Human rights are often spoken of as universal and inalienable, but in Queensland today, we are witnessing how easily those principles can be cast aside.
The "Making Queensland Safer" Bill, currently under review by the Justice, Integrity, and Community Safety Committee, represents a disturbing departure from those values. It threatens not only the lives and rights of vulnerable children, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, but also the foundations of justice and equity in our state.
In Queensland's first parliamentary sitting post-election, the recently elected LNP introduced the "Making Queensland Safer" Bill which introduces a range of punitive measures that fundamentally undermines the rights of children from the age of ten, and shift Queensland's youth justice system towards harsher, more regressive policies.
Key elements of the legislation include mandatory life detention with a 20-year non-parole period for children convicted of murder, the removal of detention as a last resort in sentencing, and the use of children's full criminal history—including juvenile records—when sentencing them as adults. The Bill expands offences for which these measures apply and prioritises victims' rights, including their participation in sentencing decisions. Additionally, it proposes opening the Children's Court to media and victims, a move that risks exposing vulnerable children to public scrutiny.
These measures abandon rehabilitative approaches, disproportionately target Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and represent a dangerous escalation in criminalising children. The legislation, by the government's own admission, directly contravenes Australia's obligations under international law to prioritise the rehabilitation, welfare, and rights of children in conflict with the law.
When the rights of one group are denied, we are all diminished. It is not just the targeted children who will suffer under these laws. A society that turns its back on the most vulnerable—those who need support, not punishment—sacrifices its own humanity and justice.
This legislation is a stark example of how systemic failures are repackaged as "solutions." Under the guise of public safety, the Bill proposes measures that violate human rights, erode community cohesion, and perpetuate cycles of harm. It criminalises children who are already marginalised, ignoring the root causes of their circumstances: poverty, intergenerational trauma, and systemic racism.
The rush to push this Bill through without proper consultation underscores the government's unwillingness to face scrutiny. If given time, the public would see this legislation for what it truly is: a destructive and short-sighted attempt to appear "tough on crime" at the expense of children's lives.
Despite the limited time to scrutinise its content, members of Sisters Inside staff appeared before the Committee on Monday to give evidence about why the Bill should not proceed. Director of Programs, Zofia Wasiak spoke of Sisters Inside's objections to the legislation and told the Committee that the 'LNP has a love affair with locking up kids, and even more so, they love locking up Aboriginal kids.' The Committee were not satisfied with this comment with Chairperson, Mr Marty Hunt suggesting that it was not the LNP per se, rather a systemic problem, to which Neta-Rie Mabo reminded the panel of the legislative background of violence perpetrated against the Aboriginal community over the past century.
Mr Russell Field MP asked Zofia why victims of crime were not being considered. Ruby Wharton of Sisters Inside eloquently responded to this question, which had been anticipated by the Sisters Inside staff. Ruby explained that as prison abolitionists, we reject impunity but challenge punishment-based accountability, recognising that all violence is contextual and stems from underlying causes. Rather than relying on prisons, we advocate for transformative justice and community investment to address systemic inequalities, prevent harm, and create true safety. This requires courage to move beyond carceral solutions and prioritize the safety of all, acknowledging that many who commit violence, including children, are often victims themselves.
Sisters Inside staff were prepared for this question from the Honourable Member for Capalaba. We understand that his question comes from his place of grief. Mr Field and his wife have suffered a great loss, and we understand that part of his Parliamentary mandate has been to "strengthening laws so no other family endures what [they] have been through.' However, we are also of the view that while we empathize with his pain, Parliament is not the place to seek revenge or to settle personal debts against those who have wronged us. In decisions about law, Parliament must act in the interests of what is best for all and must, at the bare minimum, uphold all citizens' human rights. To trample on the rights of some to deliver justice for others is to deliver no justice at all. We are certain the Honourable Member would agree with us there.
However, this raises an important question about subjectivity and objectivity in Parliamentary processes. Typically, as abolitionists and women with criminal records ourselves, we avoid discussing specific offences, because people will automatically start shuffling them into categories such as: violent/non-violent, serious/not serious, or blue-collar/white-collar crimes. Doing so creates a harmful dichotomy in the minds of citizens. This dichotomy leads people to assign greater or lesser humanity to different groups of people who have committed those crimes based on arbitrary distinctions, which is neither just nor productive. However, when examining this legislation, it is clear that the LNP has employed arbitrary measures to define the seriousness of offences in determining eligibility for adult sentencing. For the purposes of this critique, we reluctantly engage with this flawed framework to unpack its implications.
It is glaringly obvious that the government has cherry picked from a list of "crimes" what they have determined to be "serious offences" and then included them in this legislation. Of most note, is the glaring omission of crimes such as rape and sexual assault—offences where Aboriginal women and girls are disproportionately victim-survivors. This exclusion underscores Dr Amy McQuire's critique of the systemic refusal to recognize Aboriginal women as victims deserving of justice.
By the Government categorising certain crimes as inherently more severe, the government perpetuates a narrative that some people who commit these crimes are more deserving of their basic human rights being upheld, while others are not. This selective criminalisation lacks a coherent, consistent framework and instead reflects subjective biases. These biases could be driven by who sits on the Parliamentary bench of the day or by racial capitalism – whatever it is driven by does not matter, because the role of the Parliament is to act in the best interests of all people in Queensland, not the select few. The omission of crimes like rape and sexual assault from the government's list highlights the arbitrary nature of these amendments and deepens the injustices faced by marginalised communities, particularly Aboriginal women, who are often left unprotected and unheard.
This is how we know this legislation is not about justice—it's about cruelty.
Punitive measures like the ones being proposed by the LNP do not reduce crime. Instead, they exacerbate harm, deepen inequality, and fuel recriminalisation. Yet, evidence has been repeatedly ignored in favour of sensationalised narratives about a so-called "youth crime crisis," narratives that have been debunked by criminologists and experts.
The data is clear: there is no youth crime crisis, other than the one that has been politically manufactured for the LNP to win government. University of Queensland criminologist Renee Zahnow has stated that there is "absolutely unanimous" academic consensus that "there's no data to suggest that the rates of youth crime are spiralling out of control in Queensland or indeed anywhere in Australia. Australian Bureau of Statistics data has showed that Queensland's youth crime rate has halved across the past 14 years, with data from the Queensland Police Service, the Queensland Statistician's Office, and the Australian Institute of Criminology also demonstrating clear downward trends.
What keeps communities safe is investment in communities. Organisations like Sisters Inside, with over 30 years of experience supporting criminalised women and girls, have shown that holistic, community-based interventions can break cycles of harm. Programs like our Yangah initiative keep children out of prison and help them thrive, proving that care and support, not punishment, lead to real safety. In the last financial year, Sisters Inside's Yangah program supported 97 girls, 70 of whom were First Nations. Of these girls, 23 were culturally and racially marginalised. Only 12 of the girls we worked with were returned to prison, and of that 12, eight of them were under the care of the state - a tragic reflection of the systemic failure by the state to provide safety and support for the children who need it most. The overwhelming success rate of our program underscores the urgent need for investment in programs like ours that break cycles of harm, not legislation that entrench them further.
If the LNP and Queensland truly wants to make its communities safer, it should abandon this legislation and instead fund programs that address the root causes of harm. To do otherwise is to choose punishment over progress, control over care, and division over unity.
As a community, we must resist this Bill—not just for the children it targets, but for the future we want to build. A future where no child is criminalised for the failures of the system around them. A future where our shared humanity is reflected in laws that protect, not harm.
Because when the rights of one group are denied, we are all diminished. Let us not be a society that loses its humanity. Let us be a society that chooses justice, dignity, and care—for all.
Debbie Kilroy and Tabitha Lean
National Network of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
