HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Subject Index
Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-03-06 Daily Xml
Contents
Xml

Age of Criminal Responsibility

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:42): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before directing a question to the Attorney-General regarding the age of criminal responsibility.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: Yesterday, in response to a question from myself in relation to this matter, the Attorney stated:

I want to be very, very clear here so the honourable member doesn't misunderstand: this government has not had a policy to raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility…

We have never said that this is a priority for this government.

I think in a supplementary question I referred to the Attorney-General's Department discussion paper, which is dated January 2024, entitled 'Minimum age of criminal responsibility'. On page 5, I note that the following two sentences appear:

It is proposed to raise the MACR in South Australia from 10 years to 12 years of age.

It is further proposed to commit to a review of the MACR after two years of the age being raised to assess if any changes are warranted.

My questions for the Attorney are:

1. How does he reconcile his statements yesterday with what is clearly proposed in his department's discussion paper?

2. Can he confirm that the government has actively been considering raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility?

3. Has he misled the parliament and will he correct the record?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:44): I thank the honourable member for her question. I will answer the second part first. The work on the issue of raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility was started under the former government under a national process that South Australia partook in when the Hon. Vickie Chapman was Attorney-General.

Looking at the issue was something that was commenced by the former government—I acknowledge that they were the ones who started the work on that. A discussion paper was released that put forward for discussion a particular model. It had a model without any commitment to implementing the model, without any statement that it was the policy, and the model proposed that went out for discussion had a number of elements that would have included in that model raising to 12 a whole series of interventions and diversions away from the criminal justice system, but they were proposals for the sake of a discussion paper, not a government policy.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT