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5.08pm
Bail denials trigger juvenile jail rise
By Jack Gramenz and Alexander Darling
Almost 10 classrooms worth of children are in jail in NSW, alone as bail changes trigger a sharp increase in custody numbers.
NSW Premier Chris Minns defended his bail changes on Thursday as data showed more than 230 children were in NSW jails in June.
That figure was 34 per cent higher than two years earlier, the state's crime statistics bureau said.
It reversed a trend of declining numbers of jailed children, the bureau's executive director Jackie Fitzgerald said.
The majority of jailed children have not been convicted, with only 66 in custody due to sentencing.
More than 70 per cent are on remand while they go through the court process.
But the increase is not necessarily driven by laws placing additional tests on bail, suggesting access to bail has tightened.
'It seems to be beyond just the offences that were targeted or the particular circumstances that were targeted under the legislative change,' Ms Fitzgerald said.
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The state government has limited access to bail for children aged 14 and over accused of break-and-enter and motor vehicle theft offences while bailed on similar charges.
Bail for accused domestic violence offenders has also been restricted.
In Victoria, the state government announced changes to it bail laws in March following some high-profile offences.
Parts of the reforms were introduced later so that the state could hire extra corrections staff to cope with the expected influx there.
With AAP
4.59pm
'These are not new ideas': Opposition says Labor supporting ideas it opposed at election
By Alexander Darling
Staying with Afternoon Briefing, and the opposition has had its say on that leaked Treasury document suggesting what the outcomes of next week's productivity roundtable should be in advance.
'I think it's very curious that two of the Treasury ideas were ideas that we had at the last election,' said Shadow Minister for Housing and Productivity, Senator Andrew Bragg, when he went on the show.
'That tells you that the central agency thinks that coalition policy ideas are credible.'
'In fact, the government said during the last campaign that changing the National Construction Code was a bad idea and, in fact, Ed Husic said that it would result in there being bad houses or shoddy housing in Australia.
'So, there was a reason this was our policy - because we knew there was a lot of red tape in the housing sector. And in relation to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, we also had a policy there to remove some of the red tape and to get the approvals moving.'
'These are not new ideas. These are ideas that Labor would have known about last term. But instead of actually helping housing, in the last term, they put in place lots and lots of red tape.'
Bragg also wouldn't be drawn on whether he still supported the opposition's pledge from this year's election campaign, to cut new migrants by 100,000 people a year. Host Patricia Karvelas noted Shadow Home Affairs Minister Andrew Hastie reaffirmed his support for this target last week.
