Many Australians had what should otherwise have been a blissful summer ruined by the scourge of violent crime. On Boxing Day, Emma Lovell, a mum of two, was fatally stabbed by violent criminals at her home just north of Brisbane. I’ve had a stream of incidents reported to me through my office over summer.
Australians deserve to live safely in their homes, but their governments are failing to deliver that human right. The tragic stories are backed up by the statistics. There has been a staggering 53 per cent increase in juveniles breaking into people’s homes and businesses in Queensland since mid-2019. What happened in mid-2019? Well, in August 2019 the Queensland government changed the Youth Justice Act. In the words of the government’s explanatory note about these changes, they had the objective of ‘removing legislative barriers to enable young people to be granted bail’. The changes told judges that the principle should be detention as a last resort and that the bail decision-making framework incorporated an explicit presumption in favour of release.
The Queensland Premier has cowardly blamed judges for the rise in violent crime, when judges have clearly just been implementing her own laws to put violent criminals back onto our streets. The local police know the offenders, but their hands are tied by Queensland’s lax youth crime laws. The Queensland government has finally, after much pressure, woken up to the problem, and they say they’re going to prioritise changes to the youth justice laws when the parliament meets next week. What they need to do is to eat some humble pie and admit that their 2019 changes have been an absolute disaster. If there is credible evidence that a juvenile has committed a crime, they deserve a fair trial but they should not have the presumption in favour of release. The Australian people deserve the presumption in favour of their safety, and it’s high time the Queensland government puts the interests of law-abiding citizens first.
I particularly give credit to Julie West. She has established a petition, which has attracted almost 150,000 signatures, asking for the Queensland government to act to protect Queenslanders and to guarantee their safety.
