Youth justice reforms will be the first order of business for the Liberal National Party if they win Queensland’s October election.
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said the LNP would remove detention as a last resort from the state’s Youth Justice Act.
“We’ve got a generation of repeat hardcore young offenders and they’re not being dealt with by strong laws, and we have a generation who are falling through the cracks,” he said.
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Crisafulli said the LNP would also focus on early intervention measures to prevent young people coming into contact with the justice system.
“At the heart of what we’re doing is stopping the pipeline that’s coming through,” he said.
“You do that in two ways, one is by having strong laws and sending a message, the second is through love, compassion, discipline, instruction and we intend to get both ends of the spectrum right.”
The LNP’s announcement coincides with the launch of a television advertisement, outlining the party’s youth justice plans.
Premier Steven Miles labelled the campaign “TV attack ads”, saying the opposition is politicising the issue for their own benefit.
“This is a sneaky way of spending more money than the laws allow them to do … to politicise crime,” he said.
Miles said his government would consider removing detention as a last resort, if the bipartisan committee that is conducting a youth justice inquiry recommends the measure.
Crisafulli’s announcement comes less than two weeks after the Child Death Review Board delivered a damning assessment of Queensland’s youth justice system.
An annual report tabled to the state’s parliament found Queensland locked up more children than the rest of the country.
It also said Queensland’s youth offenders were spending more nights in custody than any other jurisdiction.
Construction is under way at two new youth detention facilities at Cairns and Woodford, in response to a youth crime outcry in Queensland and capacity issues.
Controversial laws were passed in 2023, allowing contingencies for police watch houses and adult prisons to be used as youth detention centres, overriding the state’s Human Rights Act.
