Indigenous organisations, legal experts and human rights groups have condemned the Victorian government’s decision to abandon plans to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14, describing it as a “betrayal” of vulnerable children.
As revealed by Guardian Australia, the premier, Jacinta Allan, made the major policy reversal on Tuesday, as she announced several changes to the government’s 1,000-page youth justice bill.
“The legislation before the parliament will raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12, and that is where it will stay,” she told reporters on Tuesday.
She also said Victoria was the first state to increase it from 10 and that there were currently no 14-year-olds in custody.
In 2023 Allan’s predecessor, Daniel Andrews, committed to a two-stage process to raise the age from 10 to 12, and then to 14 by 2027, with exceptions for serious offences including murder and terrorism.
But Allan said her decision was being made “at a different time, by a different government with a different premier”.
The decision was met with immediate criticism from several organisations, including Amnesty International Australia, Jesuit Social Services and Save the Children, who each said the decision was disappointing. They said it was also at odds with medical evidence, which shows younger children do not have the maturity and cognitive function to be considered criminally responsible.
Victoria’s commissioner for Aboriginal children and young people, Meena Singh, said the decision would particularly affect children from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as those who had experienced trauma or mental ill health, or lived with disability.
“These are the children, and their families, who need holistic supports so that criminal behaviour does not ruin their lives, and create more victims of crime,” she said.
Monique Hurley, the associate legal director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said it was a “heartless move”, which would “break children’s lives and cause avoidable lifelong harm”.
The state’s truth-telling body, the Yoorrook Justice Commission, said raising the age to 14 had been a “critical step towards rectifying historical injustices faced by First Peoples”.
The First Peoples’ Assembly, which is set to enter treaty negotiations with the state, questioned whether the government was listening to Aboriginal communities or youth justice experts.
Nerita Waight, the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, described the decision as a “treacherous betrayal” of First Nations children.
“It’s obvious that the Victorian government has caved to a scare campaign from Victoria police and the Herald Sun,” Waight said. “Neither of them will reward the government for bending the knee.”
Antoinette Braybrook, the chief executive of Aboriginal family violence and legal service Djirra, said she was “shocked”.
“The Allan government is confusing information from a biased, politically motivated scare campaign clearly run by Victoria Police as a substitute for evidence and FACT,” she wrote on X. “Data shows that Victoria’s youth crime incidents remain at historic lows.”
Victoria police and the Police Association, the union representing police officers, have long opposed an increase to 14, citing a spike in “prevalence and severity of criminal offending” among 12- and 13-year-olds.
On Tuesday the police commissioner, Shane Patton, who spoke alongside the premier, said he was pleased the government was not going ahead with the change.
He said while police were concerned about a “very small cohort” of 10- and 11-year-old offenders, they generally committed “much less serious offences”.
“It’s something that we’ll be able to manage,” Patton said.
The government also said it would change the Bail Act, so that a person would be remanded if there was an “unacceptable risk” that they could commit offences such as aggravated burglary, carjacking, dangerous driving or family violence.
The government will also introduce an offence of committing a serious crime while on bail, only months after abolishing the offence of committing an indictable offence on bail.
The state’s attorney general, Jaclyn Symes said the former offence had been “unintentionally” capturing low-level offending, resulting in the overrepresentation of vulnerable cohorts, including people at risk of homelessness, Aboriginal Victorians and people with disabilities.
“What we’re doing is recalibrating and introducing an offence of committing a schedule one or schedule two offence whilst on bail, to recognise that reoffending in that high-end offence range is something the community are concerned about,” she said.
The amendments will also clarify police powers to revoke bail for breaches.
Patton said he expected to see more people remanded in custody as a result of the changes.
The state Greens leader, Ellen Sandell, described the decision as “weak and cowardly” and said it was a “shameful day” for a state “once leading the way” on progressive reform.
But the opposition leader, John Pesutto, said the government was still “soft on crime” and the measures were an attempt at a “political fix”.
