Exclusive: MLC Stephen Lawrence tells party room government is putting state on ‘slippery slope’ to more punitive approach
The New South Wales premier is facing growing internal dissent over his plan to extend controversial youth bail laws, with one MP telling caucus the laws had put the government on a “slippery slope”.
Sources say Labor MLC Stephen Lawrence – a former barrister and one-time mayor of Dubbo – argued during a February meeting that the government was on a path whereby it could adopt further punitive approaches because the laws introduced a year ago weren’t working.
If crime wasn’t going down there could be calls for even tougher measures, leading to a dangerous downward spiral, Lawrence suggested.
The reforms are aimed at repeat young offenders. They make it harder for 14- to 18-year-olds charged with serious break-and-enter and motor vehicle theft offences while on bail to get bail again.
Lawrence, sources say, warned that the government had created a problem of its own making amid calls for an even tougher approach. At a community rally in Kempsey last month, convened by a local Nationals MP, there were calls for even tougher bail laws.
The Labor backbencher pointed out that when the Nationals raised concerns about youth crime in the regions towards the end of 2023, the party was only calling for an inquiry, not a tightening of youth bail laws. Now, the Nationals have called for the government to go harder and automatically refuse bail to young people accused of being repeat offenders.
The Nationals also proposed reversing the current onus on police to prove children aged between 10 and 14 who allegedly committed an offence had criminal intent and knew what they were doing was wrong.
Minns – who wants to extend the bail laws to 2028 before the trial expires later this year – has argued the laws are working because 90% of children covered by the laws have been locked up on remand instead of being released on bail.
Labor MLC Cameron Murphy has also come out against the laws, telling Guardian Australia that restricting bail for young people was a “mistake”.
“We know from evidence that it simply doesn’t work in terms of community safety. The reason that young people are out committing crime is because home is not a safe place to be,” he said late last week.
Locking them up was not a solution because, in the long term, teenagers that had been in jail instead of school ended up on a path of crime which, ultimately, “made the community less safe”, Murphy said.
During a budget estimates hearing in February, the premier was grilled by the opposition over what Labor was doing to reduce regional youth crime. Minns pointed to a police force boost and the fact remand figures had increased under his government.
Minns, during budget estimates, also said the government had increased youth engagement to tackle the issue and he flagged a new bail accommodation centre for alleged young offenders was expected to open in Moree in June.
“We’re in a situation where we have to provide both safety and rehabilitation for young people in NSW,” he said.
But former magistrate David Heilpern told Guardian Australia success should be measured by whether or not youth crime rates had been reduced –not how many young people were in custody.
According to Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research (Bocsar)) crime statistics for 2024, youth crime remained steady, with a slight uptick in shoplifting offences. A number of regional communities say violent break-ins and car thefts by young people are ongoing.
“We can’t arrest our way out of this problem, and that’s precisely what they’re seeking to do, is to simply lock up more young people, and largely more Aboriginal young people,” Heilpern said.
“We are spiralling into a shock-jock, rightwing-driven response to what is an incredibly complex and societal problem.”
Former police administrator Roy Butler, the independent MP for Barwon, which takes in some of the state’s most disadvantaged communities, recently said that while he supported the laws, they were not a solution. He argued they would not make his community safer in the long-term, as the longer a young person was in contact with the criminal justice system, the more likely they were to continue to reoffend.
There has been previous internal dissent over the youth bail laws policy.
In July 2024, a motion was defeated at the NSW Labor state conference calling for the laws to be repealed. Darcy Byrne, the Labor mayor of the Inner West Council and a vocal critic of the laws, told the conference “there’s no mandate from this conference for this policy” and that advocates and “rank and file Labor party members do not support incarcerating more Aboriginal kids”.
Two supreme court judges have also criticised the laws in court, with justice Stephen Rothman commenting they defied “the principles of equal justice” and justice Julia Lonergan suggesting the changes treated “children’s freedom in a less favourable way than an adult’s freedom in exactly the same circumstances”.
The NSW attorney general, Michael Daley, told Guardian Australia the laws were “carefully calibrated” and had been criticised by some for being too strong and by others for not going far enough.
“The government is concerned about youth crime and will have more to say about further measures designed to help keep people safe,” he said
Minns and his police minister, Yasmin Catley, are also facing mounting calls for an inquiry into whether they misled MPs and the public before controversial hate speech and religious worship bills were rushed through state parliament.