Youth Crime

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (15:36): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking questions of the Attorney-General regarding youth crime and repeat offending in South Australia.

Leave granted.

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD: Recently obtained court documents reveal that a single 14-year-old South Australian accumulated 131 charges in a single financial year, including multiple assaults, home invasions, drug offences and, I think extraordinarily, 34 breaches of bail or bond conditions. The police commissioner has expressed and acknowledged frustration with a small cohort that I think the Attorney mentioned in a previous answer today of repeat youth offenders.

The government has announced, to be fair, its Young Offender Plan, including proposed changes to bail laws and increased penalties, which are likely to receive support from our side, I suspect. My questions to the Attorney are:

1. Does the Attorney share the police commissioner's frustration at this extraordinary situation?

2. Is the Attorney satisfied that our justice system, in these cases anyway, is operating in line with community expectations?

An honourable member: Good question.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (15:37): I thank the honourable member for his question, and it is in fact a good question. I acknowledge that the honourable member regularly asks questions about community safety in South Australia. It stands in stark contrast to other questions we have heard today and how they are asked. This is a sensible question about youth offending—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. H.M. Girolamo interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Excuse me. Order! Answer the question.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Chuck her out.

The PRESIDENT: Answer the question.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The honourable member asked about one particular, I think, young person who had in the order of 130 matters. Let me just say this very clearly: that is unacceptable. That is unacceptable, and that is precisely why we have done what the honourable member outlined and are taking action.

We have spent a lot of time talking particularly to SAPOL about measures that they may need to take further and better action, so more serious consequences, notwithstanding that I think certainly the biggest contributor to breaches of bail are things like not recharging electronic monitoring bracelets, not being home or not being at the place you should be at the time, so the more administrative breaches that don't put other people in harm's way. Notwithstanding that, though, that is unacceptable, and that is why we have put these measures in place.

As the honourable member alluded to, the statistic, I think, that SAPOL used was 11 per cent of all matters before the Youth Court in one particular year were the result of 20 young people. That is unacceptable and that is why we are putting measures in place specifically to target that cohort who find themselves far, far too many times in the criminal justice system.

What we are looking at are more serious consequences for those frequent flyers, the recidivist, serious offenders. We are looking at ways to give authorities more powers, particularly in relation to youth street gangs. But, importantly, as I outlined in relation to a supplementary question from the Hon. Connie Bonaros, we are looking at ways to stop those young people coming into contact with the criminal justice system, looking at intervention programs so that the young offenders of today don't become the adult offenders into the future.

We have allocated $3 million, new money for new programs. We held a round table bringing together many people with expertise in these sorts of areas to put forward views. We will be considering them and particularly in conjunction with the Department of Human Services looking at ways to put in place those programs to divert young people, to help turn their lives around so that they don't continue to offend as a young person and, as I said, become those adult offenders into the future.

As I said before in relation to a question, the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that the offender rate in South Australia is coming down. As I said, it has approximately halved since the Liberals were last in government. According to the official ABS statistics, we have the lowest rate of offending of any state. It's only the ACT that is below us. But, there is more to be done. Any rate of offending is too much offending. That is why we are committed to introducing new laws and introducing new programs specifically targeted at that cohort of youth offenders who are recidivists and committing too many crimes.