Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, I present the committee's report entitled Doing time - time for doing: Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system, together with the minutes of proceedings and evidence received by the committee.

The Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs has completed its inquiry into the high levels of involvement of Indigenous juveniles and young adults in the criminal justice system. It is a national shame; it is a national tragedy. It has been 20 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody report, yet the incarceration rate of Indigenous Australians, including Indigen­ous youth, is now worse. The committee believes this is a shameful state of affairs and that, as the title of this report, Doing time – time for doing, suggests, it really is the time to act.

Available statistics on Indigenous young people in contact with the criminal justice systems are alarming. Fifty-nine per cent of the total detention population is Indigenous. There are 28 times as many Indigenous juveniles as non-Indigenous juveniles in detention in Australia. The prisoner census data for 2000 to 2010 shows a 55 per cent increase in men in incarceration and a 47 per cent increase in women. Young Indigenous adults aged 17 to 24 are 15 times as likely as young non-Indigenous adults to be imprisoned. The rates of imprisonment of Indigenous women in Australia is rising at an alarming rate. In 2006-07, Indigenous women were 35 times as likely to be hospitalised as a result of partner abuse. Between 2000 and 2009, there was a 66 per cent rise in imprisonment of Indigenous Australians. By the age of 25 years, 40 per cent of Indigenous men have been charged formally by the police with an offence.

The committee was made aware of these worrying statistics throughout the inquiry and consulted with a wide range of stakeholders to investigate how the federal government could assist in reversing the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice systems around the country. The scope of the inquiry was vast given the complexities of the issues that contributed to the high levels of involvement by Indigenous youth in criminal justice systems. There were many roundtables and public hearings—18 public hearings across Australia, and we visited three detention centres. There were 110 submissions from a wide range of individuals and groups. One of the major criticisms was the need for better coordination of service delivery: silos, departments not talking to departments, organisations not communicating with each other and individuals not sharing relevant information.

This is a comprehensive report, with 40 recommendations. These include two high-level recommendations that seek to address the void in the COAG Closing the Gap strategy by recommending the setting of justice targets, including a national partner­ship agreement under the Safe Communities building block. Indigenous engagement in and delivery of local services are highlighted as the most effective ways of creating positive outcomes for Indigenous people. The main thrust of the report is that prevention and early intervention are of utmost importance. The committee makes recommendations about developing positive social norms, improving parenting skills, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, increasing engagement in education, initiatives to assist the transition into employment and increasing participation in sport and in cultural and recreational activities. The value of Indigenous mentors was also highlighted in relation to these matters. There are a number of recommendations to improve teacher education and police awareness of issues. Language barriers and hearing impairments were also highlighted.

As the title of the report, Doing time, suggests, too many young Indigenous people are doing time in juvenile detention centres and prisons. It is now time for doing. It is time we were doing more to prevent this national tragedy, this national disgrace. The problems are complex and longstanding. We must harness the knowledge and commit­ment of those working in the field to bring about real change and opportunity for the future of all Indigenous Australians.

I want to close by thanking the previous chair of the committee, the Hon. Bob Debus MP, and his committee; also Anna Dacre, the secretary of the committee; Susan Cardell and Rebecca Gordon, the inquiry secretaries; and research officers John White, Ben Mudaliar and Natalya Wells. I want to thank all those involved in the committee. I want to thank the coalition for their bipartisan approach, particularly the member for Murray, and for their great cooperation, along with that of the Labor members of the committee. I commend the report to the parliament.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I concur absolutely with the remarks of our very able chair in presenting this report Doing time—time for doing: Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system. It is, as our chair said, a very tragic situation in Australia. Far from us being able to present a trend showing there is less recidivism and less Indigenous juvenile detention and offending over time, we are seeing that the rates are increasing, particularly for young girls and women offenders. Quite clearly a lot of those young people are also parents themselves. The intergenerational cycle of offending is unbroken in Australia at the moment. It is of great concern, I am sure, not only to all of us here in this parliament but also to the broader Australian society, that so much life is being wasted and lost as young people serve time for offences which very often have been the result of extreme social, educational and health disadvantage or deprivation.

We were very concerned to look at the total justice system. The chairman has referred to the fact that we were concerned to find that there were very few targets set in the justice system. We found there is a lot of well-meaning intention and that there are a lot of programs, but very few of these programs set benchmarks, look at best practice either in Australia or internationally and then measure the outcomes of their various programs to see if in fact they work. There is often very short-term funding for innovative programs. There are, as we have heard, silos of activity. We found that it is not acceptable to have a child or a young person incarcerated or in detention simply because there is not a safer place for them to be. There is obviously a serious problem for safe accommodation for a lot of the juvenile offenders before they go into detention or indeed after they come out. It is a very sad fact that nearly 41.3 per cent of Indigenous children and young people are in out-of-home care compared with only 4.6 per cent of non-Indigenous people.

We are also very concerned about the physical and mental health problems associated with Indigenous offending. We can directly relate the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system to things like alcohol and drug abuse, foetal alcohol syndrome, hearing loss and mental health issues and problems. Many young children are disengaging from education from the earliest age or their truancy rates are so substantial that they are not learning English, perhaps because they are in remote Australia., They may not be able to gain enough skill to get a job—yet they aspire, like every other young Australian, to buy the good things they see on television or in advertising, but they are frustrated in not being able to achieve legitimate employment. Often for them the only alternative is offending.

We found too that there is a very serious problem in our society where there are few role models in our Indigenous communities, where there are families who have not known anything other than cycles of recidivism. On the other hand, we found examples of marvellous mentors in the Indigenous community who are very embedded in terms of their own cultural understanding and their own social life. It was stressed to us many times that mentoring is a key, whether through sport or other artistic or cultural activity or in some other way. If Indigenous young people have someone to look up to, whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, they can help them find their pathway through to life beyond offending.

We went to New Zealand to compare Maori offending rates and to look at what programs they might have which could give us some better guide or inform us on our policy directions. We found that they had in fact adopted the Koori Court, as it is called in Victoria; it has other names in other states. They had in particular moved towards having more engagement with the offender and the victim of the crime. We saw that as a very good thing. It brought the young person face to face with the impacts and outcomes of their activity so they could see how it impacted on and harmed another individual.

We believe that we really need to take a holistic approach to deal with juvenile offending with Indigenous young Austral­ians. It has to begin almost prenatally, making sure children are born healthy and that they get proper medical attention so that they do not suffer a hearing loss. We really want to say that we must do better. Doing timetime for doing is a critical report.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member for Blair wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a future occasion?

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for a later hour this day.