March 14, 2024
Member for Maranoa David Littleproud has called for young criminals to be sent to “outback camps” as a deterrent to youth crime.
Speaking on the Today Show on the Nine Network on Thursday morning, the Nationals leader supported the idea of the Federal Government stepping in to what is usually considered a State responsibility.
He said the States had not done enough to tackle youth crime.
“We have the opportunity through Commonwealth Law, particularly with telecommunications, to be able to reach into this where we are seeing these young juveniles playing online games effectively about getting points for not only the crimes, but how they undertake those crimes,” Mr Littleproud said.
“I’m seeing that even out of my own electorate where they break in, they get extra points (if) they can pull jewellery off a sleeping person.”
Mr Littleproud said juvenile justice and detention had to be done “differently”.
“They don’t fear it anymore,” he said.
“They get to go and play touch (football) and computer games during the night.
“We need to go back to what (we) used to have as outback camps, 200-300 kilometres from towns.
“You don’t need barbed wire. If they want to run away, they have to dodge the king browns and wild dogs.
“But every morning they’re up with a purpose. They are taught a trade, they’re out making fences, building fences, cleaning out water troughs, branding cattle, learning mechanics, and they come away with a purpose in life.
“I think we’re getting a lot of gratuitous advice from a lot of criminologists and child psychologists about how we should treat this but we’ve just got to get back to basic principles about having a purpose in life and actually making sure that we live up to our primary responsibility, keeping our people safe.”
