Opinion: Turn Wellcamp quarantine facility into bootcamp for teens

Society has had a gutful of underage grubs, so surely a bootcamp for juvenile offenders is a better use of the state’s new 1000-bed quarantine facility near Toowoomba, writes Kylie Lang.

Turn Wellcamp into a teen boot camp. Finally, we’d have a purpose for the 1000-bed quarantine facility that has cost taxpayers a rumoured $200m and remains largely empty.

While beds go begging – last month a mere 30 people slept in the Toowoomba complex – juvenile delinquents are running amok, destroying people’s lives and terrorising neighbourhoods.

If the Palaszczuk government was even half as interested in curbing youth crime as it professes, it would be urgently seeking new ways to keep Queenslanders safe.

Practised as it is at dodging questions that would give the public a fuller picture of the Wellcamp deal struck with the Wagner family, it should be finding a better use for the place.

Society has had a gutful of underage grubs.

Less than three dozen people slept at the Wellcamp quarantine facility last month. Picture: Nev Madsen.

That includes police officers who are beyond frustrated because the kids they bring before the courts get let off lightly. The same perpetrators are collared time and time again, typically after some imbecile decided that bail would be a good idea.

It is no use sending juvenile criminals back to the homes from which they came.

When mum or dad or whatever sort of adult is nominally in charge can’t effectively parent, what hope do kids have of reform?

When boundaries are not set, discipline is absent, dysfunction rife, and respect for other people (and their property) an alien concept, how can children be expected to chart a new course?

In sentencing the young man responsible for the 2021 deaths of Matt Field, Kate Leadbetter and their unborn child Miles, Justice Martin Burns last week found the then 17-year-old had had a “prejudicial upbringing”.

Taking this into account, Justice Burns sentenced the now 18-year-old to 10 years’ jail, requiring he serve only six, less the almost 500 days already spent in custody.

Meanwhile, the grief-stricken Field and Leadbetter families are gifted a life sentence. They – and all sound-minded Queenslanders – are ropeable at the injustice of it all.

Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman’s announcement on Thursday that the sentence would be appealed is an inadequate political response.

The justice system is a joke.

The teen responsible for the deaths of Matt Field and Kate Leadbetter was sentenced to 10 years’ jail, but could be released much sooner.

This was not the teenager’s first offence. He had been sentenced seven times for more than 100 offences, including striking a woman while trying to steal her car and the unlawful use of a “significant number” of vehicles. Drug, burglary, speeding and violence offences also featured on his criminal resume. It is debatable whether or not this young person is capable of being rehabilitated but I can tell you one thing, chances would have been much higher if he’d been reached at an earlier age.

Instead of the state government paying someone up to $135,000 a year to manage Wellcamp as a quarantine facility, it should be paying former military personnel and other hard-arses to take over and teach kids respect. Military camps for wayward youth have a proven record of success, both in Australia and around the world.

Kids with “prejudicial upbringings” are taught life skills. They’re forced to stick to daily routines, whether making beds or polishing boots, and do rigorous physical training.

They’re made to eat well, stay off social media and relate beneficially with others, including by understanding the impact of their own actions. They learn to solve problems and practice positive coping strategies.

The government has leased Wellcamp from the Wagners for 12 months (from April 2022), with an option to extend it “for at least another year”, Deputy Premier Steven Miles said last October.

As it stands now, the facility is all but useless following the scrapping of the requirement for unvaccinated international arrivals and close contacts to isolate. Instead of wasting nine more months of taxpayer dollars, action could be taken to curb youth crime.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over – in this case, nothing – and expecting different results.

Bring on the Wellcamp Youth Bootcamp.

LOVE

● Brisbane City Council taking rogue Greens councillor Jonathan Sri to court over an alleged illegal protest in the Queen Street Mall last year. Sri has a penchant for protests, including during the pandemic.

● The exquisite jewels designed by Margot McKinney. They are next-level gorgeous and on display at the Museum of Brisbane. World of Wonder is the fourth exhibition in MoB’s identity series honouring creatives who call the capital home.

LOATHE

● Former politicians struggling with anonymity. Retired MP Andrew Laming is the latest – in echoes of Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott – itching to be heard, this week slagging off former PM Scott Morrison.

● Ripley’s Believe It Or Not letting Kim Kardashian wear Marilyn Monroe’s infamous Happy Birthday dress. The gown, valued at more than $14m, was already in a fragile state. So why let it leave the museum?

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail.

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