Nine years, 165 mentions in parliament, and a motion and now finally the KAP’s relocation sentencing policy has been adopted by the Queensland parliament, the KAP leader Robbie Katter has said.
The KAP first took relocation sentencing to the 2017 State Election, arguing repeat youth offenders needed to be removed from the environments driving their offending and placed into structured rehabilitation.
“This puts to bed the claim that ‘the KAP can’t achieve anything outside of government’,” Mr. Katter said.
“The LNP government, and credit to them, has adopted the KAP’s policy, and put it in as law.
“We have been arguing this for nine years, while governments told us there was no evidence and refused to act.
“In 2023 we moved a motion to endorse relocation sentencing, which, credit where it’s due, the LNP supported, and now the policy has finally made its way into law.
“This didn’t come out of nowhere. We have raised this policy 165 times in Parliament and repeatedly moved amendments to strengthen the system,” Mr. Katter said.
KAP amendments included removing detention as a “last resort” in 2021, mandatory minimum sentences for repeat offenders in 2023, and mandatory sentences for youth detainees who climbed onto detention centre roofs.
Relocation sentencing allows courts to refer troubled youth to remote areas of the state to participate in a supervised cattle station environment with livestock and horses, learning how to work and be responsible for their actions.
“Labor repeatedly told us no, despite research by Associate Professor Glenn Dawes showing serious offenders often need to be removed from the environments and peer groups driving their behaviour,” Mr Katter said.
“The current system clearly is not working, with 96 per cent of young people released from Cleveland Youth Detention Centre committing another offence within 12 months,” the KAP Leader said.
“We’ve had journalists ask us, along the journey, ‘why do you keep talking about this?’ Well, this is why,” Mr Katter said.
“We kept talking about it because communities were still being terrorised and governments were still refusing to deal with the cause.
“It has taken nine years, but Parliament has finally accepted the principle that serious repeat offenders need to be removed from the environment driving the offending.
“The challenge now is making sure it rolled out properly and delivers the results we know it can.
“The KAP will keep pushing solutions we know will make a difference, including Castle Law,” the KAP Leader said.