In this submission, ANTAR provides commentary and makes recommendations on the Making Queensland Safer Bill 2024, which proposes a suite of regressive and punitive legislative changes that will negatively impact and criminalise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
The proposed changes in the Bill are and will be, in no uncertain terms, a continuation (and in fact worsening) of systemic racism toward First Nations people, including through discriminatory law making such as the Bill. In particular, ANTAR is deeply concerned about the Bill’s proposal to override the Human Rights Act 2019, to remove the principle of detention as a last resort, and to introduce ‘Adult Crime, Adult Time’ laws which will sentence vulnerable and at-risk children as if they were adults.
ANTAR urges the Committee, and the Queensland government more broadly, to be led by the evidence, which is that trauma-informed, culturally safe, rehabilitative, restorative and needs-based responses and early intervention programs work where punishment, fear and violence do not. Care works, where cruelty does not.