Fight brewing over contentious new youth jail slated for Cairns
Opposition to a new youth prison is gathering steam amid calls for Indigenous MP Cynthia Lui to speak out against the contentious facility expected to lock up a disproportionate number of First Nations youngsters.
Cairns
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cairns. Followed categories will be added to My News.
A campaign opposing a new youth detention centre in Cairns is gathering steam amid calls for Indigenous MP Cynthia Lui to speak out against the contentious facility, which is expected to lock up disproportionate numbers of First Nations youngsters.
In October Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk announced $500m was on the table to expand youth detention services and a dedicated facility in Cairns was “under consideration”.
Currently youths sentenced to a custodial term are usually housed at the Cleveland Youth Detention Centre outside Townsville.
Already in the early planning stages, the new facility has come under fire from the LNP and Katter’s Australian Party, based on a view the facility would be expensive and “unsafe” for youth workers.
Now, prison advocacy group Sisters Inside and Socialist Alliance FNQ have joined the chorus of dissent.
Solicitor and founder of Sisters Inside Debbie Kilroy OAM has argued strongly against the new jail.
She claims the facility will disproportionably lock up Indigenous boys and girls.
Ms Kilroy, who spent time behind bars herself in 1989 when she was sentenced to six years imprisonment for drug trafficking, turned her life around and founded Sisters Inside upon her release.
She was later admitted as a lawyer in the Supreme Court of Queensland in 2007.
“It’s predominantly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children that will end up locked up and feeding the adult prison system,” she said.
“The money that’s going to be allocated to build the prison could be spent in the Cairns community supporting children and helping them have a healthy life.”
Given the Palaszczuk Government’s appetite for a First Nations path to treaty, Ms Kilroy argued a new youth jail was contradictory to reconciliation efforts hoped for under the treaty accord.
“How do you have a treaty and have a new prison at the same time,” she said.
“The issue is we’re calling the children such disgusting names, like offenders and repeat offenders, what we need is to address is harm.
“Once you start locking them up they spiral downward.”
Former Yarrabah mayor Percy Neal, opposed to any new youth correctional facility, said a gradual erosion of social responsibility played a significant role in Indigenous youth being over-represented in the corrections system.
“When I as a young fella the community looked after the kids, but the power has been taken away from the community,” he said.
“In the past my uncle had the power to correct me if I had done something wrong.
“We are the most jailed people in the world my thought is that money could be better spent.”
Former Sydney magistrate and Leichhardt Social Alliance candidate Pat O’shane came out strongly to oppose the Premier’s plan for a new youth jail.
“Doing things repetitively and expecting a different result is a form of lunacy, it’s not going to change things,” she said.
“The premier is just another politician, she is appealing to the racist sentiment that has been bedeviling this part of the country for as long as I have lived.”
A state government courting construction of a new youth jail follows a youth crime wave that has pushed a Cairns stolen car rate to almost four cars a day since January.
On Thursday Cairns police reported 1129 cars had been stolen this year.
Following a state government backflip on the $16.4m Caloundra youth jail project in January Ms Kilroy was not surprised Cairns had been earmarked for a Far North detention centre.
She urged the Far North’s Cook MP to block the project.
“Cynthia Lui needs to step forward and speak out against this. It’s going to be her relatives that will be locked up in this prison,” she said.
“Why is she accepting this, it’s going to have a massive impact on her community in generations to come.
“Cynthia needs to priorities First Nations people and stop any harm that will be inflicted now and on future generations of children.”
Ms Lui has been contacted for comment.
More Coverage
Originally published as Fight brewing over contentious new youth jail slated for Cairns
Police station sale sparks discussion over Gordonvale’s future
Claims a historic building was sold from under the noses of a Far North community group have been rebuffed by Labor, with calls to rejuvenate a beloved town square emerging as a key election issue.
‘Ridiculous thing’: LNP candidate dodges abortion, VAD questions
Far North voters are more concerned with crime, cost of living and housing than changes to abortion and voluntary assisted dying laws, the LNP’s candidate for Barron River Bree James says.