A north Queensland business is reeling after youths heavily vandalised a $2.4 million (US$1.68 million) crane while bragging about it on social media.
Business managers say an excavator worth $500,000 was also damaged in the attack on the weekend, which comes amid a tide of violent criminal incidents involving juveniles in the state.
Both young men can be heard swearing, and the subtitle, “[Because] we can,” is displayed along the bottom half of the video.
The vehicle was later found covered with graffiti and seen with a fire extinguisher lodged in the front windscreen, according to images from the company Century Cranes.
“We are unsure whether the equipment will need to be written off as we are still getting that evaluated,” general manager Bianca Wilson told News Corp.
“The problem is if it is, these machines can’t just be bought. There is a two-year wait, so that is going to be problematic.”
She said youths had become increasingly “brazen” in their criminal activity, and she hoped the community did not have to resort to vigilantism.
North Queensland, like much of the state, had to deal with a spike in criminal re-offending from juveniles.
Residents All Have Stories to Tell
Further south, in the state’s capital of Brisbane, it is common to encounter residents with their own stories or run-ins with youth crime.In the southern suburb of Underwood, eyewitnesses told The Epoch Times they saw a youth of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander appearance stealing a utility vehicle before crashing it into a tree.
While another resident in Salisbury saw two youths—through his home’s CCTV—eyeing his parked vehicle from the street. When he ran outside to speak to them, the two ran off.
Yet the worst and most notable incidents have been alleged murder and manslaughter incidents in the north of the city.
In Wilston, a 43-year-old man’s body was found on Newmarket Road after he had been fatally stabbed. Police allege a 17-year-old used a 45-centimetre knife (17.7 inches)—which authorities describe as a “small machete”—to attack the man.
Weak Laws Blamed for Chaos
Weak penalties and sentencing have been blamed for the ongoing crime wave.“We have seen, over the last month-and-a-half, things that should have never happened. We should never have got to the point where people are going out with knives and feel they can use them,” he said.
Queensland federal Senator Matt Canavan said incidents of law-breaking have increased since 2019 since the current government changed the Youth Justice Act to be softer on imprisonment.
“The changes told judges that the principle should be ‘detention as a last resort,’ and that ‘the bail decision-making framework’ incorporated an ‘explicit presumption in favour of release.’”
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has tried to toughen the laws in response to the incidents, including upping penalties for crimes committed at night, increasing the maximum penalty for stealing a car, and raising penalties for boasting about crime online.
“They need to have programs … to see that they will actually have work when they leave prison,” Palaszczuk told reporters.
“Some of these young people have complex backgrounds, and … we need to help break that cycle of crime.”