JOINT MEDIA STATEMENT: First Peoples Disability Network (FPDN) and Mob4Mob unreservedly condemn the Queensland Government’s Adult Crime Adult Time “Making Queensland Safer Bill 2024”.

Tuesday, 9 December 2024

The Queensland Government’s Adult Crime Adult Time “Making Queensland Safer” Bill 2024 is in direct violation of international human rights standards, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), both of which Australia is a signatory to. The Bill will cause immense harm to children in Queensland.

FPDN and Mob4Mob’s share the position of many of community leaders that this Bill will disproportionally affect all First Nations children and young people, particularly First Nations children with disability.  First Nations children with disability are already vastly overrepresented in the criminal justice system in Queensland, which currently has some of the highest rates of First Nations young people in detention in the country.

Further to this, First Nations children have cognitive and intellectual disability at alarmingly high rates compared to the wider population, due to the direct impacts of colonisation. In fact, the majority of First Nations children who have had contact with the justice system will have had a disability (either diagnosed or undiagnosed).

Ongoing systemic racism and ablism informs the overcriminalisation of First Nations children, combined with a lack of disability diagnosis access and supports. Under the “Making Queensland Safer Bill 2024” First Nations children with disability will be disproportionally subject to punitive punishments which violate their human rights.

The Queensland Attorney General conceded in their advice to government that the Bill is “incompatible with human rights”, “will override the Queensland Human Rights act of 2019”, and “will led to sentences that are more punitive than necessary to achieve community safety.” The Attorney General also stated in their advice that “this Bill will also disproportionately affect First Nations children”. This is an unacceptable endorsement of systemic discrimination that will increase the rates of institutionalisation of First Nations children.

Attributable Quotes

“When our children have contact with the justice system at a young age, it directly increases the likelihood of future institutionalisation and imprisonment, not only for them, but the next generation as well”, says FPDN’s Head of Policy, Woppaburra woman, Tahlia-Rose Vanissum.

“It is horrific that under this new law, there is the potential for a 10-year-old First Nations child with a disability to be given a mandatory sentence of 20 years. This is an abhorrent scenario, and consequently, FPDN unreservedly condemns this Bill in its entirety” says FPDN CEO, Worimi man Damian Griffis.

“Too often a disability is not identified or diagnosed until a young person has entered the judicial system, and prison and detention should not be a medical pathway to proper supports. We understand the need for consequences to actions, however purely focusing on punishment is not the answer to our youth and our future”, says Mob4Mob Interim CEO, Wiradjuri man, Uncle Paul Calcott.