Ms ROSOL (Bass) – Honourable Speaker, I move –
That the House take note of the following matter: rights of children and young people.
We know that in the past in Tasmania, the rights of children and young people have been violated. The commission of inquiry was very clear on this and laid it all out starkly. They found that practices in Ashley Youth Detention Centre, including the use of excessive force in detention and the use of solitary confinement, violate this convention. They also emphasise that detaining a child should be a measure of last resort and when a child is detained, the detention should be for the shortest appropriate time, which is Article 37 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
The commission of inquiry argued that all children in Australia, including Tasmania, should enjoy the rights contained in the convention, and the 191 recommendations that they made were aimed at fixing the situation, making sure Tasmania never goes there again in terms of violating children’s rights. Yet here we are, with the government flagging their plans to introduce laws that are widely recognised as a violation of human rights. The proposed ‘adult crime, adult time’ laws violate international human rights law. Multiple organisations have raised that and pointed out that the proposal is based on Queensland’s laws. After Tasmania, which has the dubious honour of having the highest rate of youth offenders proceeded against out of any state and territory, Queensland has the second highest rate.
According to ABS youth recidivism data obtained by the ABC, Queensland and Tasmania have the equal second worst youth recidivism rate, just behind the Northern Territory. The relevance of this is that tough on crime does not work. We already have significant rates of youth offenders being preceded against and significant rates of recidivism, and the actions we are taking now are not working. There is no way that ‘adult crime, adult time’ will fix this situation.
On top of that, the Human Rights Law Centre has noted that the Queensland laws are incompatible with multiple international obligations. The Convention of the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination – I could go on. There is a long list of international obligations that tough on crime, ‘adult crime, adult time’ laws are in violation of.
When Queensland introduced their laws, multiple organisations spoke out against them and highlighted these violations: the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, Amnesty International, Save the Children, the Queensland Human Rights Commission Chair, the Uniting Church of Australia, Mission Australia. It is widely accepted that tough on crime is a violation of the human rights of children in Australia and in Tasmania, if that is what the government plans to do here.
Yes, there is community concern about youth crime; yes, we do need to address the issue. However, the answer is not to introduce laws that violate the human rights of children. Let us be clear: tough-on-crime laws that have been signalled for introduction by the Premier are in direct contradiction to the recommendations of the commission of inquiry and they are a violation of the rights of children and young people. There is a wealth of evidence available about what works to reduce youth crime and what also respects the rights of children and young people. It is not as if we do not know what works.
We have living in Tasmanian some of those experts who have helped in identifying best practice. They are speaking out on this and I am referring to you, Professor Rob White, as one of the people, but there are others as well. There are many ways we can respond to the issue of youth crime in Tasmania. Locking them up more is not the right way. It will not work. It violates their rights and the government must implement policies and legislation that follow the evidence. It is not acceptable to present a tough approach that is not evidence-based and will cause harm to children in Tasmania.
The Greens call on the government to listen to the evidence, to do the right thing, to walk away from their tough-on-crime laws and implement evidence-based approaches.
