Children’s commissioner ignored on laws targeting kids
Andrew Stafford and Lloyd Jones |
A territory government’s treatment of children has gone backwards since a damning royal commission report almost nine years ago, an inquiry has been told.
A prominent youth justice advocate on Tuesday told a senate inquiry into Australia’s youth justice and incarceration system that vulnerable children had been failed by successive Northern Territory governments.
“As the only Australian jurisdiction until recently to have had a royal commission into the treatment of children, one would expect the territory to have progressed meaningful, real, transformational change,” NT Children’s Commissioner Shahleena Musk said.
“Unfortunately, this has not been the case.”
A royal commission into the detention of children in the NT was established by the Turnbull government in 2016, after the ABC aired shocking footage of mistreatment at the Don Dale Youth Detention Centre.
Former chief minister Michael Gunner described the subsequent 2017 report as a “stain” on the NT, for which he apologised.
But Ms Musk said a plethora of legal and policy reforms since then had continued to breach children’s rights and ignored the evidence by experts, stakeholders and community leaders.
“Those most impacted were not consulted,” she said.
This included Ms Musk herself, who as children’s commissioner was not engaged nor given the opportunity to provide advice on the laws, she said.
She pointed to the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10, the removal of the principle of custody as a last resort, reduced access to diversionary programs and the overturning of a ban on spit hoods.
She also noted the closure of the Alice Springs youth detention facility had resulted in Indigenous children being transferred to Darwin, 1500km away from their families, communities and Country.
Ms Musk said children’s rights were enshrined in international law, but few had been incorporated domestically and were therefore not enforceable.
“This has meant that children’s rights can be and often are disregarded in the creation of policy and drafting and implementation of laws,” she said.
Australia is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified in 1990.
The senate inquiry was announced following the deaths of two children in youth detention in Western Australia in 12 months, including 16-year-old Cleveland Dodd in October 2023.
A Productivity Commission report on government services revealed spending on youth justice rose nationally over 2023/24 to $1.5 billion.
The average cost to imprison a child is $3320 a day, which equates to $1.2 million per child per year.
Other state governments have responded to perceptions of a crime crisis with harsher laws targeting young offenders.
In Queensland, the Liberal National government has lowered the age of criminal responsibility to 10 as part of its controversial “adult crime, adult time” laws.
Victoria followed suit with its “adult time for violent crime” laws, allowing children as young as 14 to be tried in adult courts.
Comment has been sought from the NT attorney-general.
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AAP