Victoria’s principal children’s commissioner, Liana Buchanan, fears counter-terrorism laws likely to pass through the state’s parliament will see children as young as 14 deliberately targeted by police, as well as interrogated and held for up to two weeks without charge.
In a submission to the scrutiny of acts and regulations committee, the commission for children and young people said the legislation would allow children to be detained and questioned even in situations where they were peripheral to or unaware of planning for a terrorist attack.
“For example, a child could be subject to a preventative detention order if he or she has been given items connected with a terrorist attack by an older family member, whether or not the child is aware of or involved in the planning of such an attack,” the submission says.
“Similarly, a child could be subject to a preventative detention order where he or she has not been directly involved in a recent terrorist attack but, because of the involvement of older family members or associates, the child’s detention is considered necessary to preserve evidence.”
The submission also said there was concern that these “broad and undifferentiated tests” could result in police and intelligence agencies relying on the preventative detention and questioning of children, deliberately targeting them as an “easier means of obtaining information or evidence”.
A preventative detention order allows terrorism suspects to be detained and questioned without charge, though how the orders are used and carried out differs between each state and territory.
The new legislation introduced in Victoria’s parliament is a result of a review of the state’s counter-terrorism laws following the Brighton siege in 2017. An expert panel charged with leading the review advised the government that the preventative detention scheme should be altered to apply to minors aged as young as 14. The scheme is currently limited to those aged 16 years or over.
“Although it is a matter of great regret, the panel is persuaded that in the current environment there is a serious risk of minors as young as 14 or 15 engaging in terrorist activity,” the review found.
There have also been moves through Coag to develop nationally consistent legislation around preventative detention orders. New South Wales is the only state that allows children as young as 14 to be detained under the orders, but Buchanan said she fears the push for national consistency will see other states and territories following without putting in the necessary safeguards.
“While I understand the need for national consistency I have not been persuaded in the Victorian context that there is evidence these orders should apply for children as young as 14,” Buchanan told Guardian Australia.
She said she was grateful the Victorian legislation, if passed, would mean that she would have to be notified if a child was detained using a preventative detention order and she would be required to have immediate access to the child. No such monitoring safeguards exist in the NSW legislation.
“If other jurisdictions follow and introduce these extraordinary powers to detain 14-year-olds not charged of committing any offence, then there needs to be a strong monitoring function,” Buchanan said.
She said she was disappointed the Victorian government had rejected the expert panel’s recommendations that children should only be detained under the scheme if the courts had exhausted all other means of achieving a similar outcome.
“So for example if police are concerned about a child disposing of an item vital to an investigation, perhaps the court could order that the child hand over the item, rather than approving a preventative detention order and removing child from their family and community, and putting them into detention without charge,” she said.
