Youth justice laws challenged

Child safety advocates have hit out at the Palaszczuk government over the timing of youth justice laws.

The laws were introduced into Parliament last week in response to a number of incidents, including the deaths of a pregnant woman and her partner in Alexandra Hills on Australia Day, who were allegedly hit and killed by a 17 year old from Waterford West.

The laws would see courts issuing G-P-S trackers to 16 and 17 year old offenders and a presumption against bail for teens who commit serious offences.

Matt Gardiner from Save the Children has said  it’s not appropriate when the community is still grieving over recent incidents.

” What we’re really concerned about is how knee jerk this reaction is. It’s not the right environment to be creating knew legislation capitalising on the grief of the community”.