Andrews vows to start work on raising the age of criminal responsibility within weeks

Premier Daniel Andrews has vowed to start the process of raising the age of criminal responsibility within weeks if state and territory governments cannot reach a national consensus.

Andrews said he would give it one more shot to reach an agreement, but he was not prepared to wait until the next Council of Australian Governments meeting in April to begin the process of lifting the age of criminal responsibility from 10.

Premier Daniel Andrews has vowed to move on raising the age of criminal responsibility within weeks, if state and territory governments across the country cannot reach a national consensus soon.Credit:James Brickwood

“The next [meeting] is in April, and I’m not keen to necessarily wait that long,” Andrews said on Thursday morning.

“The attorney … speaks with her colleagues quite often, so it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a formal meeting. You can get on the phone and talk to people as well.”

Nationally, 10-year-olds can be considered criminally culpable, but federal, state and territory attorneys-general late last year released a draft report that recommended raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14.

A conference of the country’s attorneys-general previously agreed to consider lifting the minimum age to 12.

The Northern Territory government will raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 from next year; the ACT will gradually increase it to 14 by 2027; and the Tasmanian government said it would lift the minimum age on incarcerating youth to 14, but keep the age of criminal responsibility at 10.

The Queensland government ruled out raising the age in the foreseeable future as part of its successful tough-on-crime election campaign in 2020.

Andrews flagged his willingness to raise the age without a national consensus during the first parliamentary sitting day after last year’s state election.

The premier refused to say whether he supported lifting the age to 12 or 14, but said there could be a different age for serious crimes.

“If we think we’ve got the prospect of getting a nationally consistent agreement … then we’d stick with that process, but if it becomes clearer and clearer that it’s unlikely, then we’ll put a proposal to the parliament,” he said.

Raising the age to 12 would only reduce the number of children under 14 in detention from 499 to 456 across the country, justice groups have claimed based on data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

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