‘Adult time’ sentencing laws incompatible with human rights, attorney-general admits

Treating more children as adults in the criminal justice system under the Victorian government’s proposed “violent crime, adult time” laws is incompatible with the state’s human rights charter.

Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny conceded the legislation – which will include maximum penalties of life in prison for teenagers convicted of aggravated home invasions and carjackings – was in breach of the government’s commitment to the rights of children.

“In my view, the reforms serve a pressing and important purpose, where there is no less restrictive means available,” Kilkenny wrote in a statement of compatibility that was tabled in parliament along with the legislation on Tuesday.

“However, on balance, I acknowledge that the reforms interfere with fundamental protective and criminal process rights of children to a significant extent, in circumstances where other jurisdictions and international bodies have deemed such an approach to be incompatible with children’s rights.”

The far-reaching changes to how the criminal justice system treats children charged with certain violence offences will be rushed through parliament with little scrutiny after the opposition derided the proposed laws as broken and flawed, but decided to vote for them anyway.

The laws were introduced in the first day of a frantic final week of parliament, in which the government also received a report into controversial group voting tickets and was urged to publicly release evidence justifying its decision to demolish 44 public housing towers.

The Queensland-inspired crime legislation means teenagers as young as 14 charged with carjacking, home invasions and other violent offences will be dealt with by adult courts and potentially attract far heftier sentences than they would receive in the Children’s Court.

The plan has been widely condemned by social justice groups as a breach of human rights that lacked evidence and which would have a detrimental impact on vulnerable children.

These concerns were confirmed by Kilkenny, who, in her compatibility statement, noted the proposed laws “constitute significant limits on the fundamental rights of children who are by their nature a vulnerable cohort”.

But she said the legislation was necessary to “address compelling and pressing” community safety concerns heightened by serious and violent offending by children.

She said children were disproportionately represented among perpetrators of rising crime in Victoria and that about half of all home invasions and carjacking over the past year had been committed by offenders under the age of 18.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson and shadow attorney-general James Newbury said the proposed laws were weak and being rushed through parliament to avoid proper scrutiny.

However, a joint Coalition party room meeting on Tuesday morning voted to support the legislation. “We won’t be opposing Labor’s weak laws,” Newbury said.

The government also announced an expansion of the carjacking offence, which currently requires the theft of a vehicle through the use of fear or threats.

The bill will expand this to include circumstances in which a baby or child under the age of 10 is in the vehicle alone, even if the offender was not aware of their presence. The law, as it stands, treats this as theft rather than carjacking.

The government further announced funding for the state’s new violence reduction unit. Schools will be linked with programs – including those provided by sporting organisations such as Melbourne Storm, Melbourne Victory and the Western Bulldogs – to engage children.

The changes came as an inquiry recommended the immediate end of group voting tickets, which could result in complex voter preference harvesting disappearing from Victoria.

Victoria is the last state in Australia to use the controversial group tickets, which allow micro parties to pool preferences from those who vote above the line on the ballot paper for the upper house.

Candidates can leapfrog more popular parties through backroom deals that have previously led to the election of MPs with less than 1 per cent of the vote.

After years of debate over the practice, the state’s electoral matters committee has recommended that the voting system be scrapped as soon as possible so that it doesn’t feature in the 2026 state election.

Removing group voting tickets would result in Labor, the Greens and the Coalition all boosting their representation, and potential gains for One Nation, which has increased its popularity in recent polls.

In its findings, the committee acknowledged their key recommendation would make it difficult for smaller parties to be elected without also restructuring the upper house.

However, its report argued that “delaying their elimination would further erode trust in the system”.

It called for a “two-step process” in which group voting tickets were abolished by 2026, followed by consultation on a new-look upper house that could go to a referendum in 2028 or 2030.

One option under consideration would be a statewide model in which MPs are elected depending on how many votes they get across Victoria, rather than within the current eight regions.

Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell said that if Allan didn’t abolish the regions at the same time, the result would be terrible for democracy and hamper the government’s legislation.

In another headache for the government, a year-long parliamentary inquiry found that the demolition of 44 public housing towers must halt immediately until it handed over key evidence justifying the multibillion-dollar project.

The final report, tabled in the upper house on Tuesday, recommends an “independent legal arbiter” be appointed to review 146 secret documents the government has blocked under “executive privilege”.

The committee found the refusal to produce the documents meant it was impossible for parliament to verify if demolition, then rebuilding, was the most cost-effective option instead of infill and refurbishment.

Transparency expert Dr Catherine Williams, of the Centre for Public Integrity, said the government was operating “in blatant disregard for democratic accountability” on this and other issues by repeatedly ignoring standing orders.

“[This] is not a mere technicality … It directly undermines the parliament’s constitutional responsibility to hold the government to account.”

The report calls for a “halt [to] all work” – which has begun – until the government releases feasibility reports.

44 Flats United advocate R-Coo Tran said the report vindicated residents and “made a mockery” of the state’s treaty agenda by displacing First Nations people.

The report also found the government had used the term “social housing” to “transfer public housing tenants into a privatised model”, noting public housing was10 per cent more expensive for the state to build due to federal tax laws.

Opposition housing spokesman David Southwick has committed to releasing the documents if the Coalition wins government next year.

“The public deserves to know what Labor are hiding and exactly what they have signed taxpayers up to,” Southwick said.

Victorian Greens housing spokesperson Gabrielle de Vietri said the report left Labor “totally exposed”, describing the plan as “indefensible”.

However, Labor MPs on the non-government-controlled committee rejected the findings in a dissenting report, accusing the committee of ignoring “irrefutable” evidence that the towers were uninhabitable.

Ryan Batchelor told parliament the inquiry ignored safety risks, including that 95 per cent of lifts across the estates could not fit an ambulance stretcher. “We need a plan to replace these towers,” he said.

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