Armchair_Politician wrote on Nov 3
rd, 2025 at 12:01pm:
A former Victorian Premier says youths who use knives and machetes should go to a “prison farm” and that once they decide to use edged weapons, “they have no rights”.
Jeff Kennett, 77, led the Liberal-National Coalition Government in Victoria from 1992 to 1999.
He has been outspoken about the youth crime crisis gripping the state, including describing Victoria as “f***ed” in an interview in August.
Speaking on Sunday night, Mr Kennett slammed the current government’s soft-on-crime approach that has seen young offenders offered bail time and time again despite violent crimes.
“There is no leadership from the top,” he told Ten News Plus. “There is no respect for the top. And the young people think it’s all a game.”
Asked about magistrates and judges granting bail to young people who use knives and machetes because “locking up kids means that when they’re released they’ll only fall back into a life of crime”, Mr Kennett was emphatic.
“Rubbish. We’re past that stage now. We’ve got to think about the rights of the public. We’ve got to think about the rights of the law abiding 99 per cent of the community.
“It’s alright for us to sit here and say ‘What about a, b, c or d?’ But how does a family react when their son is macheted to death and you and I say ‘What about the rights of the offender?’
“They have no rights, they’ve lost their rights. I think getting out to a prison farm overseen by officers where they can physically work, take you out of the community, put you into a place where you’re working physically during the day, educated in the evening and you go and have a good night’s sleep.”
Former Victorian Chief Magistrate Nick Papas KC is among those who say locking up teens is a “failure of society”.
Speaking to news.com.au, Mr Papas conceded that there is a “core group of young offenders that we have to give up on and lock away”.
But taking a broad brush approach is going to do more harm than good, he said.
“Unfortunately, it pains me to say this, there are a group of offenders that we simply have to warehouse for the protection of society.
A former Victorian Premier says youths who use knives and machetes should go to a “prison farm” and that once they decide to use edged weapons, “they have no rights”.
Jeff Kennett, 77, led the Liberal-National Coalition Government in Victoria from 1992 to 1999.
He has been outspoken about the youth crime crisis gripping the state, including describing Victoria as “f***ed” in an interview in August.
Speaking on Sunday night, Mr Kennett slammed the current government’s soft-on-crime approach that has seen young offenders offered bail time and time again despite violent crimes.
“There is no leadership from the top,” he told Ten News Plus. “There is no respect for the top. And the young people think it’s all a game.”
Asked about magistrates and judges granting bail to young people who use knives and machetes because “locking up kids means that when they’re released they’ll only fall back into a life of crime”, Mr Kennett was emphatic.
“Rubbish. We’re past that stage now. We’ve got to think about the rights of the public. We’ve got to think about the rights of the law abiding 99 per cent of the community.
“It’s alright for us to sit here and say ‘What about a, b, c or d?’ But how does a family react when their son is macheted to death and you and I say ‘What about the rights of the offender?’
“They have no rights, they’ve lost their rights. I think getting out to a prison farm overseen by officers where they can physically work, take you out of the community, put you into a place where you’re working physically during the day, educated in the evening and you go and have a good night’s sleep.”
Former Victorian Chief Magistrate Nick Papas KC is among those who say locking up teens is a “failure of society”.
Speaking to news.com.au, Mr Papas conceded that there is a “core group of young offenders that we have to give up on and lock away”.
But taking a broad brush approach is going to do more harm than good, he said.
“Unfortunately, it pains me to say this, there are a group of offenders that we simply have to warehouse for the protection of society.
“If a kid has had six bails and uses machetes on six occasions to steal cars, sorry, time’s up. You can be warehoused, you can meet other criminals. If you need to grow up to learn these lessons, that’s what’s necessary to protect the rest of us. There is a core group where you just need to lock them up, I accept that.
“But let’s work out who we can save, let’s concede defeat with respect to the group of kids who can’t be saved. But that’s also an admission of complete defeat.
“If our education system and social welfare systems have failed by allowing kids to become like this, then that’s an admission of failure in society.”
The Secretary of the Police Association of Victoria, Wayne Gatt, also laid the blame on the Jacinta Allan-led Labor Government in Victoria.
“This hasn’t happened by accident,” he said of the current crime wave, one backed up by statistics as the worst in decades.
Cont'd...
No... what is a failure of society is the prevalence and the extraordinary rates of juvenile/teen crime today.
As well as poor parenting it is also poor Govt policy around social issues and juvenile justice.
Labors policy to increase the age of criminal responsibility is another factor.
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