Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) extends its condolences to the Field and Leadbetter families for their tragic loss in Alexandra Hills on 26 January 2021;

(2) supports the trial of earlier detection, drug-testing and intervention in crystal methamphetamine addiction for new recipients of Youth Allowance and Jobseeker who are not meeting their activity requirements by identifying those with substance abuse issues and supporting them to gain employment;

(3) places on record its support for Income Management for Youth Allowance (Other) recipients who fail to adhere to activity requirements or face court for drug and related offences, and supports ear-marked and fully funded rehabilitation for anyone who fails a drug test;

(4) further supports deferral of payments where drug tests are refused, to ensure service providers are engaged; and

(5) explores enhanced information sharing between Services Australia, employment services providers and authorised officers in respective police, corrections, social services and child protection agencies, in dealing with these high addiction-risk cohorts who evade mandatory activity requirements.

This morning's important debate about youth crime transcends levels of government and goes from the east to the west and the north to the south of Australia. Each state struggles with it, but, particularly, my state of Queensland, where theft per 100,000 and vehicle theft per 100,000 is not only the highest in the nation but two and three times higher than the mainland state average. So, in Queensland we regard ourselves as being somewhat in the eye of this storm, and it's a storm where we have failed to create the parenting conditions that can control crime in the second decade of life. Data can be cut in different ways to show that it's increasing or decreasing, and we don't want to enter into that debate. Nor is this a Trojan Horse to advance the interests of one particular side of politics or an attempt to scapegoat individual demographics. This is fundamentally about how early we can identify the pathway to crime and how early we can intervene in a positive way that fundamentally saves taxpayer money because we do it where and when it is most effective.

Before we start, I want to recognise the Queensland government and the Labor Premier of my state, who last week made six very important law reform interventions, all of which I wholeheartedly support. They are reversing the presumption of bail in serious indictable offenses, the calls for a wider inquiry, the trialling of GPS bracelets and tracking, the use of metal detectors, more responsibility for parents, and the owner onus reversal so that if offences are carried out in a vehicle it is up to the registered owner to at least sign a stat dec and say who operated that vehicle if they didn't. There is no disagreement there.

Today is our opportunity to admit that we are a stakeholder in this debate as well. The federal government is the payer. The federal government so often is the ATM for about 10,000 Australians between the ages of 16 and about 21 or 22 who aren't engaged in the workforce and, we know, are four times as likely to be addicted and way more likely to not be benefiting from the gains that are accrued by being engaged in the workforce—and we all know what they are. It is up to every society to make sure every household can engage. We know that Australia, along with Ireland and the UK, has the highest proportion of all households under whose roof no-one has any form of connection to the workforce—completely unemployed, cyclically poverty-affected households.

We need to break that nexus. The Commonwealth has that one entry, at the age of 16, where welfare begins to flow and that one opportunity to say, 'If you do the right thing and recognise and respect the privilege of income replacement, we will potentially give you that amount of money but, if you don't, you could have it quarantined back onto a card.' This is not about expanding, by stealth, the use of CDC like a sheep dip. Rather, it's about identifying those who are most at risk, most likely to be addicted, because, sadly, the state system doesn't even see drug addiction when an offender walks into a court. They may well drug test someone who was found in possession, dealing, distributing or operating a motor vehicle. But, apart from that, you can't mention it.

That has to change. We live in the ice age, but our youth justice reforms were mostly written before ice even existed. For that reason, we need to be more assiduous in identifying those children—because that's what they are—at their first interaction with ice. What we know about ice is that 40 per cent of users use it less than twice a month. They're not addicted and getting two hits a day. That's when you've lost the battle. I'm talking about finding the 40 per cent of ice users who are doing it twice a month or less and identifying by hair or urine test the fact that they are addicted. They're appearing at court addicted. We're not even wrapping around the supports when we have that opportunity. And you wonder why your law system is a torn parachute and they just keep going through the revolving door.

We're asking the wrong questions. The federal government has an opportunity here to step in and identify addiction, particularly where individuals are not turning up to their mandatory activity requirements and particularly when they're ending up in court. That data sharing should enable the Commonwealth to be an active player in that space. This motion is asking the question, is there a policy role for the more expansive use of CDC when one first enters the welfare system? You can do it how you want to. You can make it after one, two, three or five failures to adhere. But ultimately it's about recognising that welfare is a privilege. It's a privilege that has some mutual obligation. Part of that is staying away from the courts and turning up to suitable jobs and giving it a crack.

In closing, I want to thank my LDAT. I want to thank Linda Grieve and the Cage Youth Foundation, who, in the shadow of tragedy of Australia Day in my city, came together and produced a white paper. It is still in draft form, still being developed, but by this Friday it is to be circulated to all three levels of government. And I thank my colleagues here today for engaging in this discussion, because what we do at the age of 16 or 17 can make a huge difference to the future.

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