The Victorian Labor government’s announcement of its “Adult Time for Violent Crime” bill marks yet another shameful moment in this colony’s ongoing obsession with cages.
In a grotesque display of political mimicry, the Allan government has borrowed a page straight out of the Queensland LNP playbook: rebranding it just enough to pretend it’s something new. But let’s be clear: cosmetic name changes cannot disguise the fundamental violence of this legislative architecture.
‘This is not policy innovation; it is policy regression. It is the same tired, punitive thinking dressed up in “community safety” rhetoric. When governments run out of imagination, they reach for the cage. And whether they wear red or blue, Labor or Liberal, they all reach for the same keys,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
A Bipartisan Addiction to Punishment
Victoria’s Labor government has now joined the Liberal-National chorus, parroting the same law-and-order slogans that have devastated generations of Aboriginal families. By lowering the bar for adult sentencing to children as young as 14, Labor has confirmed what we have always known, that this state, like every other across the continent, has a love affair with locking up Aboriginal children.
‘This is not about protecting victims. This is about protecting political careers. Every Premier who promises to “crack down” on kids knows exactly which kids they are talking about: Indigenous, Black, brown, poor, disabled and criminalised children already abandoned by the state long before their first charge,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘We are seeing first-hand the devastating consequences of this legislation in Queensland. Every day, we witness the harm it is inflicting on children: the trauma, the disconnection from family, the lifelong damage that comes from caging kids instead of caring for them,’ said Debbie Kilroy. ‘Victoria is about to repeat the same catastrophic mistake. You cannot punish children into healing, and you cannot build community safety on the destruction of young lives,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
Children as Collateral Damage
Let’s talk about victims. The Premier and her Attorney-General speak as though there are two distinct categories: the innocent victim and the violent child. But these children are victims too, victims of poverty, colonisation, racism, and systemic neglect. Victims of governments that have failed them again and again.
‘Instead of investing in healing, care, or community, this government’s answer is to condemn them to adult time and ultimately adult prison, as if punishment could ever repair the harm the state itself has caused,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
‘If this government truly cared about victims, it would invest in safety, housing, health care, education, and community infrastructure, not in concrete cells and political headlines,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
The Rotten Fruit of the “Raise the Age” Campaign
We warned this would happen.
‘Those of us who have lived inside the system cautioned that the “Raise the Age” campaign, as it was framed, sent the wrong message to legislators,’ said Tabitha Lean. ‘We were never against protecting children under 14 from criminalisation. We were against creating a false line in the sand that told governments it was acceptable to criminalise children 14 and over,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘Now, the consequences of that political compromise are playing out before our eyes. Labor has seized on that line – 14 years old,’ said Tabitha Lean.
As a national network of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women, we condemn this government’s cowardly betrayal. ‘We are furious, and we are calling on every so-called progressive, every “reformist” organisation that claimed victory in the Raise the Age debate, to reckon with what you have helped create. This is the logical conclusion of compromise. You cannot campaign for half-measures and then be shocked when they are weaponised against our kids,’ said Tabitha Lean.
‘If you raise the age for some children while legitimising the punishment of others, you have not raised the age, you have simply drawn a new line for the system to exploit,’ said Tabitha Lean.
For those of us who have survived the cages, it is enraging but not surprising. This is what happens when compromise replaces courage, and when policy is written without the voices of the criminalised at the table.
Recycling Cruelty from State to State
The Allan government’s decision to import Queensland’s failed “adult sentencing” model shows how colonial governance works: states compete to be tougher, not smarter; more cruel than compassionate.
‘Queensland’s laws are already devastating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and now Victoria seeks to follow. This is the policy equivalent of copying someone else’s cruelty and pretending it’s leadership,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
An Abolitionist Call to Imagination
Governments like to tell us there are “no easy solutions”, as if cruelty is complexity. But the truth is simpler: they lack imagination. They cannot think beyond the cage. And until we force them to, they will continue to destroy lives under the banner of “community safety.”
‘The National Network remind the government that community safety will never be built on the bodies of our children. Safety comes from housing, healing, care, connection, and justice – not incarceration,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
We Say: No More
The National Network reject this imported cruelty. We reject this colonial obsession with cages. We reject a government that dares call itself progressive while writing legislation that will condemn 14-year-olds to adult prisons and lifelong trauma.
‘Our message is simple: stop stealing our children. Stop destroying our futures. And stop pretending that punishment is justice,’ said Debbie Kilroy.
For further comment, please contact Debbie Kilroy on 0419 762 474 or Tabitha Lean on 0499 780 226
