Age of Criminal Responsibility

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (14:51): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question without notice to the Attorney-General on the topic of raising the age of criminal responsibility.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: I understand that Victoria is on track to become the first state in Australia to raise the age of criminal responsibility, with news that this week they will be introducing a bill into their parliament. Last year, the Malinauskas government announced a discussion paper on diversion options. My question, therefore, to the Attorney-General is: what is the status of this discussion paper, when will the government release the submissions that have been made and when can we expect to see a bill come before the parliament to finally raise the age of criminal responsibility?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:52): I thank the honourable member for his question and continued questioning in this area and acknowledge his very deep and unwavering interest and advocacy in this area. I saw media reports, I think even today, about proposed legislation in Victoria. I have not seen the details of the legislation, but obviously we will keenly look at those details.

I think the honourable member is correct that Victoria becomes the first state to propose legislation. At varying stages, our two territories have also had some movement in this area, as the honourable member points out; he keeps a very keen eye on these things. We had a discussion paper that was released. There were, from memory, dozens of responses to that discussion paper. It is a very complicated area. We are currently assessing those responses and what the policy options could be.

I think I have answered before that we will look to see what might be released once we have had an opportunity to thoroughly assess those. I have said before we have released a discussion paper, and it proposed a possible very high-level model. We have not released any commitment that we will legislate in this area, so in relation to when we will see a bill, there is no commitment from this government that a bill will be seen. But we are committed to thoroughly looking at the area, and we are considering those dozens of responses at the moment.