Queensland’s human rights commissioner has accused the government of setting a “dangerous precedent” after it overrode the Human Rights Act to allow children to be detained at adult watch houses and prisons.
In a surprise move, the Palaszczuk government introduced legislation on Wednesday to allow it to imprison children in adult watch houses “even if it would not be compatible with human rights”.
The emergency laws – which are expected to pass on Thursday – were included with changes to an unrelated bill along with a swathe of other random amendments. This means there will be limited debate and no oversight from the parliamentary committee.
The proposed laws come after a supreme court challenge argued the detention of three children in police watch houses was unlawful.
The state’s human rights commissioner, Scott McDougall, said allowing children as young as 10 to be held indefinitely in “what are essentially concrete boxes” means “there are farm animals with better legal protections in Queensland than children.”
There have been cases documented of children held for up to 40 days in cells designed to hold adults for less than 24 hours. The experience has been likened to sensory deprivation, as the lights in cells remain on 24 hours a day and there is often no access to sunlight.
Conditions in watch houses include exposure of children to aggressive adult detainees, a lack of appropriate facilities for girls, lack of access to showers or clean clothes and young people sleeping on yoga mats in shower stalls.
McDougall said the way the government introduced the legislation denied “the Queensland public the opportunity to properly scrutinise these laws, including their impact on victims of crime”.
He said issues of youth crime could not be solved overnight “with rashly thought-out changes to law”.
“The issue of youth justice has come before parliamentary committees several times in the past few years, and each time a plethora of legal experts, community safety advocates, youth workers, family support services and more have come before those committees with solutions they know work,” he said.
“There is no shortage of solutions, there is a shortage of commitment and a shortage of political will and courage to act on them.”
Earlier this year, the Queensland government overrode the state’s Human Rights Act for the first time in its history to make breach of bail an offence for children.
The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, told 7 News on Thursday the issue of detaining children in police watch houses isn’t unique to Queensland, and the government’s job is to “keep the public safe”.
“The public have been pretty loud and clear that they want the community protected, and this is just one means,” the premier said. “It’s not our desired outcome.”
But McDougall said it is not “business as usual” as the government has claimed as children are being held in watch houses for longer because youth detention facilities are full.
“What we’re talking about is children being locked in a holding pen for up to weeks on end. We’re talking children and girls, as young as 10, being held in those circumstances where the state owes them a duty of care,” he told ABC radio on Thursday.
“We’ve heard lots of horror stories about children sitting in cells and listening to adults being tasered in the neighbouring cell.
“What we risk with these laws is normalising the mistreatment of already traumatised children.”
Queensland family and child commissioners, Natalie Lewis and Luke Twyford, said they were “deeply concerned” about the proposed changes.
“Upholding the human rights of children in conflict with the law does not disregard the concept of accountability; it simply means that consequences should not cause further harm to anyone,” they said in a statement.
“The entire community deserves to be safe, and that includes young people who offend.”
