Most Australian states and territories set an age of criminal responsibility of 10 years old, with the exception of Victoria (12) and the ACT (14). Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAPView image in fullscreenMost Australian states and territories set an age of criminal responsibility of 10 years old, with the exception of Victoria (12) and the ACT (14). Photograph: Richard Wainwright/AAPLiberal and Greens senators call for age of criminal responsibility to be lifted in wake of youth justice report Incorrect media reporting is leading to inconsistent treatment of children across states and territories, the report found
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Senators from the Liberals and Greens have joined forces to call for the age of criminal responsibility to be lifted, after a federal inquiry into the youth justice system found that incorrect media reporting was leading to an inconsistent treatment of children across states and territories.
The Senate committee report, released on Friday, made four recommendations, including for the federal attorney general to work with state and territory counterparts to introduce national minimum standards in relation to youth justice and establish a “National Child and Community Safety Taskforce”.
It also recommended an education campaign focused on children and young people in conflict with the law which provided evidence-based information on youth crime, and that a separate Senate committee should report on the factors that contribute to youth incarceration in Australia.
But senators Andrew McLachlan, a Liberal, and the Greens’ David Shoebridge, said the committee should have gone further and forced all jurisdictions to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14.
Most Australian states and territories set an age of criminal responsibility of 10 years old, with the exception of Victoria, which sets it at 12, and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) which sets it at 14. The age of responsibility for federal crimes is also 10.
“The lack of any meaningful national response to the youth justice crisis that is washing across the country is disturbing,” the senators wrote in comments published with the report.
The senators said the evidence they had heard made clear that youth crime rates were in fact falling “in stark conflict with the hyped media reporting” and yet more children than ever were being locked up.
“Submission after submission, from criminologists, human rights bodies, communities and frontline services told the same story about punitive laws created as result of political and media pressure rather than evidence.
“These laws are making communities less safe, and mean children’s prisons in this country are locking up children who are overwhelmingly poor, First Nations, and living with disability or trauma in a system that was never built to respond to and in fact exacerbates these characteristics.
“The continued overrepresentation of First Nations and disabled children in Australian prisons is a disgrace and one the Government has no current plans to address despite the obvious harms it causes.”
The Northern Territory was singled out, with the senators saying that none of its government departments or officials fronted the committee “despite children there being incarcerated at rates that dwarf the rest of the country, and with a degree of casual and systemic brutality that is genuinely shocking”.
The committee heard evidence about the rates of disability in the youth justice system, including the prevalence of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD).
In the Northern Territory, a 2024 study found that 77% of children in detention under 14 had “unmet mental health, cognitive disability and poor health needs”, while a Western Australian study found that nine out of 10 incarcerated young people had a form of neurodiversity.
Read moreIn Queensland, it was estimated that 37% of children in detention had a cognitive, intellectual or physical disability, including 12% of children with FASD, and in New South Wales a study found that 17.4% of young people with a disability had spent time in youth detention.
The committee also heard that young people with FASD are 19 times more likely to be incarcerated than their peers.
In justifying its recommendations relating to a national approach, and accompanying taskforce, the committee said it “recognises … that a nationally consistent approach to children in conflict with the law, rather than a piecemeal approach to addressing different aspects of state and territory systems, is required.”
Nick Espie, the executive director of the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal service, said this key recommendation made clear the federal government had to step in.
“This along with the other findings of the report make it utterly clear that the prime minister has an obligation and responsibility to act to end the youth justice crisis that is seeing our children locked up at unprecedented rates,” he said in a statement.
