Ms BADGER question to MINISTER for POLICE, FIRE and EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT, Mr ELLIS
The government’s Youth Justice Blueprint aims for improved therapeutic justice and prioritises diversion away from the youth justice system – a move made obvious by the commission of inquiry. Contradicting this, last year police announced plans for high‑visibility policing and increasing the rate of youth offenders being sent to court. You then doubled down during the election campaign, announcing a youth strike force. Your comments at the policy launch referring to broken families were widely and rightfully condemned. As the Commissioner for Children said, your statements have no place post‑commission of inquiry. Populist, tough‑on‑crime announcements make for good media, but they do not make Tasmanian communities safer.
What is your government’s plan? Is it to divert young people away from the justice system or to charge and lock up more kids?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her question, welcome her to this place and look forward to your contributions in this place. Fundamentally, we have a disagreement on views. Ours is a government that is tough on crime. We know that the Greens will always be weak on crime.
Dr Woodruff – Madam Speaker, I object. That is offensive language.
Madam SPEAKER – It is okay, you do not need to, I will deal with it. Let us not invite those kinds of interjections. Please just address the matter before the House.
Mr ELLIS – Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will try and stick to your ruling. We do have a fundamental difference. On this side of the House, we believe we need to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. We want to deliver safe communities. We want to support young people to get back on the right track. However, the community also has, quite rightly, an expectation that those people who do the wrong thing, including very serious crimes against people, are held accountable.
We made major new investments in terms police over the course of this government. Hundreds of new police officers, a 31 per cent increase since we came to government, after the Labor-Greens government defunded the police. They sacked 108 police officers. Absolutely shameful. No doubt if Labor had found their way to delivering the $2 billion worth of cuts they promised at the last election, police would be part of that.
We have a strong plan with our Youth Justice Blueprint so that we can divert young people away from the youth justice system. At the same time, we need to be ensuring that people are held accountable, particularly when it comes to violent behaviour. There are people under the age of 18 who have attempted murder in this state, who have committed serious crimes against people. We make no bones about the fact that we invest in police, we protect our communities and also that we look to targeted, effective ways that we can bring young people back on track in life.
Major investments are being made under the stewardship of the minister, Mr Jaensch, and Children and Young People, so that we can help some of these young people turn their lives around, we can intervene with families, there is a stronger support unit, we can bring together community partners and deliver more services for these young people. However, as minister for Police, we continue that approach of investing in police, of backing community safety and ensuring that we can protect the community.
