Editor’s view: Pledge a victory for all Queenslanders

The Premier has finally decided enough is enough and it is time to be seen to be acting decisively. It’s about time, writes the editor.

One of the many wonderful things about democracy is that a looming election tends to sharpen the mind of those who will be seeking the support of the voters at that election. We saw evidence of this truth writ large yesterday and on Monday in Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s response to youth crime – an issue that has quickly become a festering sore on her government’s re-election chances.

On Monday, the Premier breezed out of a Cabinet meeting to tell the waiting media that she – sorry, “her Cabinet” – had decided to lift Labor’s long-standing and vehement opposition to making breach of bail an offence for juveniles, a Newman-era policy dumped in 2016 that her ministers have since described as “unworkable” and “laughable”.

Well, nobody in the Cabinet room is laughing now – with youth crime such a significant issue that the Premier has finally decided enough is enough and it is time to be seen to be acting decisively.

The same Cabinet meeting also decided to relax laws for those caught carrying a small quantity of heroin, cocaine or ice – a signal that perhaps the dominant Left faction in Ms Palaszczuk’s caucus would not swallow the Bail Act backdown without a win of their own. And it is a clever strategy, with the fact drug users will be given three chances before facing a criminal charge also likely to lead to a drop in headline youth offender rates. As the cynics among us might say, the system works!

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Tuesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

But a humiliating backdown was not enough to save the Premier. She woke yesterday to the same front page on every Queensland daily newspaper, including this one, demanding she commit to publicly publish on a regular basis the state’s results on the three key performance indicators that experts say are the most crucial to turn around in order to attack the scourge of youth crime that is impacting every one of Queensland’s communities.

The first of those KPIs is to reduce reoffending rates among all juveniles who have contact with the youth justice system – that is, to ensure that one strike does not lead to two or three … or dozens, as is currently too often the case.

Currently that measure is at 56.8 per cent. Experts say our goal should be to have it at or under the national average of 50.9 per cent.

All Queensland’s daily newspapers ran the same front page co-signed by all editors calling on Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her government to commit to measures to fix the state’s youth crime crisis.

The second relates to the sad truth that there is a far too high proportion of Indigenous children in detention in Queensland. That rate here is 40.9 per cent. The national average is 28.3 per cent.

The third KPI relates to the number of serious repeat offenders, the small group that is responsible for almost half of all youth crime.

That used to be at 10 per cent of the Queensland kids who had contact with the justice system. In the past year it leapt to 17 per cent.

By 3pm the Premier had joined Opposition Leader David Crisafulli in agreeing to the demand made by the newspapers. She was “happy to report on the outcomes”, the Premier said – with Mr Crisafulli going one better and saying that in government doing so would be the responsibility of a newly formed ministry of Open Data.

We welcome the pledges because we have listened to the experts who say that no matter how many kids you lock up, you will never get on top of the youth crime epidemic unless authorities deliver evidence-based plans that actually work.

Holding our political leaders and the system itself to account on these three metrics will make a difference.

Originally published as Editor’s view: Pledge a victory for all Queenslanders