Queensland child killer laws to be debated in Parliament

Rival child killer laws will be debated this week as the Opposition challenges what it calls the Government’s “embarrassing tinkering” of laws that deal with some of the state’s most horrific crimes.

RIVAL child killer laws will be debated this week in State Parliament with the Government and Opposition offering competing visions of how to sentence some of the state’s most horrific crimes.

The Government’s law would expand the definition of murder and add a new aggravating factor to manslaughter of a child under 12 to increase sentences for child killers charged with manslaughter rather than murder.

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While the Opposition Bill would create a new offence of child homicide which will include a mandatory minimum non-parole period of 15 years imprisonment.

Attorney General Yvette D’Ath said she both the competing laws would be debated and voted on this week, allowing each side to press their case for tougher child killer sentencing.

Ms D’Ath said the Government laws would create the toughest regime in the country as an independent report had found sentencing provisions for horrific child offences did not meet community expectations.

“The message to parents and carers out there is you have a responsibility to provide safety and protection to your child and to children in your care and if you don’t and if you cause harm to those children deliberately in the most horrific circumstances we want to see you charged and we want to see you convicted for murder and get the most significant penalties that Queensland has”.

Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Yvette D’Ath.

She said under the LNP Bill, parents would face mandatory sentencing for accidental deaths such as a child being left in a bath. She also said there was no need for a child homicide offence which would create a third level of homicide.

Opposition leader Deb Frecklington said Labor’s laws only “tinkered at the edges” and rejected that parents who accidentally killed children would face mandatory sentences.

“This is embarrassing from the state’s attorney general, it is embarrassing that we have Queensland’s leading law officer tinkering around the edges with our most precious lives, our children,” she said.

She said it was “really important” to create a new category of murder to restore community confidence in the legal system.

“When it comes to kids who get killed in Queensland unfortunately people don’t have confidence in the current system, it doesn’t work,” she said.

The Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee has recommended the Government’s Bill be passed but rejected the LNP Bill.