Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week the ACT, with a Greens Attorney-General, committed to raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14, by 2025. Greens in state parliaments right around the country have been pushing for this change, as have many organisations. I want to honour the legacy of the work of human rights lawyer Sophie Trevitt, who made it her life's work, before it was cut short, to try to keep First Nations kids out of prison. Right now, in my home state of Queensland, politicians are sending primary school age children to be locked away in prison. Queensland Greens MP Michael Berkman introduced a bill to state parliament to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 years old. Despite over 300 supportive submissions, LNP and Labor committee members recommended that the bill not be passed. To add insult to injury, and despite the efforts of our Greens MPs to stop this, a few months ago we then saw the Queensland government suspend the Human Rights Act so that children could be held in adult police watch houses—children as young as 10 in adult police watch houses.

One purpose of the Queensland Human Rights Act is to protect children from harm, and, leaving aside the blatant disregard for democracy and human rights, even children's prisons have repeatedly been shown to be unsafe for young people, to increase their likelihood of reoffending and to impose torture-like conditions. First Nations children are especially targeted and grossly overrepresented in children's prisons. Closing child prisons is a key measure towards closing the gap. The federal government should use its power to incentivise all jurisdictions to follow the lead of the ACT Labor-Greens government and raise the age of criminal responsibility, because kids don't belong in prison.