“Adult crime, adult time” is now law in Queensland. Kids as young as 10 can theoretically face life sentences. There are few comparable democracies that have ever sought to punish children as harshly.
On Thursday, the permanent erasure of fundamental human rights principles passed the Queensland parliament as a sort of anticlimax. The new LNP government, which had flagged the changes since before the election, said the laws were “a first strike back” to restore community safety.
But headlines the following morning have focused on the rift in Labor, which seems unable to reckon with the fact it is in opposition, and that that sometimes means standing in opposition to bad policies.
One MP says the Steven Miles-led opposition is acting too much like “a government in exile”.
In government, Labor twice suspended the Human Rights Act and promoted the fact that record numbers of (mostly Indigenous) kids had been arrested and locked in youth prisons. None of this sat easily with MPs’ consciences or the party’s membership. But they justified veering to the centre and then the right – away from their own beliefs and values – with a simple maxim: “but the LNP would do worse!”
Indeed, the LNP has moved the state’s youth justice policy further to the right – and even further from the advice of experts about how to best keep the community safe.
But the record will now show that all 35 Queensland Labor MPs voted in favour of unprecedented “adult time” laws.
“These laws are not about justice; they are about racism, cruelty and control,” says Debbie Kilroy, the CEO of Sisters Inside.
“Right now, our children are being used as political footballs in a desperate grab by politicians to appeal to the lowest common political denominator – the tired and worn out ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric where there are no winners other than the politicians themselves and the prison system.”
The laws impose adult-length sentences for 13 of the “most serious” offences including “home and business break-ins”.
Not on the list: sexual assault and rape. Understanding who the victims of those respective offences are, when perpetrated by juveniles, might provide some insight into the motives of a government that won an election campaigning about victims’ rights.
Many now find it hard to understand what motivated Labor to vote in favour of a policy that its MPs have criticised publicly as little more than “a four-word slogan” that ignores expert advice about community safety.
During showdown talks on Thursday, several Labor MPs argued privately the party should vote against the laws. Their argument was that – with four years until another election – the party’s best political move was to allow the LNP to own a situation that, evidence suggests, will create an even bigger mess.
Doing so would better allow them to hold Crisafulli to his promise to resign if crime victim numbers didn’t go down, MPs argued.
The counterpoint was that Labor needed to win back regional areas where voters swung heavily to the LNP on law and order.
The unanswered question for Labor is how it sells a further betrayal of fundamental human rights principles to its own base of supporters – or people on the left flirting with the idea of voting for the Greens – when it no longer has any slim shred of policy high ground to stand on.
It also hasn’t gone unnoticed that the strongest internal critic of Labor’s positions on youth crime, the Cooper MP, Jonty Bush, held off an expected challenge from the Greens at the state election.
On election day her volunteers wore “Keep Jonty” shirts, not Labor-branded ones.
LNP still in attack mode
While Labor appears to be grappling with how to be in opposition, the LNP is also struggling to adjust to life on the opposite side of the chamber.
The first-term Crisafulli government appears to be acting as if Labor is still in charge and remains in attack mode.
The government spent most of the week announcing a stream of what it said were cost blowouts to big projects.
And it moved to head off and gag any debate in parliament about abortion, and block any motion that sought to amend the state’s abortion laws.
This follows a damaging election debate, which probably cost the LNP several extra seats, about the party’s views on abortion. Crisafulli promised there would be “no changes” and now he’s codified that over the next four years.
Some think the move is smart politics. He won’t let the issue, or speculation about which Christian right MPs are agitating on the issue, derail his government. He can campaign at the next election as a man of his word.
Others say it will almost guarantee that abortion becomes an election issue in four years’ time.
Implicit in the need for that motion is an admission that, among the cohort of government MPs, there are plenty who would wind back abortion rights if given a chance. The four-year gag on debate means that questions will eventually be asked about what happens after the 2028 election.
And what of Crisafulli’s other big election statement, that nuclear power was “not part of our plan” and that there would be no changes?
On Friday, Peter Dutton ramped up his case for nuclear generators, including two in Queensland.
There will inevitably be pressure on Crisafulli to use parliament to codify that promise, too.
