Ms ROSOL – There have been multiple delays in Ashley Youth Detention Centre closing, so it’s difficult to trust what’s being said. It’s difficult to trust what we’re being told. Would you stake your reputation on Ashley Youth Detention Centre being closed within the time – I actually don’t know what the time frame is. Would you stake your reputation on that?
Mr JAENSCH – I do that every day and I get people saying things about me and calling me names and attacking me for their job every day on this stuff. At the moment I am absolutely focused on delivering the reforms to the youth justice system that we’re committed to, and I think we’ve got the best opportunity this state has ever seen and may ever see to undertake massive change to this system and to do it better than any other state in Australia has ever done before. Because of our very small numbers, we do have the ability to implement a reform in youth justice which is very much focused on the individual needs of young people and the causes of their offending. Early intervention, individual case management, therapeutic approach and through a therapeutic model which prevents their reoffending.
I think this can have immense effects on our future prison population as well and the safety of our communities. And I’m absolutely dedicated to that. And if that means that over a period of a couple of years, we change direction in how we’re doing that because we found a better way, I’ll take it. I mean, we found a better way from what the premier Gutwein at the time announced in 2021 that we’re going to close Ashley and build two smaller facilities, one in the north and one in the south doing exactly the same job. I think we can get to a better result than that – one smaller facility for a far smaller group of young people, raise the age of detention and criminal responsibility, invest far more heavily in individual responses to the needs of the young people who are at risk of entering that system. I think that’s what everyone wants to see happen.
And if that means that we learn as we go and find the best way to deliver that, I’m not going to sort of put the brakes on that because of something that someone said two years ago. What we need to do is clearly keep more people who are interested up to date with where this is going. That’s why we’ve got our reference group with 20-something members of the community who provided input to the Youth Justice Blueprint when it was originally created, who are keenly interested and who are going to be part of the system that delivers the reforms ultimately, rather than it being more government institutions where we put kids to get them out of the community.
So, I think that stay in touch with that room full of people. We are, we’re talking with them frequently, we’re meeting with them through our various parts of our department in my office weekly. And this is a rapidly evolving and developing program of work and I’m really confident that there’s never been this much work done with this intensity before. And it’s already yielding some new solutions like the work that Claire told you about this before.
