The government has dumped plans to introduce the long-awaited youth offending legislation into state parliament this year,a senior government source has confirmed.
Despite is needed,the source — who was not authorised to speak publicly on the matter — said the legislation had been dropped because Premier Daniel Andrews feared a sustained law-and-order scare campaign ahead of the poll.
Separately,the government has stymied parliamentary debate on a bill after the Greens introduced to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.
One peak Indigenous organisation pleaded with parliamentarians to put First Nations youth before politics,while the opposition described the Andrews government as “gutless and pathetic”.
“I don’t want Aboriginal children to get caught in politics,” said Muriel Bamblett,the chief executive of Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency. “The cost to Aboriginal children and families in delaying this bill is too high.”
The Andrews government had been expected to deliver on a 2014 election commitment and introduce youth justice legislation after thefound that the system was in “crisis” and needed structural and cultural reform.
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Legislative reforms included minimising the number of children sent to adult prison and sending youth inmates in early remand to the most appropriate facility.
In response to questions fromThe Sunday Age about the shelving of the bill,Corrections Minister Natalie Hutchins said it was “under development”.
“The youth justice bill is ... an important piece of reform that will strengthen our already robust approach to ensuring young people stay out of the youth justice system,” she said in a statement.
Separately,the government has put on ice the after the Greens introduced an amendment to the bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility,which would have exposed the government to attacks from both progressives and conservatives.
The bill gave more power to Indigenous organisations,such as the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency,to manage child-protection cases.
It would also enshrine in law an allowance to young people leaving care up to the age of 21,following a push by Reason Party leader Fiona Patten. A,which would give extra time to child-protection workers who remove children from their parents before a court review,was expected to be voted down after objections from the opposition,Greens and Patten.
But after the bill passed the Labor-dominated lower house last October and was introduced in the upper house,it was removed from the government’s legislative agenda,in a move slammed by the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency,the opposition and Greens.
Bamblett urged the Greens to remove their amendment,which would have been defeated by the government and opposition,saying the organisation supported raising the age of criminal responsibility,but vulnerable Indigenous children could not afford delays to the bill.
“[Passing] legislation that enables action to support families and stop removals sooner is a no-brainer. Victoria removes Aboriginal children from families at the highest rate in the nation,” Bamblett said. “Using raising the age as a political football to stop progress on critical legislation and reforms will hurt children and families.”
After following a branch-stacking investigation,and earlier this year,the government cannot guarantee it will have the numbers to pass its agenda. However,Labor is also unlikely to introduce anything controversial this year given it will head to the polls in November.
Greens state leader Samantha Ratnam said:“It is very disappointing the government is holding up passage of this bill.
“It is a sad reflection of this government if it is holding up the bill because it is afraid of amendments to raise the age of criminal responsibility,” she said.
The government has previously said it would work in lockstep with the rest of the country on the matter,and noted there were less than a handful of 10-year-olds in custody.,in a move that has been criticised by legal,human rights and Indigenous community groups that say will achieve very little in reducing the number of children in prison.
A Victorian government spokeswoman refused to answer why the government had delayed the passage of the bill,but said the government had invested $2.8 billion in the child-protection system over the past four years.
“The Roadmap for Reform – which includes the proposed changes to the Children,Youth and Families Act 2005 – is transforming services and preventing harm by supporting families sooner and providing more support to help young people transition out of care,” the spokeswoman said.
”It’s also delivering the biggest ever frontline workforce boost,with funding to recruit 1180 more frontline child-protection practitioners since 2014.”
Opposition spokesman for child protection and youth justice Matt Bach said the government should not “make vulnerable children suffer because[it lacked] the ticker to even debate” the Greens’ amendment.
“The decision of the Andrews Labor government to shelve this important legislation is gutless and pathetic,” Bach said. “In doing so,the Labor government has placed its own political interests ahead of the needs of the most vulnerable children in our state.”
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