Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of this excellent motion moved by my good friend the member for Groom. There's no doubt that youth crime is at crisis level across Queensland after almost nine years of the state Labor government. Community anger and frustration over this issue is widespread, and this anger is supported by lived experience and statistical evidence. We are seeing groups of concerned citizens rise up across our community, including Voice for Victims, which has held several mass protests in Brisbane and has pushed demands for a stronger law and order response and higher assistance payments to victims. Recent analysis by the Australian Institute of Criminology has revealed that the top five worst cities in Australia, according to crime statistics, are all in Queensland: Logan City, Mount Isa, Rockhampton, Townsville—the member for Herbert was discussing the issues facing his community—and Cairns.

My electorate is also not immune from this crisis. Local police sources tell me that a vast majority of criminal activity within the Redlands is conducted by a dozen or so youth offenders that they know well. We've seen home invasions, robberies and, worst of all, the death of Katherine Leadbetter—who was 24 weeks pregnant—and her husband Matthew Field, who were walking their dogs in Alexandra Hills on Australia Day 2021 when they were struck by a car driven by a teenager on a drug fuelled rampage. Sadly, we've seen inaction from the state Labor government. In fact, Labor state member for Capalaba, Don Brown, recently said that the youth crime crisis was 'a media beat-up', much to the outrage of the local victims of this crisis.

The crimes are bad enough, but the problem is made worse by these youth offenders bragging about their exploits on social media platforms and inspiring others to try to outdo each other in the brazenness and the impact of their crimes. These digital trophies need to be targeted by law enforcement to prevent the proliferation of crime across our communities. The Queensland government continues to turn a blind eye to the uses of social media platforms which glorify violent crime and challenge community standards to such an extent. It is easy to say that this is a state government program, but the federal government does have the power to impact on this crisis by utilising the powers of the eSafety Commissioner.

The coalition proudly created and funded the Office of the eSafety Commissioner in 2015. The eSafety Commission was a world first; no other country had a comparable program at the time, and many still don't.

In 2021, the coalition government passed the Online Safety Act, giving the eSafety Commissioner strong new powers, including a world-first scheme to take down adult cyberabuse. Under the coalition, the total budget of the eSafety Commissioner grew consistently to more than $53 million in 2021-22, with a mixture of base and dedicated program funding. This motion calls on the government to protect victims of crime by empowering the eSafety Commissioner to explicitly handle online content of criminal activity material in a similar way to how it already utilises its powers to deal with cyberbullying and cyberabuse material under the current arrangements. I understand that there's currently a ministerial review of the Online Safety Act, and this issue certainly should be included as part of that review, and we strongly encourage the government to consider that.

This is very much a commonsense approach to dealing with this problem. Of course it's not a silver bullet. This isn't the only way that we're going to be able to tackle the youth crime crisis, which I know is impacting so many communities not just in Queensland but across Australia. But it is a step to provide some additional resources to tackle the social scourge that is now totally out of hand. It's totally out of hand within the Redlands, which I represent, and across all the communities in Queensland, it seems.

I also commend the member for Groom's private members' bill introduced earlier this year, which if adopted by the government would give effect to the policy intent of this motion. I commend him as well for bringing this motion forward so we can keep the pressure up and keep the debate going on this important reform. Queenslanders are sick of the impact of youth crime on our communities. We are sick of governments burying their heads in the sand while our streets are taken over. We are sick of the fear that these criminals have created within our communities. This is a practical way to impact on that problem, and I commend the motion to the House.

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