Qld youth crime: Steven Miles admits more urgency needed after meeting with victims’ group
Premier Steven Miles has acknowledged that the state government’s efforts to fix crime must happen more quickly as victims threaten more protests and call for a royal commission.
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Premier Steven Miles has acknowledged that the state government’s efforts to fix crime must happen more quickly as victims threaten more protests and call for a royal commission into the issue.
Mr Miles met with representatives from the Voice For Victims advocacy group on Monday in an effort to fix the crime issue that has been plaguing the state government for more than a year.
“I understand community safety is important to Queenslanders, that’s why my first external meeting for the year as premier was with the Voice For Victims,” he said.
“I appreciate their passion and commitment. We agreed on a lot of things, including the need to see progress happen more quickly.”
Mr Miles said the meeting was productive and he would continue to work with the group to find solutions.
Voice For Victims founder Ben Cannon has threatened more protests if Mr Miles is unable to follow through on progress to address crime.
He has given Mr Miles until January 19 to respond in writing about the government’s progress on the issue, but said “we’re still at a point where we don’t see it working”.
He said if there is no understanding of agreement by the deadline, “we will likely remove ourselves from the Independent Ministerial Advisory Council because the difficult thing with that is we don’t believe that it’s going to have outcomes quick enough”.
The advisory council includes crime prevention experts, victims and organisation CEOs, and is co-chaired by former Children’s Court Judge John Robertson and DVConnect CEO Beck O’Connor.
Mr Cannon said the size of the group made it “absolutely unworkable”.
“We want it to be small, nimble, and to come with resolutions quickly in two or three months,” he said.
It is understood Mr Miles will ask the advisory council to meet more regularly but the cross-section of community leaders will remain.
Mr Cannon said the group would then push for a royal commission – but did not indicate what it should consider.
“A royal commission is about blowing things up; this is decades of issues,” he said.
“We have a new leader but we still have the same government, so ultimately, there’s a broader range of people making the decisions. What will make a difference is whether Steven Miles chooses to be brave and do things that haven’t been done before because at the moment they seem to be doing things over and over again with no tangible outcomes.”
Mr Miles’s meeting with the Voice For Victims follows a pledge made in his first major speech as premier last month to do more to tackle crime – an issue that plagued his predecessor Annastacia Palaszczuk’s government.
Ms Palaszczuk’s refusal to front a Voice For Victims protest outside parliament in August was labelled poor judgment by Labor insiders.
She later avoided a second public rally at Townsville’s stadium.
On both occasions, however, Ms Palaszczuk met crime victims in private.
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