Deputy Premier Steven Miles has doubled down on his leader’s defence of a controversial new suite of changes to the Queensland youth justice system,while suggesting they had been in the works for months.
Annastacia Palaszczuk revealed the package on Tuesday,including changes to court operations,sentencing and a second new youth prison,saying many people would not “like” the changes but community safety was “paramount”.
The announcement follows thealleged home invasion resulting in the death of North Lakes mother Emma Lovell,set to be remembered in a community vigil on Friday night,and calls from her husband and beyond for mandatory jail time for repeat violent home invaders.
However,experts,justice reform advocates and prison abolitionists have labelled thegovernment’s plans a “knee-jerk” reaction to a tragic event which would onlyentrench existing problems.
Speaking to reporters on Friday,Miles said there had been a “call from the community to see more action this week”.
“That package had been ... being worked on for some time,and there was an opportunity for us to outline those new actions this week in the context of very high community interest,” he said.
Miles said he could not say whether the announcement would have been made on Thursday had the Boxing Day tragedy not unfolded,“but it would have been certainly made very early[next] year”.
In a later press conference,Deputy Opposition Leader Jarrod Bleijie accused Miles of “lying” about the work and reiterated LNP calls for parliament to be recalled early to deal with what his party has long labelled a “youth crime crisis”.