Page 4138 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 22 October 2019
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detention facility where understaffing results in children being locked in their rooms up to 22 hours per day.
I am deeply concerned for the mental health and wellbeing of young detainees in this territory. Imagine being kept in isolation for two months. We have laws that prevent people from treating animals this poorly.
We need a genuinely rehabilitative youth justice system in this territory. We need a broad range of funded, diversionary programs that give kids the best chance to turn their lives around and avoid becoming adult offenders. We need a secure facility that is adequately staffed and effectively provides the intensive programming that young detainees need. We need a system that recognises the importance of the family in the rehabilitation of young people and strategically taps into the strength of the family in both its community-based options and when dealing with those who must be detained. To accept anything less is to allow young people, their families and our entire community to pay a terrible price.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (3.12): I rise today to talk about the importance of a rehabilitative youth justice system, and I thank Mrs Kikkert for bringing this matter to the Assembly.
The ACT Greens believe that young people must be respected and valued for who they are now as well as who they may become in the future. As a young party, a party that values the contributions and leadership of young people—particularly, as we can see currently, the raising of young voices about the need for climate change mitigation and, unfortunately, adaptation—the ACT Greens believe that young people are entitled to express their opinions and have them heard by decision-makers. That is what a rehabilitative youth justice system should be about: listening to and being guided by the young people themselves about what they need in order to be able to live full and productive lives.
We spoke earlier today in the chamber about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander led solutions and the notion of “nothing about our mob without our mob”. In the same way, this idea needs to be extended to young people, particularly young people in contact with the youth justice system. Let’s face it, a disproportionate number of them are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, and the cultural integrity of any rehabilitation process must be paramount.
As I said earlier today, domestic and family violence cannot be addressed in isolation from the care and protection system, out of home care, and the youth justice and adult criminal justice systems. In the same way, the youth justice system cannot be considered in isolation from domestic and family violence, care and protection and out of home care systems. All of these things are interlinked. In the case of young people, the education system also plays an important role in providing young people with the knowledge, supports and assistance they need to live full lives.
Domestic and family violence is often the underlying reason that kids end up in care. We have heard stories about children being removed from very protective and good mothers because they continue to live with abusive fathers. We hear loud and clear
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