Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Community Safety, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes:

(a) that the Government cut $50 million in the October 2022-2023 budget from Round 7 of the Safer Communities Fund for early intervention high-risk youth programs, which was funded but not announced in the March 2022-23 budget; and

(b) the recent surge in youth crime in Victoria and Queensland, in particular requires an urgent and dedicated response from the Commonwealth Government to address and combat this serious issue, while the Victorian Government must reconsider its stance on weak youth bail laws and prioritise the safety of its citizens;

(2) condemns the Government for abandoning young Australians by scrapping this funding;

(3) calls on the Government to reinstate funding to provide for much-needed capital to organisations working with high-risk youth;

(4) congratulates the previous Government for investing $300 million in the Safer Communities Fund to keep local communities safer; and

(5) commends the Opposition for committing to working with states and territories in the future to develop uniform knife laws as a significant step towards ensuring the safety and security of all Australians.

When it comes to our youth, they are the future leaders, and members of parliament and all those across Australia want to see our youth do well. Sadly, some, as I mentioned in my maiden speech many years ago, go down the wrong path, leave school, get bored and get involved in crime. A number of years ago in Victoria, we had a number of youth gangs getting up to hideous crimes—home invasions, carjackings, stabbings, you name it—and we still do today.

We had an inquiry, which I was chair of, and the inquiry was called 'No-one taught me how to be an Australian'. That actually came from a young South Sudanese leader, and that's why we used the name. A person who appeared before that inquiry was Les Twentyman OAM. Les, for those who don't know, is an absolute legend when it comes to supporting youth, and Les told me—and I'm a former police officer—'Jason, if you want to help the youth, the only way is early intervention.'

Under the Morrison government, we put a program in place, and I actually was very proud as the assistant minister of home affairs to put this program in place. It was called the Safer Communities Fund for high-risk youth. I had three criteria. Firstly, it was to keep young people in school who were about to fall out of the education system, and, whether it was staying at school or making pizza ovens, I didn't care what it was, as long as we could get them to stay in education. Secondly, if they left school, it was about having someone, a group or an organisation to wrap their hands around them and provide training and education to get a job or to go back to school. Thirdly, it was that those who have been incarcerated, rather than walk out into the hands of another gang, walk out into the hands of someone who's going to support them.

We had a delegation that went over to America, and we met with gang members who had spent many years in jail whose role, when young people walked out of a police station, was to basically say, 'You're going down the wrong way. We want to help you and change your life.'

We put in place a program which invested $120 million, targeting youth between the ages of 12 and 24—high-risk youth—which supported 133 organisations, of which 30 per cent were from the Indigenous community.

You'd think it would have been an absolute no-brainer for the Albanese Labor government to just roll over this program, but, to my shock and horror, the Labor government has completely cancelled this project—this amazing, grand scheme. So many people who are social workers with the skills we need to help young people no longer have a job. The sad reality is that the parents who finally had some hope for their kids, their children or their young person, or whatever you want to call them, no longer have that hope. But, worst of all, when it comes to young people themselves—and we're talking about thousands upon thousands of young people right across the country—they now have lost that hope and are going down the wrong path. So it is no surprise, when you look at the crime stats in Victoria, that things are, horribly, moving in the wrong way.

I also point out that this program wasn't focussed on Liberal held seats. In actual fact most of the seats—the large majority—were Labor held seats in areas where there are social and economic issues. There have been cuts in funding to Swan, Indi, Rankin, Parramatta and McEwen, and also one in Chisholm, the eastern Melbourne Migrant Information Centre. I went and visited that centre, and it was so sad to meet the young staff who were about to lose their jobs. As they said to me, they'll get another job, but they felt so bad for the young people.

I call on the Albanese Labor government to reinstate this funding. It's such a disgrace that it has been cut. I must say I've also had a number of Labor members approach me and say it's a crying shame this funding has been cut. It must be restored to help young people.

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