Well, I thought the Victorian government reneging on its commitment to increase the minimum age of criminal responsibility to 14 was the low point. But I didn’t reckon with just how far down the Coalition parties were prepared to go.
Enter the new Country Liberal Party government of the Northern Territory and incoming Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro, who has made the post-election promise to take the NT’s minimum age of criminal responsibility down to 10. Evidence-based this is decidedly not; the age was only increased from 10 to 12 in August 2023, and youth crime statistics have not seen a spike in that year.
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