Queensland Dissolves Youth Crime Committee Over Political Dispute

A police car at a crime scene in Cairns, Australia, on Dec. 20, 2014. Peter Parks/AFP via Getty Images

The Queensland Parliament has disbanded a committee responsible for tackling rising youth crime in the Australian state due to disagreements between the major political parties.

This comes amid an increase in the number of youth offenders between 10 and 17 years old in Queensland in recent years.

On the night of April 17, the Queensland government made a surprise decision by moving a motion to dissolve the Youth Justice Reform Select Committee after tensions arose between the incumbent centre-left Labor Party and the opposition, centre-right Liberal National Party (LNP), over a delayed interim report.

The Committee was established in October 2023 as a bipartisan effort to examine possible legal reforms to combat youth crime as well as support options for victims.

Meanwhile, the interim report (pdf) was intended to provide an update on the progress made by the Committee on potential reforms and give recommendations to help the state curb youth crime.

The motion eventually passed the parliament with a 49-30 vote in favour of Labor.

Leader of the House and Energy Minister Mick de Brenni blamed the opposition for the dissolution, accusing the LNP of playing politics.

“It is disappointing, but it is not surprising,” he told Parliament.

“This motion is a serious motion, but so is the subject matter that this committee has been charged to look into.”

The minister accused the opposition of not treating the youth crime issue seriously while delaying the report’s release.

“It is now crystal clear that the LNP opposition has no intention other than to play politics,” he said.

“They are actively, through their actions, delaying reform that could offer justice to Queenslanders.”

Opposition’s Response

Meanwhile, Opposition Leader David Crisafulli blamed Labor for causing the Committee to disband.

“Labor didn’t want to hear the facts about their youth crime failings or listen to victims of crime,” he said in a social media post.

“So Steven Miles sacked Queensland’s Youth Crime Committee last night.”

LNP members of the Committee also echoed Mr. Crisafulli’s sentiment, saying they were not given enough time to consider the report and its recommendations.

“The government has shut down a committee because they were worried about what it might uncover if it continued,” LNP MPs Laura Gerber, Dan Purdie and Jim McDonald said in a joint statement.

“The LNP approached this committee with political goodwill because victims of crime deserved change.”

Committee chair and Independent MP Sandy Bolton expressed her disappointment that the report, which she believed could have benefited the state, could not be presented in parliament.

“That we have not delivered a bipartisan agreement so far, as needed by Queenslanders, has been personally and otherwise deeply disappointing,” she said.

The State of Youth Crime in Queensland

The Committee’s dissolution comes as Queensland has seen an increase in the number of youth offenders in the last three years.

According to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were 10,878 offenders aged between 10 and 17 years in Queensland in the 2022-23 financial year, up from 10,304 in 2021-22.

However, the figures were still much lower than the peak of 17,204 youth offenders in 2009-10.

There was also a downward trend in the decade to 2020.

The offender rate per 100,000 people aged 10 to 17 in the state dropped from 3,660 in 2009-10 to 1,924 in 2022-23.

However, overall criminal offences in Queensland reached a record high in 2023 compared to the past two decades, with a significant increase in severe forms of crime.

According to Queensland police, there were a total of 603,321 criminal offences in 2023, or over 50,000 incidents a month.

This figure represented a 7.3 percent increase compared to the previous year and was much higher than the average rate of below 500,000 since 2001.

This suggests a smaller group of repeat offenders are committing more serious crimes.