Youth Crime

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (15:14): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before addressing a question without notice to the Attorney-General on the topic of youth offenders.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.A. SIMMS: In parliament on Tuesday this week, the Attorney-General advised that, and I quote:

...comfort should be taken that in 2022-23...South Australia's rate of youth offending was the second lowest in the nation, only behind the Australian Capital Territory.

The government's document, titled the Young Offender Plan, states that over the 'last 10 years, there has been a significant and continuing decrease in the youth offender rate in South Australia'. This morning, the Attorney-General announced a suite of new policies to tackle the so-called youth crime crisis. My questions to the Attorney-General therefore are:

1. Given the statistics that he provided in parliament just this week, what is the basis for this new policy?

2. How will more young people being detained in custody reduce repeat offending?

3. Isn't this just another case of the government capitulating to the populist law and order nonsense being pedalled by the opposition?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:15): I thank the honourable member for his question. I will agree with one part of it: nonsense pedalled by the opposition is something I think most of us in this chamber can get behind as a statement of fact and truth.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Hunter!

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Sorry, sir, I am being interjected on by the opposition. All I heard the opposition say is, 'Youth crime is a joke.' We certainly don't treat it that way. That is not our view of the world.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO: Point of order: he needs to retract that. He completely misquoted. I was saying that you were joking about youth crime, not me.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Interjections are out of order and the minister won't respond to them.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: I appreciate the honourable member's question. It relates to incidents of youth crime and announcements we have made today about young offenders. It is true, as the honourable member has stated, that in the official, nationally consistent figures, South Australia has a relatively low rate of youth offending. In the 2022-23 reported year, we were the second lowest in the nation, only after the ACT.

I am pleased to report there are new figures released just today from the Australia Bureau of Statistics, and once again South Australia has the second lowest rate of youth offending in the nation after the ACT. In fact, we have seen a slight decrease, I believe, a decrease in the drop in relation to young offenders recorded by the police in South Australia.

However, we do know, and the police commissioner has made public comments, that there is a small group of offenders committing many and serious crimes. I think one of the statistics is that 20 young people were responsible for 11 per cent of matters heard by the Youth Court. So a small group of young offenders are responsible for a disproportionately large amount of offending. Whilst it is true we have a relatively low offending rate in South Australia, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't continue to do everything we can as a government to keep the community safe.

The announcements we have made today are very specifically targeted at that relatively small cohort who are responsible for a disproportionate amount of that offending, looking at ways to disrupt some of the circumstances that young people find themselves in, particularly with street youth gangs, but also, and critically importantly, looking at programs particularly for that cohort, that small number of youth who are responsible for such a large amount of the offending.

Part of the announcement today that I am sure the Hon. Robert Simms will appreciate is the announcement of an extra $3 million of new money for intervention and rehabilitation programs for that, particularly aimed at that small cohort of young offenders. We do not wish to see some of these young offenders ending up being older youth committing crimes and then being adults committing crimes. We want to try to intervene as early as we can when some of these people come in contact with the criminal justice system, and that's exactly what this plan is aimed at: reducing offending and community safety.