Queensland’s urgent move to change laws allowing the indefinite detention of children in watch houses came after advice from the state’s solicitor general suggesting young people may have been illegally detained for years.
The Palaszczuk government suspended the state’s Human Rights Act on Wednesday to introduce legislation to allow children to be kept in watch houses and adult prisons “even if it would not be compatible with human rights”.
The emergency legislation – which passed on Thursday – was added to an unrelated bill, along with a list of other changes contained in 57 pages of amendments.
The youth justice minister, Di Farmer, told media the government had received advice from the solicitor general on the weekend after a supreme court challenge earlier this month had argued the detention of three children in police watch houses for extended periods was unlawful.
While the court ordered the urgent transfer of the three children from watch houses, after the government failed to produce the appropriate court orders, it did not address the question of the broader scheme’s legality.
However, the director general of the youth justice department, Bob Gee, revealed on Thursday the solicitor general had subsequently informed the government their interpretation of the Youth Justice Act over the past 30 years was “likely incorrect”.
The act says children remanded in police custody must be moved into youth detention “as soon as practicable”. However, for several years at least, children have been held for extended periods of time, in some cases up to 40 days, largely due to overcrowding within youth prisons.
Farmer said if a further court challenge was brought it was “highly likely that every single young person would have been transferred immediately from the watch house to the youth detention centre”.
Earlier this year a Queensland magistrate expressed concern about children being held in watch houses where “adult detainees are often drunk, abusive, psychotic or suicidal”.
Documented concerns include a lack of appropriate facilities for girls, lack of access to showers, clean clothes or sunlight.
A watch house whistleblower told Guardian Australia in February he had witnessed “illegal” strip-searches of children, and a girl placed in a cell with adult men.
Farmer said there were more children in youth detention centres than ever before as a result of the “strong laws” introduced by the state government this year, which included making breach of bail an offence for children.
Asked whether the government was setting a “dangerous precedent” by overriding the state’s Human Rights Act, Farmer said the government was prioritising community safety.
The minister said it was not an issue the government had taken “lightly”.
“No government wishes to override the Human Rights Act,” Farmer said. “What we were doing this week is on the very clear advice of the solicitor general to address what would have been a high-risk issue for young people [by forcing them into overcrowded] detention centres.”
Speaking during the debate, the shadow police minister, Dale Last, said the way the amendment had been “buried in a child protection bill” was “nothing short of a disgrace.”
The Greens MP Michael Berkman said the government’s “disregard for democracy” was “extraordinarily” disappointing. “I think the government has sunk to a new low,” he told parliament.
The leader of Katter’s Australian Party, Robbie Katter, said the government had “set a precedent” of rushing legislation through without consultation.
But the police minister, Mark Ryan, defended the amendment, saying it fixed a “technical error” and ensured “community safety”.
The Labor MP Jonty Bush conceded “children don’t belong in watch houses” but said “there is a worse place you can visit a child, and that’s in a morgue.”
A coalition of social service organisations has condemned the amendments, saying they will not make Queensland safer and will only harm disadvantaged and vulnerable children.
The state’s human rights commissioner, Scott McDougall, said allowing children as young as 10 to be held indefinitely in “what are essentially concrete boxes” means “there are farm animals with better legal protections in Queensland than children”.
The Queensland Council of Social Service chief executive, Aimee McVeigh, said Queenslanders should not have to choose between community safety and “the legal rights of children”.
“As a sophisticated society, we should be able to do both,” she said. “Evidence shows us that the younger a child is when they are detained, the more likely they are to go on and commit offences. Watch houses are not an appropriate solution.”
