RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Following a series of fatal car accidents, Queensland has announced a major crackdown on youth crime.

According to youth advocate Siyavash Doostkhah - policy is being dictated by the police union, emboldened by the tabloid media and both sides of politics.

Today - Siyavash Doostkhah, director of the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland director, on what he calls ‘the War on Young People’.

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Archival Tape -- Reporters:

“Why is Queensland debating youth crime and what are the changes?

Queensland’s youth crime crisis, none more prevalent than on the streets of Townsville...

Young criminals who repeatedly flout the law are tonight on notice, four people have been killed in the past two weeks as a result of incidents involving allegedly stolen vehicles.”

RUBY:

Siyavash, on January 26 in Brisbane, two people were hit by a car, and they died. Can you tell me about what happened and also the events that were set in motion by that incident?

SIYAVASH:

Sure. We don't know all the details, but what has been alleged is that on Invasion Day a teenager was driving a stolen four wheel drive.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“Police say the boys sped through a red light and t-boned a truck...then spinning out of control”

SIYAVASH:

He ran a red light and crashed into an oncoming truck and rolled the car. And the road car hit a couple.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“Kate Leadbetter was six months pregnant when her and her partner, Mattie Fields, were mowed down at the intersection behind me…”

SIYAVASH:

And unfortunately, it caused both of those people to die.

And the following week, there was also another incident that happened in Townsville,

Archival Tape -- Police:

“So about 10 pm last night police responded to a fatal traffic accident….”

SIYAVASH:

Which is alleged that a group of three vigilantes in Townsville chased a stolen car, which had a number of teenagers in it.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“A Holden statesman allegedly driven by a vigilante was aggressively following a stolen Hyundai ix35….”

SIYAVASH:

That car driven by the vigilantes, lost control and killed a motorcyclist on the other side of the road.

Archival Tape -- Police:

“Tragically as a result of that incident a 22 year old local girl died.”

SIYAVASH:

So they were both tragic accidents, which should have never happened. They created much anger and grief in the community, rightly so, as you can imagine.

And there was a lot of outpour - both on social media as well as on mainstream media.

Archival Tape -- Police:

“This is a tragedy. We can't give them back what they lost.”

Archival Tape -- Annastacia Palaszczuk:

“Families have been shattered and lives have been lost.”

SIYAVASH:

We then saw the LNP, ALP and the police union partnering with the Murdoch press and fuelling that community anger to a point of literally declaring a war on young people.

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“The Townsville community, well they’re already fed up.”

Archival Tape -- Reporter:

“It’s been two weeks of teens running wild, terrorising communities, tragedies left behind. Public anger was building forcing the government to act “

RUBY:

Ok. So what did that look like - what did the Queensland government actually announce, in response to all this?

SIYAVASH:

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk came out and made a number of statements.

Archival Tape -- Annastacia Palaszczuk:

“Today, we'll be implementing seven tough new measures aimed directly at this specific cohort of these 10 per cent of youth criminals, and four of them relate to bail.”

SIYAVASH:

She said that ‘it is clear to me and the community that some young offenders simply don't care about consequences’.

Archival Tape -- Annastacia Palaszczuk:

“They have no concept of the consequences of their actions and no fear of the law.”

SIYAVASH:

It is this 10 percent who are responsible for 48 percent of the crimes.

And she goes on to say ‘they're the ones we are going to target with all the force and resources at our disposal’.

Archival Tape -- Annastacia Palaszczuk:

“We can’t just do one thing. We have to do everything that is at our disposal.”

SIYAVASH:

And they've also come up with a raft of changes to youth justice legislation, which includes things like putting electronic shackles on young people as part of their bail conditions,

Archival Tape -- Annastacia Palaszczuk:

“In the cases of serious indictable offences such as breaking and entering and armed robbery, we are reversing the presumption of bail.”

SIYAVASH:

And then the premier goes on to appoint her anti-terror boss to head the new Queensland Youth Crime Task Force.

RUBY:

Ok, where do these laws come from? Who has a say in the Queensland government’s approach to youth justice. Who is informing and advising the government on how they should tackle an issue like this?

SIYAVASH:

When the premier said after these events that everything was going to be on the table, we, I guess, were interested and as a community youth sector, to participate in that process so that there is a balance of information reaching the premier in terms of what possibly could be a measured, evidence-based response to these issues.

But unfortunately, the premier didn't open her door and despite approaches by the community sector, they were excluded from that process.

And it seemed that it was basically a knee jerk reaction to what the media, the mainstream media was pushing, what the LNP was pushing and what the police union was pushing.

So instead of working with the youth sector in dealing with the youth issues, the government has been focussed on working with the police and expanding the criminal justice system.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Siyavash, can you tell me more about the relationship between the Queensland government and the police?

SIYAVASH:

Police are calling the shots and they've been running a very strong campaign, and this is nothing new.

The police union has historically been one of the most powerful institutions in Queensland.

Both sides of the politics have danced to the tunes of the police union. They are very afraid of the union power and how it can have a direct impact on their political fortune.

Archival Tape -- Annastacia Palaszczuk:

“I’m very pleased to announce today that an additional 2025 police personnel will be in Queensland over the next five years.”

SIYAVASH:

And in recent Queensland election - we had an election at the end of last year - the Labor government promised another half a billion dollars for police in terms of recruitment.

Archival Tape -- Annastacia Palaszczuk:

“This will be 624 million dollars investment over 5 years and of the new police, 1450 will be frontline….”

SIYAVASH:

This was the biggest expansion of the police force in that way in the last 30 years,

Archival Tape -- Annastacia Palaszczuk:

“In my time and I believe in the last 30 years, this is the greatest commitment in police numbers that we’ve ever seen in this state.”

SIYAVASH:

And all that's going to do is we're going to basically put more kids in youth prisons. Our youth prisons are, again, are going to fill up very quickly. Then they're going to be overflow to watch houses, the situation we had last year, and then the conditions are dreadful. And then the government is going to come out and then promise to build a new youth detention centre, and then the cost of keeping each kid in the youth detention centre each year is about half a million dollars.

So it's an incredible amount of money that's going in there. And the outcome of it is that basically this is a pipeline to adult prison, to a lifelong criminal career.

RUBY:

Right - and so these kids - these young people who might be caught up in this - can you tell me more about what their situation is likely to be?

SIYAVASH:

Well, young people are going to suffer from this, young people across Queensland from 10 to 17 years of age, criminal age of responsibility is 10 in Queensland. So a 10 year old basically can be prosecuted and put in prison. It's not a hypothetical. We've had this happen which is an absurd age group to be able to be responsible for criminal activities.

Which, these kids. The common factor about their life is that they're all neglected. They come from neglected backgrounds. They come from low socioeconomic communities. They’ve been abused and the basic thing that's missing in their life is actually a genuine care and love as opposed to harshness.

They basically have to survive in the streets, a lot of them. Laws and trying to throw the book at them, it's not going to work because this is what these kids are used to. And what they're doing in a way, is a cry for help. So rather than actually hearing that cry for help we basically are wanting to go there with a big stick and trying to somehow stop them from doing what they're doing.

RUBY:

Mmm, how would you assess these new laws against, you know, your past work in this sector?

SIYAVASH:

I've spent the last 30 years working with these children, young people and their families and communities. And I've seen various ministers come and go.

There is a cohort of young people who have nothing of value in their lives, and they also don't value their own life. This is unfortunately what our society has created.

Young people are not represented unfortunately, at the political level, there is no minister for youth in the parliament that is prepared to stand up and speak on behalf of young people. So everybody is engaging in youth bashing.

But we can't see why the premier doesn't do what she should be doing, which is actually de-escalating the community tension, de-escalating the anger, and trying to educate the public, using these unfortunate tragedies to basically inform based on evidence that if we want to actually make our communities safer, we have to do something different than putting these kids in prison.

So we need a government that actually is brave enough to move away from focussing on a criminal justice response as the only way to deal with youth crime and to see these young people, these children, not as terrorists, not as aliens, that they've come from somewhere else. These are the children that our own society ourselves, we have created them.

All they're doing is being a mirror and shining back to us what our society is. So if our society's neglectful, if we don't care, that's what they need. But that's what they shine back into our eyes.

RUBY:

Siyavash, thank you so much for your time today.

SIYAVASH:

Most welcome. Thank you.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today, former Coalition staffer Rachelle Miller is preparing to take legal action against two ministers she worked for - Alan Tudge and Michaelia Cash - over workplace conditions.

The case comes after another historic rape allegation has been referred to the federal police, relating to an unnamed cabinet minister.

And in New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced a seven-day lockdown for Auckland, after the city recorded a case of unknown origin.

The rest of the country returns to level two restrictions.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.