Key Points
- The Northern Territory has passed laws lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 10 years.
- The laws were adopted by a majority of 17 votes to seven.
- These controversial laws have come under intense scrutiny from experts across the country and internationally in recent weeks.
Children as young as 10 are facing prison as the Northern Territory parliament passes controversial laws aimed at lowering the age of criminal responsibility.
After the territory recently became the first jurisdiction in Australia to raise the minimum age to 12, the new government moved quickly to reduce it to 10.
Parliament passed three changes to youth justice laws on Thursday, including lowering the age of criminal responsibility and criminal provisions relating to ram thefts and laws on bragging and publication.
Under the current criminal code, a person can be charged with raiding property in the Northern Territory. However, the new legislation could sentence children as young as 10 to up to 10 years in prison.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said Labor had raised the age of criminal responsibility without having any programs in place to deal with the fact that children aged 10 and 11 would no longer be held accountable for their actions.
“We know that returning to a system in which the judge is free to decide what to do with a 10 or 11 year old child creates much better opportunities for authorities to intervene early in their lives,” she said .
The controversial laws have faced intense scrutiny from experts across the country and internationally in recent weeks, but were passed by a 17-seven vote by the government.
All except Fannie Bay MP Laurie Zio and Fong Lim MP Tanzil Rahman spoke on the amendments with varying views in parliament.
Members of the country’s Liberal Party spoke about property crimes committed by young people and the damage caused to businesses, calling for the specific need to criminalize ram thefts.
Education Minister Jo Hersey said the behavior of young people driving cars in businesses was “not fair” to anyone in the community.
“Businesses have suffered thousands of dollars in damage from these ramming attacks with the stolen vehicles,” she said.
Deputy Opposition Leader Dheran Young shared the stories of two young people in detention. He read a letter written by an 11-year-old who shared his experiences with his grandmother.
“I’m in a cell. It has a metal toilet. I have a faucet that always runs hot,” the child wrote, according to Mr. Young.
“I have no one to talk to in my cell. I can’t shower. I miss my mother, my father, my grandmother and my brothers, I love them very much.”
His sentiments were echoed by former attorney general Chansey Peach, who led the Labor government’s charge to raise the legal age in 2022.
“We’re talking about people who are deemed too vulnerable to be old enough to be on social media. They have no place in the criminal justice system,” he said.
“I feel sad for the children of the territory, sad because we have a government that has taken a political position that says… to help you, we have to first criminalize you.”
“Putting children in cells…that’s child abuse.”
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