Ms BADGER (Lyons) – Honourable Speaker, it is unfathomable that Tasmania is in a position where the government is planning to have a stadium at Mac Point built before Ashley is closed. Not only should Tasmania’s kids be able to play or watch a game of football, they should be able to get the education that they need to go into tertiary studies, whether at TAFE or at university. They should be able to live in a happy home environment free from violence and abuse. They should be able to pursue their dream career in Tasmania and not be forced to leave to the mainland to find work, or if they choose to, they can come back here and have a thriving life, a well-paying job and easily find a house.
When youth do not have the support systems around them, when there is a huge amount of intergenerational debt in this state – let us not forget the exponentially growing number of young people suffering climate anxiety as they inherit a less and less liveable planet – we will see lost young people who are acting out and being antisocial. What is this government doing to support young people and keep them away from the youth justice system?
What Mr Jaensch said is absolutely fine, but it is contrary to the actions that we are seeing and the pursuits from the police minister and the Premier and this Liberal government’s present investment priorities. While the government points to the Youth Justice Blueprint 2024‑2034 as its mechanism for the prevention of crime as well as early intervention and diversion, when it comes to children and young people, its rhetoric is not matched by the statistics. What the statistics do tell us is that fewer and fewer Tasmanian children and young people are being diverted away from the criminal justice system.
The 2025 Productivity Commission Report on Government Services shows that the proportion of youth offenders who are streamed into diversionary programs – under this government, the proportion of those youth offenders subject to diversion has declined virtually every year from 54.4 per cent in 2014‑15 to 35.6 per cent in 2023‑24. These statistics will not be helped by the current tranche of increased police powers being brought on by the Liberals.
As we saw with knife crime, with wanding, with the hooning bill, which had very little to do with hooning, we have a government using the same rhetoric of other conservative colleagues in other states talking about ‘adult time for adult crime’. They claim that the expansion of police powers and harsher penalties will reduce crime, despite the overwhelming evidence that this heavy-handed approach does not act as a desired deterrent. This approach is deeply flawed and it will not reduce crime. It will not make our community safer. What it will do is cause a lifetime of harm to Tasmania’s children and young people. This is what was laid out in the Commission of Inquiry into the Tasmanian Government’s Response to Child Sexual Abuse in Institutional Settings.
I note the serious concerns that have been raised over ‘adult time for adult crime’ in Queensland from international agencies over the possible breaches of youth and human rights under the UN Convention.
The Premier said in Question Time this morning we must be tough on the matter of youth crime, tough on crime, but what about tough on prevention? If we do want to reduce crime, we need far greater resourcing directed into dealing with the underlying causes of crime. We need more funding for education, including putting in place programs to lift our literacy and numeracy rates and our digital literacy as well. We need to provide more jobs and training and more equitably accessible training courses. We need more affordable housing and safe home environments. Surely, a bigger priority than ‘adult time for adult crime’ is the long-touted review of Tasmania’s Family Violence Act 2004.
We need more investment into community-based services to support people with underlying needs contributing to criminal behaviour such as unaddressed mental health issues, alcohol/other drug uses and homelessness. We have systemic, intergenerational issues in this state which are not new, but they are also no closer to being resolved. They are complex issues and we acknowledge that, as parts of our community are not feeling safe because of some of the actions that we are seeing from a small group of young people, it is no wonder when evidence-based diversion programs are not being invested in properly in this state. We cannot just sweep all the social issues that are going on under the turf at Mac Point. We actually have to see the Liberals step up and lead and deal with them head-on as a priority. We must see the investment into essential services and social needs of Tasmania’s youth, as per evidence base.
