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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-03-06 Daily Xml
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Youth Crime

Mr BATTY (Bragg) (15:26): It has taken the Liberal opposition today to wake the Labor government up to the youth crime crisis that has been sweeping South Australia for the last three years. We have finally woken them up to this youth crime crisis and they have arrived with a plan. The Attorney-General and the part-time police minister must have been up all night on Canva coming up with this new so-called Young Offender Plan, which is pretty light on detail—lots of great info graphics but no actual legislation that we are seeing after this tough new announcement today.

We of course welcome Labor's new-found interest in tackling the youth crime crisis, but this is something that should have happened months ago, this is something that should have happened years ago, and I just do not understand why Labor are always playing catch-up when it comes to law and order in South Australia. It is not like we have not had enough stark reminders that you might need a young offender plan before about three years into your term—and it needs to be a bit longer than six triple-spaced pages.

We have had so many reminders. Youth crime has skyrocketed under the Malinauskas Labor government. We have seen a 50 per cent increase in cases before the Youth Court since 2021. We have seen SAPOL data showing a 40 per cent increase in charges against youth offenders in just the last year alone. The Premier's response in question time today seems to be doing some sort of bizarre victory lap on youth crime and celebrating the fact that we are lower than other states. But if a 40 per cent increase in the last year according to SAPOL data, and a 50 per cent increase since 2021 according to courts data is not a problem, then I do not know what is.

We have been calling this out for a long time and we have been expressly saying for a long time that a small cohort of youth offenders are a really big part of the problem. We seemingly have a handful of youth offenders who are repeat offenders engaging with the criminal justice system like it is some sort of frequent flyer program at the moment, while those opposite have done absolutely nothing about it.

It is one of the reasons why we have been calling, for the better part of two years, for a review into penalties, but in particular a review into bail laws for youth criminals in South Australia. Those calls from the Liberal opposition have fallen on deaf ears for the last two years, while sadly crime has increased, youth crime is increasing, and what that means is the number of victims of crime has increased while those opposite have done absolutely nothing.

So they walk in here today, wielding this new Youth Offender Plan, and what we have got there is this long-awaited review into breach of bail, which is great to see but, again, it should have happened months ago, it should have happened years ago, and we now need to know what it is going to look like.

Those opposite could not answer simple questions today about the scope of the review, about the timing of the review. We still do not know when the bail review will commence or be complete. The average SALRI review takes about six to 12 months. I think the New South Wales government undertook a similar review and it took them about a year, and then another year beyond that to actually legislate anything.

If the government was really serious about cracking down on youth crime, they would not be walking into parliament today with the Attorney-General's Canva document. They would be walking in here with a bill that actually implements these tough new penalties that they have been talking about in the media. They do not exist; they are nowhere to be seen. We need to see the detail, because we cannot afford to take this business-as-usual approach to youth crime that has got us into this mess in the first place. We cannot afford to sit on our hands for the next two years, just as the Attorney-General and the police ministers—the various police ministers—have done for the last two years.

If we do not act, we see what happens. Where were the government's tough new laws at the Elizabeth shopping centre last year when we had teenagers going around stabbing other teenagers? Where were the government's tough new laws in the Rundle Mall last year when we had gangs of youths engaging in these wild brawls? Where were the government's tough new laws last year when the machete became the weapon of choice for youth criminals and we had teens roaming the streets and suburbs wielding machetes and engaging in violent home invasions? It is time for the government to actually prioritise community safety. It is time to actually realise and acknowledge that there is a youth crime crisis and get on with doing something about it, instead of just hunting for headlines.

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