Courier Mail associate editor, Kylie Lang, recently came down strongly on politicians whom, she alleges, tell porkies. Donald Trump is an obvious candidate because he has become renowned over the years for being blatantly dishonest in his dealings with others. She then swings to her favourite target Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese with the Coalition mantra about him not keeping to a promise to reduce energy bills, even though his extensive energy rebates led to far bigger savings in most Australian households than $275.

She enlists Matt ‘fossil fuel’ Canavan who plies climate solutions that belonged to a bygone age, to back up her argument. Many more coal mines are closing down than opening up. Those on the lowest incomes do not have an air conditioner or a pool to drain. They had to accept zero tax cuts from the government to which Canavan belonged.

When she switches to David Crisafulli she explicitly says” the opposition” claimed he has cherry-picked his crime figures. No Kylie, the experts such as the highly-rated criminologist Terry Goldsworthy are also saying this. Goldsworthy also pointed out that crime figures had already started to come down many months before the election last year. Police figures backed him up. Crisafulli, supported by his media backers, chose to ignore the latter and went full throttle on a youth crime scare campaign. Contrary to what he said on election night last year, the people did not choose hope over fear, they chose bewilderment over reality, inculcated persistently, despite the declining trends in youth offences.

Youth crime continues unabated in Queensland. With the latest murder of a 57-year-old man by teenagers, one as young as 15, the ‘adult crime, adult time’ slogan comes sharply into focus.

David Crisafulli disingenuously says he’ll now ‘allow’ the courts to do their job. We do have the “separation of powers” which allows the courts to use their judicial discretion and give sentences contrary to those the executive branch of government would like.

During the election campaign there was a constant tirade from the LNP against Labor’s handling of youth crime, but as Terry Goldsworthy respected criminologist points out, youth crime was already coming down under the Labor government of Steven Miles. This was backed up by police records at this time.

Notably, Goldsworthy was also critical of the Campbell Newman-Jarrod Bleijie bikie laws which were discriminatory in that the same time was not equitably given for the same crime.