Youth crime legislation reform on the agenda

The Gunner Government should recall parliament for a special sittings days in order to push through crime legislation, says Opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro.

The Gunner Government should recall parliament for a special sittings days in order to push through crime legislation, says Country Liberals leader Lia Finocchiaro.

The Opposition Leader says Chief Minister Michael Gunner has had enough time to prepare amendments to the relevant laws for it to be debated and pushed through.

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Last month Mr Gunner revealed the government would seek to introduce legislative amendments which would strengthen laws targeting youth crime.

She is concerned if the issue is left to be debated during sittings next month it will be over shadowed by the Budget.

“We won’t get to see the Chief Minister's reform until May, and he has not committed to moving that legislation on urgency, which means important reform might not even take place until August this year,” Ms Finocchiaro said.

“We’re calling on the government to tackle law and order immediately, they rejected our calls to move our important bail reform on urgency last sittings, pushing it back to May.”

She said she has sent a letter to Mr Gunner this morning seeking for parliament to be recalled this week.

However, the Chief Minister scuppered the proposal for an emergency session of parliament to pass new youth crime laws, accusing opposition leader Lia Finocchiaro of a “tendency to rush and to make mistakes to detail”.

At a press conference on Monday morning, Michael Gunner said the legislation would be voted on in May.

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“We are three weeks away, we’ll be introducing legislation then,” Mr Gunner said.

Despite the 2021-22 budget being earmarked for May, Mr Gunner said politicians could do multiple things at once and the reforms wouldn’t get lost.

“The opposition leader has a tendency to rush and to make mistakes to detail,” Mr Gunner said.

“There’s no one quick fix or one silver bullet,” he said.

“We’ve gotta keep trying a lot of things and doing a lot of hard work.”

Mr Gunner said longer term approaches to break the generational cycle of crime were a focus of his government.

Follow @JudithAisthorpe