General News
29 September, 2026
Impacts of crime dominate hearing
THE devastating impacts of home break-ins, car theft, graffiti, vandalism, business losses and school lockdowns were among powerful witness accounts provided to the Justice, Integrity and Community Safety Committee public meeting held in Mareeba last week.
The parliamentary committee was seeking feedback from regional communities on the proposed Breach Bail, Go to Jail and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026 and its effectiveness on reducing crime rates in regional areas.
Among the amendments, the act would introduce a mandatory minimum sentence of one year’s detention or imprisonment for youths and adults who commit serious offences while on bail, unlawfully at large or failing to appear.
More than 70 people attended the two-hour hearing at the International Club last Tuesday, which also heard from stakeholders who outlined the administrative and structural problems with the youth crime system.
One witness told the hearing of the lasting impacts a house break-in had left on his family, with his wife still needing treatment to address the psychological trauma of having her home invaded while they had been sleeping, the financial cost, including the loss of an $80,000 car, and the disappointment in the resulting penalties the offenders received through the courts.
“But the biggest thing they stole was our feeling of safety and security,” the witness said.
He told the hearing he fully supported the breach bail amendments, but said the legislation should go further.
“There should also be a provision for mandatory sentencing. No ifs, buts or maybes, not only for bail breaches but also as a consideration for recidivist criminals.”
Another witness, who is 80 years old, told the hearing he had been broken into seven times.
“I don’t wish it on anybody to be broken into, but seven times …so many things that have been stolen, heirlooms … and replacement value is nil. I think that the parents should be made to pay,” he said.
He said when he attended the courthouse, the offenders “laughed at me because they knew where it was going to go.”
A witness who has driven school buses told the hearing of his experience with school lockdowns in which kids “of all nationalities” ran riot.
One that occurred at the beginning of the year had continued for four hours, with police closing off streets.
“Teachers were getting bashed, thrown on their back – all sorts of terror, and it ended up out on the street, and they jumped up and down on people’s cars and bonnets ... This is a regular thing, also, not only in high schools.”
Another witness provided details of the crimes perpetrated on his family and on the township, which had led to the creation of a public rally over five years ago, attracting some 500 people.
The organising group, which he had been a part of, had sent letters to federal and state government ministers and local government outlining strategies such as curfews and legislation changes.
“Here we are five years down the track from that meeting, and nothing has changed. It’s probably worse than it was,” he said.
“So I just say bring all this legislation, don’t water it down. We’ve had enough of the talkfest, a lot of talk, but very little outcome.”
He also called for the development of a “juvenile correctional centre”, not a detention centre, to be established on the Tablelands.
A parliamentary committee member was moved to say: “I can hear from the emotion and frustration in your voice, and the reaction of the audience, the pain that the town is going through in relation to crime.”
In an opening statement to the hearing, Mareeba Mayor Angela Toppin supported the changes to legislation as her constituents were “absolutely fed up with the revolving door situation”.
“I hear firsthand every day the impact crime is having in my community, on businesses, victims, neighborhoods, and individuals, particularly the elderly,” she said.
“My constituents believe the current system favours young criminals over victims (and) favours repeat offenders over the safety of community, business, and individuals.
However, Mayor Toppin said the legislative changes had to be accompanied by real financial and long-term support for services for young people to break out of the crime cycle.
“This should include ... youth-focused mental health services, youth diversion programs, mentoring, family support services, education and training pathways, and family and domestic violence prevention programs,” she said.
Mayor Toppin said one of her “greatest disappointments” had been when the Mareeba Community Centre’s funding for its nighttime connections program – designed to get youth off the streets – was cut.
“That’s where the problem lies. They are in the streets most of the time because their home situations are dreadful. They’re safer in the streets than they are at home. And then they meet up, and of course they get … led by some very experienced young criminals, and out they go. We lost that program and it was absolutely essential,” she said.
Simlarly, the PCYC nighttime program, at which she volunteered, was another excellent community-led action, that needed financial support.
A former police prosecutor who used to work in the Cairns Children’s Court raised doubts over the effectiveness of the Breach Bail amendments, while providing a window into the issues facing youth offenders going through the courts.
He said 95% of the young children that came before court were under child safety, where there was a short-term order or long-term guardianship order.
“One of the problems that we particularly faced with a lot of those children with breaches of bail was that there was no real supervision from child safety with these children.”
“Some of these kids were also living at residential care facilities where the facility closed from 9am up until 4pm which meant that the facilities weren’t supervised and children were locked out of residential facilities,” he said.
For children who were under parental supervision, often the parents didn’t attend court and were uncontactable, so the children would remain in police custody until someone suitable could collect them.
Another issue was that there was no obligation for young offenders to participate in community service orders when under probation.
“If there’s no actual obligation for them to engage in the program, how are you supposed to address the root cause? It becomes a revolving cycle,” he said.
“These kids are coming back and continuing to breach their probation orders because they’re not getting the proper treatment to address the underlying causes.”
He also described how some children as young as 10 were asking their lawyers to refuse bail, so they could go to a detention centre.
“They’re getting three meals a day, clean clothes … building that relationship with some of these correctional officers, and they’ve got cousins inside and friends. So it becomes an environment where you can’t threaten them with breach of bail or go to jail because it doesn’t impact on their way of thinking, like, ‘oh who cares I actually enjoy going to detention because it’s better than actually going home’.
“So I don’t, as a prosecutor, think that breach of bail going to jail is actually going to resolve any of the youth crime issues in itself. It’s not a scare tactic for these kids.”
The committee highlighted the outstanding issues raised in the hearing including: whether specialised hearings or processes need to be introduced for bail breaches; expansion of supervised placements, watch-house infrastructure and diversion programs; long-term funding for regional services; and how to balance accountability, public safety, rehabilitation and victim support.
Regional hearings in Cairns, Mareeba and Townsville have now concluded, and the committee will prepare a report for Parliament.
