Daniel Andrews has made his strongest indication yet that Victoria will abandon a national process to raise the age of criminal responsibility and go it alone.
On Thursday the premier said it was his intention to bring legislation before parliament to address youth justice, child protection and bail reform in the “first half of the year”, subject to a range of cabinet processes.
“Some people have been very focused on the age issue,” Andrews told reporters in Heidelberg West, in Melbourne’s north-east.
“We’re giving that one more go to try and get a national consensus and if we don’t – as we said some time ago – we won’t hesitate to do our own thing.
“We’d prefer not to do that, I think a national law would be better, but at some point you have to call time on national processes that just don’t deliver.”
Across Australia, children as young as 10 can be arrested by police, remanded in custody, convicted by the courts and jailed.
A source within the youth justice sector who was not authorised to speak publicly told Guardian Australia that the Victorian government had recently canvassed two options for raising the age: increasing it from 10 to 12, or increasing it to 14, but with an exception for serious offences.
A spokesperson for the state’s attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, declined to comment about the possible options for raising the age on Tuesday.
Andrews said on Thursday that “there’s always been carve outs for a number of the most serious offences and I don’t propose to change that”, but declined to comment further.
“I’ll leave it to the attorney general to make announcements but clearly, where it is [right] now is not right. It needs to change,” he said.
As of 9 February, there were no children aged between 10 and 12 in a Victorian youth justice custodial facility, however eight teenagers aged 13 or 14 were in custody.
It is estimated almost 600 children aged between 10 and 13 were in custody last financial year across Australia. More than 60% were Indigenous.
Federal, state and territory attorneys general have been examining the issue for some time. In December they released a draft report which recommended raising the age of criminal responsibility to 14 without exception. But their work is currently looking at a proposal to raise the age to 12.
Some jurisdictions have already abandoned the process, with the Northern Territory raising the age to 12 from next year and the Australian Capital Territory to 14 by 2026. Tasmania will lift the minimum age of incarceration to 14, while leaving the age of criminal responsibility at 10.
The councils of attorneys general will meet in April, but Andrews said he was “not necessarily keen to wait that long”.
Louise Conwell, partner at Stary Norton Halphen, said the impact on children who are charged and detained was devastating.
“I act for a 13-year-old child that has been in custody for a significant period of time, who has self-harmed in custody,” Conwell said.
“A couple of weeks ago, the supreme court refused bail for a different 13-year-old in custody.
“Children languish in custody, which we know has a devastating impact on their mental health and prospects of rehabilitation … the stress and trauma of criminal proceedings on children is devastating.”
Conwell said raising the age to 12 would be insufficient and inconsistent with the psychological, neuropsychological and social impacts of the criminalisation of children. She said any approach in which the age was raised except for serious offending was also at odds with research and the recommendations of legal, medical and social experts.
The Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) has called for the age to be raised to 14, the minimum standard set by the UN.
“The evidence has been clear on this for a long time and we welcome swift, decisive action,” said the LIV’s president, Tania Wolff.
Nerita Waight, the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, agreed.
“Victoria needs to lead the way by raising the age to at least 14 years old with no exceptions. This needs to be done and it needs to be done right,” Waight said.
Andrews also flagged a bill will be reintroduced into parliament that will force judges and child safety authorities to consider the impacts of colonisation and intergenerational trauma on vulnerable Aboriginal families, after a similar proposal lapsed last year.
