Editorial: UN Youth Qld’s crime law complaints miss the point

The Queensland youth wing of the UN should focus more of their attention on international atrocities, writes the editor.

The state’s youth crime laws have incurred the wrath of UN Youth Queensland. (File picture)

It can be tough to be a kid in 2025 – at least in many parts of the world, where it truly is a very scary place.

In Palestine, innocent children have been caught up in that brutal war sparked by shocking Hamas terror and then prosecuted by Israel.

Thousands of children have been killed, while many thousands more go to bed hungry every night.

Children are doing the fighting in other conflicts such as in the Congo, Mozambique, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Haiti – where minors are stolen from their parents and trained as killers. Some are taken from refugee camps, where they had gone to seek shelter and escape hunger.

Meanwhile, in Bangladesh and Nepal and other places around the world, girls are just as tragically forced into sexual slavery.

And then, or course, there are the mean streets of Queensland – where apparently kids and young people “cannot go out at night, hang out with friends in public, or catch public transport without fearing they will be accused of criminal activities”. At least, that’s the shock situation according to UN Youth Queensland. That particular claim was made by their president Steph Archer (who unsurprisingly turns out is a Labor staffer) in a broadside at Premier David Crisafulli.

This seriously weird attack was prompted after criticism by the UN about the state government’s “adult crime, adult time” laws prompted Mr Crisafulli to retort that: “You don’t control me and I don’t answer to you – I answer to Queenslanders.”

Enter Ms Archer, who claims the youth crime crackdown violates the rights of children.

She asks: “We may be a developed and politically stable state, but if we are to violate human rights with no remorse, how can we continue to regard ourselves as morally superior to authoritarian and corrupt states? When a 12-year-old stabs someone, the solution is not to lock them in a cell for longer, but to ask the question of why a child would do such a thing?”

The answer – if you asked pretty well every Queenslander after a decade where youth crime has gone from something that happens to someone else to a real and present danger – would be that the solution to 12-year-olds stabbing innocent people involves first locking them up AND THEN questioning why a child would do such a thing.

Mr Crisafulli has allocated funds and established programs to divert at-risk children away from a life of crime, as well as rehabilitation for repeat offenders.

It is wonderful that Ms Archer and her colleagues have such a passionate interest in human rights and social justice, but we would suggest they perhaps focus more of their attention on the international atrocities where the UN is currently engaged in efforts to bring peace.

While there have been concerns raised about the morals of Mr Crisafulli’s “adult crime, adult time” legislation – the Salvation Army, Queensland Human Rights Commissioner and Justice Reform Initiative are among community groups who have spoken out – this ridiculous hyperbole does not help those arguments. In fact, it likely has the directly opposite effect.

The reality is that young people who do not break the law have nothing to fear.

For those who are currently scared of going out at night, hanging out or catching public transport, it is not because they are worried that they will be accused of “criminal activities” by the police.

It is probably more likely they are scared that they could fall victim to the same youth crime that the Premier is trying to stamp out.

LABOR’S MUD STICKS

We have many times in this column wondered why the “new Crisafulli government” would have chosen as one of its first acts to defy Labor and push ahead with a controversial appointment to the body deciding Queensland’s electoral boundaries.

That decision to appoint to the Redistribution Commission Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie’s hand-picked director-general was a really strange one – not because John Sosso lacks the qualifications, but because surely this is a government that needs to avoid any stench of wrongdoing when it comes to such issues. Its future will, after all, rely on it proving the LNP has learnt the lessons of the Newman era – and indeed those of the dark days of the Bjelke-Petersen government, which considered messing with electoral boundaries a legitimate tactic to give the conservative side of politics an advantage.

But push ahead this government did, with Attorney-General Deb Frecklington ignoring Labor’s concerns. But months on, the chickens have come home to roost – with Labor preparing to use this week’s parliament sitting as a fresh chance to throw the mud around regarding the decision.

Labor says it has legal advice that any decisions made on electoral boundaries by the commission could be challenged in court. That is due to a legal opinion that Ms Frecklington had failed to properly consult with Labor and the other parties about the appointment.

Accurate or not, it doesn’t matter.

Mud tends to stick in politics.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Chris Jones, corner of Mayne Rd & Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld 4006. Printed and published by NEWSQUEENSLAND (ACN 009 661 778). Contact details here