It’s at least 20 years now since the idea was put forward that those who receive support from the community through ‘welfare’ payments have an obligation to society—more or less to show that they deserve that support. The policy was named ‘mutual obligation’, as if to say that we accept we should assist those in need, but in reality the emphasis was upon those who were unemployed or injured to do all they can to get work. ‘Work for the dole’ was one such scheme: if you can’t work in your area of training, at least you must work in some area the government identifies for you. That would fulfil your ‘obligation’.
These ideas have been revised or dressed up in different ways over the years, but the idea is still widely supported: those who received such support do have some kind of obligation, to undertake training and or work of some kind, if they can.
Rarely, however, do we consider the other side of the equation of mutual obligation. What do we owe to those who are unable to work, because there are not enough jobs, or because they are injured, elderly, or disabled.
These questions have come strongly to the fore in the debate (if only there were more of a debate about it!) concerning what is considered the age of criminal responsibility. In the various states of Australia this age has now been set at 10 years of age. Children of ten years can be taken into the criminal justice system and held responsible for actions of violence, theft, and so on.
In Victoria, the government had committed itself to raise this age to 14 years, but in the face of conservative pressure has compromised at 12 years. In the Northern Territory, where there are special concerns about crime amongst First Nations communities, the new government had committed to returning the age to 10 years. They claim that this ‘crack down’ will help to solve the ‘crime problem’.
Ten years old. These are children, whose brains are at least a decade from fully forming, whose personalities are in profound transition, most not even entering puberty. These are children with at most primary education. And the proposal (and policy) is to incarcerate those who commit serious crimes, which is certain to mean they will continue in criminal company and pathways.
If we think about ‘mutual obligation’, I find myself asking what we owe to these 10-year–olds. Before we decide to lock them up or any pathway of ‘diversion’, what should we be providing for them (and for all our children and indeed all our citizens)?
I would begin with safety: a safe place to sleep, to eat, to grow up.
Even before we recognize that we, the majority society, are the colonisers who stole the land from the First Nations, from whom so many in the Northern Territory are descended, we should affirm this obligation to any and every child.
So, too, the opportunity to grow with and learn from their parents and community.
We owe them community, in which they and their family or group are respected and accepted as much as we are.
We owe them education, in their language and the forms of knowledge appropriate to their community and culture.
We owe them food and sustenance.
And supremely we owe them hope: an expectation of life, with choice, opportunity, and self-determination.
I do not presume to have any easy answers to individual instances where crimes have been committed by gangs of youths, some of them so young.
But I believe that any discussion of ‘age of responsibility’ must be overwhelmingly about our responsibilities to these children, our obligations to provide them with the life opportunities they and every young person in this world deserves.
We are a very long way from fulfilling our obligations to them.