Page 2054 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 2020
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whole to support them and prevent ongoing interaction with the juvenile or adult criminal justice systems.
Young offenders between the age of 10 and 14 will need to be provided with therapeutic care, sometimes in the form of court orders, that addresses the underlying reasons for their offending behaviour and reduces their risk of following a longer-term trajectory to prison, a trajectory that is inevitable unless there is appropriate and intensive support and intervention. This is particularly the case for our young First Nations children, who are over-represented in the care and protection, out of home care and juvenile justice systems. It is our shame that this continues to occur, and we must do things differently if this over-representation is to be reduced.
To legislate for raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age will require careful planning, analysis of existing services’ capacity to undertake potentially more complex work, and needs identification of where services may already be feeling the strain. I acknowledge that this change may require further expenditure. What is certain is that no matter how much we invest in these services, it will cost us less than if we leave the system as it currently stands.
Regardless of the obvious need to take some time to repair the ground for this change, we cannot ignore the pressing need to start that process now. Waiting for national consensus may well be a fool’s errand that sees real action continually kicked down the road for another day. With a number of elections on the horizon in other states, it seems entirely feasible that it may take years of going around in circles to get the outcome that is so clearly needed.
That is why today I am asking for us to commit our in-principle support for the raising of the age of criminal responsibility, in full recognition of the need to resource new programs and implement new policy frameworks to support young offenders, and to commission preliminary work to prepare the legislative, policy and resourcing frameworks required for an incoming Assembly to legislate for raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age.
There is important work that can be done by the public service during the coming months while we are all out campaigning and seeking to get either elected or re-elected to this place. That work can be done. The consultation with the community sector can be undertaken, and the discussions with other jurisdictions on issues that they are thinking, so that when the 25 members come to this place or return here there can be fairly quick action, knowing that that policy work has been developed. This is, in my mind, the most sensible way to progress this important reform that, while affecting a very small number of children, will positively change the record and change their lives for the better.
I commend my motion to the Assembly.
MR RAMSAY (Ginninderra—Attorney-General, Minister for the Arts, Creative Industries and Cultural Events, Minister for Building Quality Improvement, Minister for Business and Regulatory Services and Minister for Seniors and Veterans) (11.09): Raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility is technically a very
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