Qld youth crime crisis: Premier faces blowback if detention less safe for workers

A major union warns its workers will deploy “extreme resistance” should the government’s youth justice measures make jails less safe for workers.

A major union with ties as high as Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has warned its workers would deploy “extreme resistance” should the government’s youth justice measures make jails less safe for workers.

The Australian Workers’ Union, whose members include youth detention staff, said workers were already subject to almost daily workplace violence due to chronic staff shortages at youth prisons and it was likely the new laws would exacerbate the problem.

A parliamentary committee reviewing the state government’s latest suite of youth justice measures on Tuesday heard from numerous legal experts and youth justice advocates panning the laws for being rushed, flawed, and likely to make crime worse instead of better by entrenching the cycle of offending.

Michelle Liddle, mother of slain teenager Angus Beaumont, stood as the lone supporter of most measures when she appeared at the hearing — though as the voice of the victims of youth crime collective urged the government to go further, increase support for victims and put in place minimum mandatory sentencing.

The state government’s laws, introduced on February 21, include increasing the maximum penalty for some offences, reintroducing breach of bail as an offence and lowering the age a child can be fitted with an ankle monitor to 15 among other measures.

While some of the measures are “incompatible” with the state’s own Human Rights Act, the government’s plan is to forge ahead.

Overriding the act can be done in “exceptional circumstances” including “war, a state of emergency, an exceptional crisis situation constituting a threat to public safety, health or order”.

Queensland Human Rights Commissioner Scott McDougall, fronting the inquiry, held steadfast the government had not provided a proper case to back up the move.

“I want to recognise the harm and trauma that youth offending causes to victim, and the government clearly does have an obligation to protect its citizens from crime,” he said.

“However we need to come up with solutions that will actually work to reduce crime and protect the community in a way that is much more sustainable.”

Committee chair Linus Power argued those “democratically elected” had ultimate say in whether or not the protections of the Human Rights Act could be overridden.

Representatives from the Bar Association and the Queensland Law Society raised concerns measures proposed, including breach of bail, were not backed by evidence with others like pushing the judiciary to look at a child’s “bail history” were ill defined.

AWU Queensland state secretary Stacey Schinnerl said the union was also concerned the measures would result in an influx of young detainees on the state’s “already struggling” detention centres.

She warned any action from the government which made the workplace more unsafe “will be met by extreme resistance by AWU members”.

QLS First Nation’s legacy policy co-chair Kristen Hodge queried how the government could push forward with its landmark Path to Treaty laws while turning around and proposing measures which would largely impact Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

PeakCare Queensland executive director Lindsay Wegener challenged committee MPs to visit the detention centres and watch houses and speak to the children, most of whom will be First Nations, impacted by the government’s youth justice measures.

Hearings continue in Townsville and Cairns.