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Queensland’s October election will be fought over youth crime, it has been confirmed.
After nearly a decade under the dictatorship of Palaszczuk, the LNP Opposition have come to terms with the fact that the only talking points that cut through after the pandemic are related to punishment of at-risk teenagers – who are more often than not black or brown.
While there is no denying that the state’s rural communities and suburbs are currently in the midst of a youth crime wave that was caused by pandemic lockdowns that forced young people to spend two years locked inside unstable households with people they’d rather avoid by going to school, it is not yet certain if either political party have any long-term solutions to this problem outside of just building more prisons to turn naughty boys into monsters.
This after months of hysterical reporting on the issue of youth crime from the NewsCorp mastheads and nightly TV news, who do not seem quite as interested in the catastrophic statistics surrounding domestic violence.
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said the LNP would remove detention as a last resort from the state’s Youth Justice Act, as the LNP moves to get troubled young people out of the public eye and into a training program for organised adult crime as soon as possible.
“We’ve got a generation of repeat hardcore young offenders and they’re not being dealt with by strong laws, and we have a generation who are falling through the cracks,” he said.
The LNP’s announcement coincides with the launch of a television advertisement that outlines the party’s youth justice plans. The first priority is to stop kids wandering the streets at night, by encouraging them to stay home after dark like normal kids, and play video games in front a crackling fireplace after a warm and hearty dinner cooked for them by loving parents who absolutely do not have any of their own issues that the state government could help alleviate in an effort to break cycles of anti-social behaviour.
Crisafulli said the LNP would also make considerations for early intervention measures to prevent young people coming into contact with the justice system.
“At the heart of what we’re doing is stopping the pipeline that’s coming through,” he said.
“You do that by encouraging kids to stay home and play video games, in front of the fire place. My LNP colleagues say that’s what their kids get up to at night, and they aren’t out their stealing cars”
“We need young kids to behave more like our kids do. Just pull up a seat in the living room, or rumpus room, or in the dining room for all I care”
“We just need them off the streets. Surely their home life is better than the streets”
