially the black ones. It fails First Nations people regularly, and the consequences can be a matter of life or death, and we know that because of deaths in custody. Everyone doesn't want to talk about that big elephant in the room. The system is too expensive and too hard to access, and often it's simply racist. Children as young as 10 can be imprisoned, and overwhelmingly we know that they are First Nations kids. We know that they are black kids. Who cares about them in this country? On the 30th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, this government is pushing back on working with First Nations families and activists who've had a loved one die in custody to implement all of the outstanding recommendations. We know the rhetoric that the government throws out on that. We don't buy it. It's not working. Implement them all.

Millions of Australians are locked down, locked into poverty and locked out of an affordable home because of the do-nothing Morrison government, and our people are dying on their watch. You have blood on your hands, Morrison. The government don't care about us or you. They don't care about anyone but themselves. They're so privileged and colonised that they wouldn't know what it's like to have to struggle to put food on the table.

In my home state of Victoria, Premier Andrews has also presided over a cruel criminal legal system that again punishes blackfellas instead of protecting them. On the 30th anniversary of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the Andrews Labor government declared:

… too many Aboriginal Victorians are still dying in custody. Too many Aboriginal Victorians are in custody in the first place.

Yet the Andrews government, like the Morrison government, is hardly a helpless bystander. This was an entirely predictable tragedy. The Andrews Labor government is also the main contributor to this ongoing crisis. The royal commission recommended:

91. That governments, in conjunction with Aboriginal Legal Services and Police Services, give consideration to amending bail legislation:

…   …   …

b. to revise any criteria which inappropriately restrict the granting of bail to Aboriginal people …

The Andrews Labor government is doing the complete opposite. The Andrews bail laws are inappropriately restricting the granting of bail to First Nations people in Victoria. The Andrews government bail laws ensure that imprisonment is not used as a sanction of last resort. As a result, from 2010 to 2020 the imprisonment of women rose by 174 per cent, compared to an 81 per cent increase in the male population, and more than half the women now in prison have not been sentenced. Think of that for a moment: half of the women, our women, imprisoned in Victoria have not been sentenced for a crime. They don't have their babies with them either. (Time expired)