The Queensland government has extended funding for the Caboolture Watchhouse to house children until the end of next year, despite ongoing criticism of its suitability to house juveniles.
It comes as the new Wacol Youth Remand Centre is not expected to open until mid-2025.
Last year the then-Labor government passed amendments legalising the extended detention of children in police watch houses – including overriding the state's Human Rights Act.
They have seen the horrific treatment of children, which feature "torture" like conditions and numerous allegations of misconduct, sexual abuse and violence.
The new LNP government has argued the previous government was soft on crime - despite crime rates decreasing whilst incarceration levels increased - with Police Minister Dan Purdie saying Labor was negligent in failing to "provide secure accommodation for children in watchhouses".
"There weren't kids in watch houses until Labor weakened the laws," Minister Purdie said.
"The former Palaszczuk-Miles Government created a youth crime crisis and left us to clean up the mess."
However, the LNP government has enacted a series of laws, under the guise of "adult crime, adult time", which experts say will only increase youth incarceration.
This included suspending the Human Rights Act themselves to allow children as young as ten to receive life sentences for some crimes.
At the time, First Nations Justice Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, Maggie Munn, said they wondered "how the Premier can sleep at night".
"...he is condemning Queensland children to an unbelievably bleak future, especially when those children are predominantly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids, and kids with a disability," Ms Munn said at the time.
The new funding for Caboolture will support the corrections system after a backlog of projects, Youth Justice Minister Laura Gerber said, arguing Labor's "failure to deliver on critical infrastructure" was an example of "negligence of youth justice and the corrections system".
Queensland locks up more Indigenous children than any other jurisdiction in the country, and abolitionist and lawyer Debbie Kilroy argued in August housing children in watch houses is "gross violation of the human rights of children and a severe breach of the state's duty to care for its youngest citizens".
Revelations about watch houses in Queensland include a 13-year old Indigenous girl - assessed as having the mental capacity of a kindergarten child - being handcuffed, naked, and covered in her own urine, and a 17-year-old First Nations boy being struck with a baton by police.
Last year, National Indigenous Times reported children were pleading guilty to crimes they didn't commit to avoid spending time in watch houses.
Katherine Hayes from the Youth Advocacy Centre previously said police guidelines specified children shouldn't spend more than 72 hours in watch houses, but some were spending upwards of 30 days in the facilities.
"A psychiatrist who works in the watch houses has said that he sees decline in mental health after 24 hours in children and they come out angrier and more damaged," Ms Hayes said earlier this year.
Earlier this year, a broad-ranging review into the state's watch houses was announced, with Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski accepting the facilities have "end-to-end systemic issues" and are "under significant pressure".
