ON-COUNTRY OFF LIMITS

A GROSS “lack of transparency” about Townsville’s on-country program has prompted a North Queensland MP to call for an urgent review, after the government refused to answer questions about the results.

The Youth Justice Department failed to answer the

Townsville Bulletin’s questions about how many children had completed the region’s sixweek on-country program, or how many kids had been referred to take part since it started almost a year ago.

It comes after the Bulletin reported in January that no children had finished the program.

Opposition spokesman for police Dale Last (pictured right) said the lack of transparency was dismal.

“There’s no outcomes, there’s no KPIS, this is taxpayers’ money that the government’s paying out, and Queenslanders deserve to know what the results are,” Mr Last said.

The state government gave the $1.5 million on-country program tender to Atherton company, Gr8motive, in July last year.

It was originally spruiked as a six-week program, but the

Bulletin revealed in September that juveniles were being taken to Mission n

Beach for a matter of f days.

Data from the e state government's s

Youth Justice report rt revealed that as of 72 November kids had last been year, rer ferred to the programs held in Townsville, Mount Isa and Cairns, which had delivered eight camps for 25 children.

Since then, the Youth Justice Department stated it had held 15 more camps across the three locations, but did not say how many more kids had been referred to the program.

Mr Last said the program should be reviewed, but the department stood firm.

“I don’t think we can wait … given the question marks now that have arisen regarding this program,” Mr Last said.

Indigenous elder Russell Butler (pictured left) said that it was not good enough.

He is calling for support for an alternate on-country program that would take troubled teens out to cattle stations for weeks.

Mr Butler, who has much experience in mentoring, says he has the solution, and is ready to roll out his group’s own on-country program if the government gave it the funding.

Mr Butler said he had four

N North Queensla land cattle stati tions ready to go for an inde depth on-countr try trip of at le least a couple of w weeks.

He said the pr program would la last as long as it needed to turn a child’s life around.

“They’re street kids … we need to get them out,” Mr Butler said.

“They are just brazen criminals and they’re getting worse because police have their hands tied.

“We need to get this program up and running now.”

Mr Butler said they had young mentors ready to work with the teens.

He said the children would also be put to work to help the station owners, through fencing and cattle work.

“The problem is not going away.”

A department spokeswoman said there was no set amount of time for kids to complete the program.

“It takes time to address these individual needs,” she said.

She said the program was monitored monthly against a range of measures, which would all be formally evaluated in 2022.