Federal Politician Calls for Tougher Laws to Combat NSW Youth Crime Wave That Does Not Exist

“Some of these older kids, they really need to be locked up, whether in juvenile detention centres or whatever,” said federal Nationals MP Kevin Hogan, whose NSW electoral seat of Page sits on the lands of the Bundjalung and Gumbaynggirr peoples.

And he added that they should no longer receive as “many warnings or… as many cautions as they are getting, because they are literally… scaring people.”

Hogan made the comments to radio host James Willis on 2GB Breakfast on Wednesday. Willis suggested “the crime problems in the bush” are taking place in Moree, Kempsey and Dubbo, with the supposed youth crime wave having first been raised by the NSW Labor government last March, when premier Chris Minns appeared to be taking his cue from recent developments in Queensland.

The Nationals MP’s comments this week were sparked by an early morning incident in the NSW regional town of Casino last Saturday, which involved three teens breaking into a house, assaulting a 67-year-old woman, stealing her car and then leading the NSW police on two pursuits.

Yet, while this crime is deplorable, it doesn’t suggest that a full-scale youth crime wave is underway.

Indeed, several mainland jurisdictions have been calling foul on youth crimes waves that aren’t reflected in official statistics and they’re then passing laws to crack down on these false narratives.

Hogan further explained on 2GB on 15 January that as crime is a state issue, he’d written to the NSW minister months ago, asking for a reform of the Youth Offenders Act 1997 (NSW), because, according to the federal MP, kids are getting too many cautions from police, which he puts down to dodgy legislation.

NSW Greens justice spokesperson Sue Higginson, however, was quick to publicly call out Hogan’s assertions on Wednesday.

The Greens MLC made certain that the new laws the Nationals’ MP is calling for were already passed by the Minns government last March, and she added that major party politicians appear to think tough-on-youth-crime rhetoric is an ideal way in which to garner votes right now.

“Stupidly ignorant” politicking

“If ever you needed another reason to know the current federal member for Page needs to go and is not capable of doing his job, here it is,” said Higginson in a 15 February statement posted online. “He’s actually now doing lynch mob politics and it’s not just dangerous, it’s stupidly ignorant.”

“This MP is also completely out of touch,” the Greens member of the NSW Legislative Council continued. “He’s calling for laws that already exist here in NSW – they were passed in March 2024 – and they’re laws that don’t work.”

“His law-and-order shrill is what criminologists refer to as a moral panic – it’s dangerous and baseless.”

Higginson then schooled the federal MP on the facts, starting with that the NSW youth crime rate is in decline, while there’s rather been a spike in break and enters and car thefts. And state politician added that the cost of locking up a child is close to $1 million annually and if a fraction of that was invested into the child’s welfare in the community, gaol time would never be a consideration.

The Greens MLC further outlined that Hogan’s solution of locking up children in prisons doesn’t work to prevent offending, as once an individual enters the system it’s likely to set them up for a career in crime. And Higginson underscored that young offenders are people who’ve been failed by no fault of their own, and that many who end up inside are living with a cognitive impairment or a disability.

“Most countries have worked out locking up kids is not just disgraceful and a breach of international human rights standards, but it doesn’t work, and they have raised the age of criminal responsibility,” the Greens member added. “Here in NSW, we lock kids up as young as 10 years old. Sixty percent of young people behind bars are First Nations young people.”

Nationwide moral panic

The laws that Higginson cited as being passed last March were contained in the Bail and Crimes Amendment Bill 2024. The state premier announced a new NSW tough-on-youth-crime package, of which the legislation was a key measure, on 12 March 2024.

The bill included two new youth crime reforms. The first law, which sunsets after 12 months, provides that youths aged 14 to 17, who commit serious motor theft and break and enter crimes whilst on conditional release for a related crime, then have their bail revoked and are remanded.

The second was a ‘posting and boasting’ offence, which relates to teenagers committing these same motor theft and break and enter crimes and then posting and bragging about them online. If a young person is found to have participated in such behaviour, it can lead to up to 2 years being added onto their overall prison sentence.

Minns told the press on announcing this package that this state would not be raising the age of criminal responsibility from its current limit of 10 years of age, while Victoria then announced in August that it was joining the national ‘youth crime wave’ moral panic, as it was to toughen bail laws and retract on an earlier promise to continue raising the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 14.

The broad crackdown on youth crime that continues commenced in Queensland in early 2023, when that state had to suspend its Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld), so it could pass a youth breach of bail offence that was part of a broader package of youth crime law reforms.

But last year’s election of the Country Liberals into office in the NT in August and the Liberal Nationals in Queensland in October have since seen these jurisdictions roll out draconian crackdowns on youth crime, with the aim of locking up more kids in child prisons, while in Queensland, the Crisafulli government has ensured that prison terms for youths are now to match those of adults.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kids are disproportionately bearing the brunt of all these new measures, due to the racial bias that pervades the nation’s criminal justice system. 

And as the nation continues this campaign of cracking down on Indigenous youth, it should be noted that the go-to example when it comes to a settler colonial nation violently locking up Indigenous children is Israel.

“What’s clear is it’s really only a few older people in positions of power and privilege, who have no expertise in law, criminology, health or social justice services or sensible economics, who engage in dangerous law-and-order, moral panic, lynch mob politics, just so they can get on radio and get some clicks,” Higginson said in ending her assessment of Hogan’s dog whistling regarding locking up kids.