By Chip Le Grand and Kieran Rooney
Just 40 minutes before Victorian government ministers were due to meet in the cabinet room of parliament house on Tuesday, they were provided a submission by Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny setting out a new regime for dealing with children who commit violent crimes.
As they clicked into the secure, online portal to access the documents, some were stunned to read that a government which as recently as last year was advocating to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 was now proposing changes to sentencing laws that could result in those same 14-year-olds being jailed for life.
Premier Jacinta Allan with Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan and Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny surprised their Labor colleagues with changes to youth crime laws.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“That’s quite a journey,” one Labor MP remarked.
There was no legal advice attached to the submission, which was secretly developed by a cabinet-in-confidence working group that included Premier Jacinta Allan, Deputy Premier Ben Carroll, Kilkenny, Police Minister Anthony Carbines and other ministers whose portfolios intersect with the youth justice system.
Instead, as the meeting began and each member of the working group advocated for the proposed “adult time for violent crime” reforms, there were references to Labor Party research showing that crime was not just a growing problem in Victoria but a growing political problem for a government seeking re-election in a year’s time.
“They said if we want to win the next election these are the tough decisions we need to make,” a minister, speaking anonymously to detail internal matters, told this masthead. “It was very bruising.”
The party research, a mixture of polling and focus group surveys, distilled community concerns about crime to a single word: consequences. In Victoria, too many voters believe there simply aren’t any for young people who break into people’s homes, steal their cars, maim victims and terrify families.
This is why, when Allan, Kilkenny, Carbines and Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan publicly announced their plans on Wednesday morning, they stood in front of a freshly ordered backdrop printed with a double-barrelled catchphrase: “Serious consequences. Early interventions.”
Throughout the press conference, in which Allan hammered home her “adult time for violent crime” slogan adapted from the Queensland LNP, the word “consequences” was repeated 45 times.
“There are no easy solutions here, and that includes consequences,” Allan said. “As parents, we know that children need to face consequences when they do the wrong thing, and so consequences also must apply in the justice system. There are too many victims and not enough consequences.”
The proposed reforms, under which 14- to 17-year-olds who commit home invasions, gross violence and carjacking and recidivist aggravated burglars and robbers would be tried and sentenced by adult courts and subject to significantly longer jail terms than they currently receive, is a break-glass attempt to reset a damaging law and order narrative which, according to party polling, is the single greatest impediment to Labor securing a historic fourth consecutive term.
The suggested sentencing regime, which will be detailed in legislation still being drafted that the government has promised to introduce before the end of this year, has infuriated lawyers and advocates who work in youth justice and despair that putting more kids in jail for longer will not result in a long-term reduction of crime or improvement in community safety.
The sense of policy whiplash was most clearly expressed by Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Nerita Waight.
Waight has spent the past year working constructively with the government as a member of the First Peoples’ Assembly treaty negotiating team but was not consulted about what the government had in mind on youth justice. She said that some of her clients – Aboriginal youths in out-of-home care – would be caught up in the new sentencing regime. “Shame on this government, shame on the premier and shame on this cabinet,” she said.
Within the Victorian government, divisions have also been laid bare, but not along traditional factional lines. Labor figures, speaking in confidence to express internal party matters, said the caucus was split between pragmatists with an eye on next November’s election and policy purists fearful of what the proposed changes would mean for children in the justice system.
“It is not a left-right issue,” said one Labor figure who supports the proposed laws. “This has been festering since the end of last year.”
The electoral potency of crime and community safety was made clear in last year’s Queensland state election, where David Crisafulli led the LNP back into government with his “adult crime, adult time” mantra. It is remarkable nonetheless that a Victorian Labor government, self-styled as the nation’s most progressive and led by a woman from its dominant Left faction, is aping this hard-nosed approach.
In June last year, Police Minister Carbines, in introducing to parliament a lengthy Youth Justice Bill, recited as a matter of pride statistics showing that Victoria had Australia’s lowest custodial rate for people aged between 10 and 17.
“We know that disproportionate criminal justice interventions actually increase rather than decrease the risk of offending for children and young people,” he said. “Community safety is best served through prioritising diversion wherever possible and appropriate, and targeting intensive interventions to children and young people who are most likely to offend seriously and repeatedly.”
The government’s message has now dramatically changed. “Victims deserve to know that whoever commits these violent, serious offences will face serious, tough consequences,” Kilkenny said. “By moving these particular offences into the County Court, we know these children will face adult sentencing, which means more jail and longer jail sentences.”
Kilkenny, despite being the minister responsible for drafting and introducing the new legislation, was until recently opposed to its purpose. Instead of harsh new youth sentencing laws, she had pushed for a review of the existing laws, while changes to bail laws already in place were given more time to have an effect. By Wednesday, she had become their chief advocate.
The shift in Labor’s attitude towards youth crime began a year ago, when crime statistics showed that the rising number of offences being recorded across Melbourne’s suburbs was being driven by a relatively small cohort of young, recidivist offenders. The government tried to cauterise the problem in March with its “Tough Bail Bill” legislation, which effectively unwound many of its own previous reforms designed to put fewer young people on remand.
By the middle of the year, when Labor MPs gathered in the alpine town of Marysville for a caucus retreat, it was clear that tougher bail laws in themselves had not alleviated a community concern, which was filling the email inboxes of parliamentarians and being amplified by graphic, daily media coverage of frightening crimes. Between visits to nearby wineries and mugs of mulled cider, they shared the horror stories of constituents whose homes had been invaded and cars stolen at knifepoint.
Some of the worst stories were recalled by left-wing MPs whose outer suburban electorates were at the centre of a growing crime crisis. The clear feedback from the voters was that the government was not doing enough, and caucus was reassured that reform and legislation was coming.
In response, the premier established the community safety subcommittee of cabinet, with herself as chair.
The subcommittee, like the government, was split on what to do. No one joins the Labor Party with the aim of putting more kids in jail, and across the left of the party, tougher treatment of youth offenders is anathema.
But as the end of the parliamentary year started to approach and the crime rates stubbornly refused to abate, Allan and her deputy Ben Carroll began to prepare the groundwork for a jolt to the justice system.
Speaking on Radio 3AW on October 23, Carroll burnished his “zero tolerance” credentials, saying community expectations were not being met and “smarter sentencing” was needed to give offenders more time behind bars to rehabilitate.
While there is disquiet in Labor ranks about the hardline approach the party is now championing, there is also relief that something more is finally being done. One Labor source defend the policies by saying they would have strong support across the political spectrum and the inner city.
“This has to be enacted quickly,” one MP said. There is also a resignation among those opposed to the reforms that at this point, nothing can be done to stop them.
When the “adult time for serious crime” provisions were raised at caucus on Wednesday, not one person rose to speak against them. As one government MP said: “I was shocked by the silence.”
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