Newsroom

January 25, 2022

The $16.4 million budget pledged towards the Palaszczuk Labor Government’s abandoned youth remand centre in Caloundra should be committed to trialling long-term, alternative sentencing models designed to break tragic cycles of offending, Katter’s Australian Party MPs have said.

Last week, Youth Justice Minister Leanne Linard announced that plans to turn the Caloundra police watchhouse into a temporary, short-term youth remand centre to meet burgeoning need would be scrapped due to community backlash.[1]

The Government has not yet indicated where the money will be re-directed to, or how it plans to meet the growing demands placed on the State’s juvenile detention centres.

Katter’s Australian Party Leader and Traeger MP Robbie Katter said, unlike Caloundra, North Queenslanders would welcome the building of an additional youth facility provided it garnered results and kept dangerous juvenile offenders off the street until reformed.

He re-floated the party’s calls for a purpose-built Relocation Sentencing facility, which would allow young offenders to engage in skills-based and other holistic, intense interventions over a period of 6-24 months, to be built in North West Queensland outside Mount Isa.

Additional facilities could be built in other locations if and when required, Mr Katter said.

“Like the proposed Caloundra facility, we envision that this facility would be able to house up to 30 juveniles – it would be purpose-built and suited to the elements, similar to a mining camp,” he said.

“Most important would be the experience delivered at the camp, which we envision to be intense, culturally-targeted and designed to instil respect, responsibility and a sense of right and wrong in these kids who otherwise would have no hope of reforming.

“There would be an incentive system based on points that would prioritise education and training to allow the kids to feel a sense of purpose and achievement, and this would include qualifications that they could take with them to enter into the workplace.

“We have borrowed our policy approach in part from the work of James Cook University Professor Glenn Dawes’ Keeping on Country report, which is based on his research on recidivism in Mornington Island and Doomadgee where it is about as bad as it gets in terms of youth
crime.”

Mr Katter said Relocation Sentencing would be mandatory if ordered by the courts, and would not be an ‘extended camping trip’ – it would be reserved for the 10 per cent ‘hard nut offenders’ who the Palaszsuk Labor Government continually refer to as the focus of their failing youth justice laws.

KAP Deputy Leader and Hinchinbrook MP Nick Dametto said all sides of politics had failed North Queenslanders when it came to youth crime.

“Labor’s version of our Relocation Policy, the ‘On-Country’ program, has unfortunately been a watered-down poor cousin to the proposal we have put forward to get recidivist offenders out of town and reformed,” Mr Dametto said.

“To date Labor has written off Relocation Sentencing saying ‘boot camps don’t work’, trying to tie our policy to the LNP’s half-baked attempt back in 2012 – compared to boot camps, Relocation Sentencing is a much more holistic approach to breaking the cycle of crime with programs designed to run over a 6-24 month course, not 4-6 weeks.

“Our streets are being over-run nightly by child gansters with no fear of the current consequences; even the latest QPS Operation Uniform Nano has had zero effect on deterring would-be offenders.

“Reports from the weekend indicate that these kids are so ‘scared’ of the police they are once again chasing down and ramming police cars in stolen vehicles.

“It’s time for the Government to swallow their pride and finally admit their youth crime policy alone isn’t enough and it’s time to start listening to non-Government Members who have a solution that is worth a trial.”

The KAP has pledged to deliver a comprehensive Relocation Sentencing policy proposal to the Premier, and Ministers for Police and Youth Justice, in the coming months.

The Party will also engage with the LNP and crossbenchers on the policy to gauge their support.