Deputy Premier Steven Miles slams ‘politicisation’ of Maryborough triple fatal

Deputy Premier Steven Miles has slammed the ‘politicisation’ of the triple-fatal crash near Maryborough this week, saying it was impossible to stamp out crime entirely and ridiculing an LNP youth crime policy.

• Alleged killer’s criminal history
• Analysis: Qld laws don’t work

No community “anywhere in the world” has stamped out crime entirely, Deputy Premier Steven Miles has said, slamming the “politicisation” of a road tragedy in Maryborough that claimed the lives of three women.

Nurse Sheree Robertson, 52, Kelsie Davies, 17 and pastor Michale Chandler, 29, died in a triple car crash allegedly sparked by a 13-year-old in a stolen Mercedes Benz.

Kaylah Behrens, 23, who was in the car with Ms Davies and Ms Chandler, remains in a critical condition.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles says the triple-fatal crash in Maryborough has been politicised. Picture: Dan Peled / NCA NewsWire

The 13-year-old boy had been under the watch of the state, living in a youth residential care facility, and was known to police though he had a limited criminal history and no outstanding charges.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Wednesday said “no-one is going to stop youth crime” as she stood by her government’s record on the problem, and sidestepped questions over secrecy surrounding court appearances by alleged juvenile criminals.

The Premier also pleaded for more time for “the toughest laws in Australia” to have an impact, and also put the blame back on bad parents.

“Both sides of politics voted for these stronger laws – they are the strongest laws in Australia that have been put in place,” she said.

Mr Miles, speaking on Thursday, said he agreed that “no community anywhere in the world had entirely (stamped out) crime” and what governments could do was fund evidence-based intervention programs and arm police and courts with the tools to deal with crime before it happened and after the fact.

Flowers at the site of the crash that killed three women.

“I think it’s a real shame that we’ve seen in recent days, the politicisation of what is an awful tragedy,” he said.

Mr Miles said the state government had “put politics aside” and legislated breach of bail after years of the LNP claiming this would “fix everything”.

“The only policy I can see (from the Opposition now) is mandatory detention,” he said.

“Is (Opposition Leader) David Crisafulli seriously saying that he would prevent tragedies like this one by locking up every single offender?

“Youth detention capacity is roughly 400 … the number of young offenders is going down each year but the number remains about ten times that.

“Is he suggesting he would increase youth detention capacity by ten times to detain every single young person who is charged?”

Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie said the comments from Mr Miles was a “disgraceful attack”.

Mr Bleijie said the Opposition had not proposed mandatory sentencing, rather that detention as a measure of last resort be removed to gives judges “more options

The Opposition has been calling for the clause requiring detention be used as a measure of last resort be removed to give the judiciary more discretion in sentencing youths.

Removing this clause would be a contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The state government has promised to build two new youth detention facilities, one in the southeast and one in Cairns — though precise locations have not been divulged.