Annastacia Palaszczuk says raising age of criminal responsibility not Labor policy

The Queensland Premier says an internal Labor push to discuss raising the criminal age of responsibility at the party’s state conference won’t necessarily translate to a change in policy.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has distanced her government from an internal push within Labor to raise the criminal age of responsibility from 10 to 14 years of age.

Amid a Palaszczuk Government crackdown on youth crime, there are moves to amend Labor’s platform at the upcoming Labor conference in June to raise the age at which a child would be held responsible for their crimes.

A draft of the 2021 state platform contains a suggested motion that: “Labor supports the international conventions, which have been ratified by Australia in relation to the care and protection of young people.”

“Labor will increase the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14 years old in line with international best practice.”

But Ms Palaszczuk said that did not translate to a change for her government.

“The Labor Party has very robust debates, but it is not government policy,” she said.

It comes as the nation’s attorneys-general are set to debate a raising of the age in coming months following a national review undertaken by the WA Government.

It was told the age must be raised to stop criminalising the behaviour of traumatised and vulnerable children and funnelling them into a system that ensures they become adult criminals and that children under the age of 14 don’t properly understand their actions.

Former police commissioner Bob Atkinson recommended the Palaszczuk Government increase the age to 12 in his report into youth justice in 2018.

Meanwhile, the draft platform document also calls for a review to consider the possibility of public funding and expenditure caps for local government elections, and that the term of local government be reduced to three-and-a-half years so that state and local government elections are not in the same year.

Other draft motions that may or may not be voted on at the upcoming conference include a commitment to plant a minimum of one million trees a year to combat the effects of deforestation and climate change and an investigation of hydrogen-powered rail.