Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Bowman for moving this motion and start by saying that I accept that he has a genuine concern for young people, not just in his electorate but around the country, and for youth crime. This is absolutely an issue that we should be discussing and debating at the federal level. As I have said before. far too often for too many families, the end of a child's schooling career is the start of their career in the criminal justice system, and we have to break that link. But I don't agree with the proposals that are in the motion that take a punitive approach.

Whilst I understand why the member for Bowman has proposed what he has, evidence from around the world, let alone from Australia, is absolutely clear that the way to stop that cycle of offending and the way to help young people and communities to have positive lives is to invest early in the community and the young people—not to take a punitive approach. If a young person who is 16 or 17 is already in receipt of youth allowance and is already in the child protection or the social security system, they are already in a really difficult position in their lives, and punitive approaches aren't the way to help them get out of it.

I would urge the member for Bowman and other members in this House to look at programs such as the Justice Reinvestment program in Bourke, which has been supported by the New South Wales Liberal government. It is a bottom-up community driven program which has not only had significant success in keeping young people, particularly First Nations young people, out of criminal activity, but also brought economic dividends and social dividends to the town. The reason that programs such as Justice Reinvestment work is that they are community driven. They're bottom-up. They have sitting around the table people who are living the problem coming up with the solutions, rather than governments and bureaucrats imposing solutions from on high.

I urge the member for Bowman and other members of the parliament from my side and the other side of the chamber to reflect on why it is that the current federal government is funding the Local Drug Action Team Program that is being delivered in collaboration with the Alcohol and Drug Foundation. It's because of exactly what I have just said: the understanding that the evidence shows the benefits of community led programs where sporting clubs, community groups, schools and experts in rehabilitation, counselling and support come together to design programs and activities that work for their particular community.

We know that the protective factors for alcohol, drug and crime are social connection, education, safe and secure housing, and a sense of belonging to community. They're the things that successful programs to reduce youth offending address, because the risk factors, not surprisingly, are high availability of drugs, low levels of social cohesion, unstable housing and socioeconomic disadvantage that exist at the community level. As the Alcohol and Drug Foundation, which is running the LDAT program on behalf of the member for Bowman's government, says, these risk factors are mostly found at the community level. So the target for change to help not just individuals but also communities must be at the community level.

In my electorate of Dunkley, the Frankston & District Basketball Association has made a supreme effort, particularly over COVID, to engage with headspace and other professionals to help the young people in their association who have been disengaged from their sport to get through this time and be safe and not go down a path that is dangerous. We have local drug action teams, which include the netball association, local footy clubs, headspace, and the THRIVE program from the Elisabeth Murdoch College and local Langwarrin schools. That's what needs to be supported to help young people not to get further into trouble—not to take a solely punitive approach.

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