Phillip Thompson (Herbert, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank my friend the member for Groom for bringing this motion forward. The electorate of Herbert, Townsville, is nationally renowned for crime and for violent criminal acts that we are seeing constantly, every night, from youth criminals. Tonight, like last night, like tomorrow night, people's houses will be broken into and their property will be stolen. Youth criminals will terrorise the streets, and people will feel like prisoners in their own home. This is simply not good enough. But this is a failure that we have seen from the state Labor government.

Before I speak on the eSafety Commissioner, I think it is important to highlight what I would like to see happen to these youth criminals. We saw the state Labor government talk about mandatory maximum sentencing. We need to flip that on its head and make it mandatory minimum sentencing. We need to remove detention as a last resort out of the Youth Justice Act and have early intervention at prenatal, not at 13, not at 15, not at 17. We need to target the right age to give these young people the best hope. But also we have to punish bad behaviour. I think the message needs to be very clear: if you commit crime, then you should do time. There is no place for this behaviour in our country, and people should feel safe in their own home.

Unfortunately, that's not what's happening in Townsville. Youth criminals are taking to their social media pages. They are filming themselves as they steal someone's car, as they rob someone in the street or as they break into a home with a machete. They post it online, they get all the notoriety they're chasing and they perpetuate further criminal activity to even where they use it as a game. Some time ago, we had a helicopter over the top and planes being diverted because a stolen car was running riot around Townsville, and these youth criminals were filming it. Another time these youth criminals were ramming police cars, ramming ambulances, ramming people on the street and filming it.

And they would post things like, 'You don't stop us; we come after you.' This needs to be stopped. We have the ability. I think this has gone on for far too long. Townsville gets compared to places in other nations with their criminal activity. Youth crime has never been targeted by the Queensland state Labor government. The previous member can say that we roll this out every couple of years, but I've been talking about it since I was elected because it is the No. 1 issue in Townsville.

Dozens of cars get stolen every day, and it's a grim reality for many constituents, like John, a father of two, who had his house broken into and Jeep stolen in the dead of night. Videos of reckless teenagers doing burnouts in multilane traffic were plastered all across social media. John was receiving updates every minute from family and friends who were forwarding him the videos. Can you imagine the emotions of someone who has worked so hard and had a criminal come into his house when his kids are inside, steal his car and then post about it all over social media? Helpless to stop the action, anger towards the criminals, fear for community safety and the concern for the wellbeing of others watching the video—the list goes on. But what happens to these youth criminals? Do they get locked up? Very rarely, if at all.

It's clear that this online activity is affecting the community. How does it affect young people who are vulnerable? Watching these criminals stealing cars, posting about it and not getting in trouble—the revolving door spinning. Why do early intervention when they're not in trouble for bad behaviour? If you have two kids and one child bites the other one, you don't give that one a lollipop. But essentially that's what's happening in Queensland, and that's what's making this revolving door continue to spin.

We must do our bit to break the intergenerational cycle of crime, and the way to do that is to be tough on law and order and tough on people that break these rules and break the laws and to stop it at the next generation. And the eSafety Commissioner has that ability. But a year ago this was raised, and still nothing has been done. Labor need to get off their hands and do something.

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