The West Australian premier has been accused of ‘ableism’ in his response to young people rioting at the state’s only juvenile detention centre.

Last week Mr McGowan told media that the riots at the prison were a “form of terrorism”.

He also asserted that disabilities, including fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, were being used as “an excuse” for “appalling behaviour”.

Mr McGowan said the state needed to “actually hold people to account for what they do” and that “juveniles need to get the message, it’s not ok”.

On Friday Mr McGowan attempted to walk back his comments saying disabilities made “things more understandable” but “shouldn’t excuse things”.

The Premier was responding to almost 50 detainees who escaped their cells on Tuesday evening. The inmates rioted for 12 hours, starting fires and climbing onto the roof to throw things at staff and police, before a tactical response team was called to the prison.

The stand-off ended at 9am on Wednesday when inmates were held at gunpoint and told to lie flat on their stomachs on the roof before being detained.

The riots followed a string of incidents at the detention centre with continued calls for it to be shut down.

They came to call for change.

Among about 100 protestors outside Western Australia’s Banksia Hill juvenile detention centre on Sunday afternoon was Lee-Anne Mason.

Mason is a close relative of two detainees – one in Banksia, the other in the equally grim Casuarina prison’s Unit 18 where young people are sometimes kept. She says she is personally alarmed at the treatment of Indigenous youth and aware of the growing anger with claims they are being locked down for much of the day due to staffing shortages.

“Being locked down 23, 24 hours a day, having visits cancelled, phone calls cut short, no family members contact for weeks … these kids need to be able to have contact with family, friends, just to have some normality,” she said.

“I’m just re-traumatised again, the way these kids are being treated. We need to be a voice for the kids to make changes.

“There’s got to be some way to have change, something’s got to be different.”

Mason said that authorities and the state government needed to work with the local community and Indigenous elders to provide support to young people and break the cycle of incarceration.

“The grandmothers, grandfathers, aunties, uncles, they need to tap into the people that aren’t part of the system, because that’s what is broken.”

Protesters and Aboriginal advocates have criticised the treatment of young people incarcerated inside WA’s Banksia Hill youth detention centre.

First Nations female leaders from across Australia are demanding immediate reform to Western Australia’s approach to youth justice in the wake of today’s riots at the Banksia Hill Juvenile Detention Centre.

Hundreds of First Nations women are attending the Wiyi Yani U Thangani National Summit in Canberra this week, including Commissioner for Children and Young People WA Jacqueline McGowan–Jones, Acting Northern Territory Children’s Commissioner Nicole Hucks, member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples Associate Professor Hannah McGlade, and representatives from Grandmothers of Close Don Dale Now!

Aboriginal and Social Justice Commissioner June Oscar AO said: “These children need to be cared for in a trauma informed and culturally appropriate way. This country needs to urgently address the crisis in youth justice to prevent further harm to children in detention, and to reduce youth offending through effective systems of support.

“The vast majority of young people in the youth justice system, including those involved in this morning’s events, have experienced significant trauma in their lives, which impacts on their health and wellbeing. This means that every decision made about them, and every response to their behaviour needs to be aimed toward care and rehabilitation,” Commissioner Oscar said.

Commissioner for Children and Young People WA Jacqueline McGowan–Jones said: “As Commissioner for Children and Young People in Western Australia I am extremely concerned about the continued lack of care for our children and young people incarcerated. The safety of the children is the number one priority. I urge the West Australian Government to immediately consider new models that include restorative justice approaches as an urgent priority, rather than the heavy handed approach we are seeing play out right now, and too many times before.”

Acting Northern Territory Children’s Commissioner Nicole Hucks said: “First and foremost, we want a peaceful resolution to what is unfolding at Banksia Hill. The frequency of incidents of this nature across the country, including in my own jurisdiction, tell us that we desperately need to reform our national approach to youth justice service delivery, particularly the earlier intervention and prevention of children being engaged in youth justice.”

Associate Professor Hannah McGlade, member of the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples said: “The UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues met recently in New York and were absolutely shocked by the horrific reports of violence and cruel treatment of incarcerated Aboriginal children and youth. We made it very clear to Australia that no child belongs in prison. We also called on the Australian government to immediately remove its reservation to Article 37 (c) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which prohibits cruel and inhumane treatment of children in detention settings. Further, Australia has still not signed the Optional Protocol to the CRC. The Australian Government and the Attorney-General have a clear responsibility that has to date been neglected. We want to see action and appropriate responses. This has to stop. This Government should support an urgent national meeting to address these issues with Indigenous leaders.”

Manager of State-wide Youth Engagement program WA ALS, Sasha Greenoff said: “This continued inhumane treatment of our young people at Banksia Hill Detention Centre and Unit 18 needs to end immediately. Our children are continuing to suffer mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.”

Josephine Crawshaw, Natalie Hunter and Donna Hunter on behalf of Grandmothers of Close Don Dale Now!: “We stand in solidarity with the mothers, grandmothers and children in Western Australia. The treatment of incarcerated Aboriginal children is the continuation of genocide of our people and our precious future. The system is broken. It is designed to keep our children caged as young as 10 years of age. In a progressive country like Australia, this is a national crying shame.”

Rocket Bretherton, Lived Experience NT Network said: “If we treat kids like animals we can’t be surprised when they behave as such – jailing is failing, our kids belong on country, not in cages.”

Janette Milera, founder of the SA Aboriginal Action Group said: “We stand in solidarity with the women and grandmothers against the inhumane treatment of our children in these detention centres. Our children are our future and prisons are not the answer. Our children should be in culturally informed diversion programs on Country, run by communities with our elders supporting their identity and building strong, resilient Aboriginal children.”

Chair of the Close Don Dale Now! movement, Josephine Crawshaw said: “The incarceration of Indigenous children in Australia is an ongoing form of state violence that perpetuates the trauma of colonialism and dispossession. This retributive punishment is not only a violation of the human rights of Indigenous children and their communities, but also undermines the Sustainable Development Goals of creating peaceful, just, and inclusive societies.”

Australia’s National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds said: “I wholeheartedly support the calls of these First Nations women for immediate action to reform youth justice systems across Australia. I encourage the Australian community to engage with my call for submissions to inform a project that will investigate opportunities to reform Australia’s youth justice and child wellbeing systems.”

Lawyer Stewart Levitt, who is leading a class action lawsuit against the state government, said McGowan’s comments on Wednesday were racially driven, noting FASD was 138 times more prevalent in Indigenous children than in the general population. 

“[McGowan] then describes these children … as terrorists. What an extraordinary line that is,” Levitt said. 

Social justice advocate Megan Krakouer said up to 90 per cent of incidents happening at the centre never came to light, and lashed McGowan’s comments as “absolutely atrocious”. 

“It’s demeaning. It’s causing more harm than good, it’s making them feel less than human,” she said.

“They are being detained [up to] 22 hours a day, and this is absolutely frustrating … life is at stake here.

“These children, they will eventually come out of the system. That’s the reality. Do we want these children tocome out worse off, or do we want them to come out and thrive in our community?”

Krakouer’s comments echoed the sentiment of Children’s Court President Hylton Quail, who has repeatedlylabelled conditions at the centre as unlawful, after inmates were locked in their cells for 20 hours or more eachday, missing out on recreational activities and vital reform programs.

Krakouer called for an independent inquiry into Banksia Hill.

“All the footage from Banksia Hill and Unit 18 [at the adult Casuarina Prison] also needs to be given to anindependent person to go through it. The atrocities, the violations, the hurt that has been inflicted upon thesechildren, you will see that first-hand,” she said.

The forum was held on the same day new reports emerged of more serious disturbances at Banksia Hill last week, following a riot on New Year’s Eve that left buildings torched.

The Banksia Hill class action was launched in the Federal Court in December following testimony from hundreds of former youth detainees about inhumane conditions and mistreatment at WA’s only youth detention facility. Megan Krakouer and Gerry Georgatos from the National Suicide Prevention & Trauma Recovery Project, who worked over along period to collect the testimonies, were also present at the forum.

“Even a Royal Commission (would be) just a diversion, as far as I’m concerned,” said Stuart Levitt. “A RoyalCommission can only make recommendations whereas a court makes orders.”

The managing lawyer of the class action, Dana Levitt from Levitt Robinson Solicitors, said “Unfortunately, sometimes, the only way you can hold governments to account is by litigating”.

Another panelist, Denis Reynolds, President of the Perth Children’s Court from 2004 until 2018, said an independent inquiry was crucial.

“[Banksia Hill] is functioning in a degree of secrecy that is very unhealthy,” he told the forum. “We do need an independent inquiry to fully establish the truth of what’s happening in that place.”

Earlier, Mr Reynolds and others lashed WA Premier Mark McGowan for “misleading” rhetoric about children detained at Banksia Hill.

“The Premier is saying these are bad children behaving badly, ignoring all evidence that their treatment insideBanksia is causing the behaviour,” the former judge said.

“The issue at hand is the unlawful and inhumane treatment of children once they enter Banksia Hill and Casuarina.

“It’s the punitive regimes imposed on children that are unlawful. That is the issue.”

Dr Fiona Stanley, public health expert and patron of the Telethon Kids Institute, noted that research shows one third of children detained at Banksia have foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, while many remain untested and treated.

“Nearly 90% of the kids in Banksia have developmental problems that make it very hard for them to obey orders,”she said.

“If you put these kids in better environments, a nurturing environment they do OK.

“Not one child in Banksia at the moment has had an assessment, we found that out from a source last week.”

Dr Stanley said some of the children detained in Banksia Hill and Unit 18 at Casuarina “are not going to be OK”,even in the long term.

“Some of these children are going to be so damaged that they’re not going to have a normal life, and they couldhave,” she said.

Dr Stanley questioned McGowan’s responses to criticism of his government’s handling of the facility, after the former Australian of the Year was threatened with legal action by WA Corrective Services Minister Bill Johnston over an opinion piece she penned in November 2022.

“I’ve been called a liar by the Premier, I guess I could say the same about him,” she told the audience at the forum.

Stewart Levitt, who is a member of the Labor Party, said he felt the party had lost its way.

“I cannot believe the way that McGowan has been permitted by his caucus and by the members of the ALP in WA to hijack the Labor Party in the same way Trump has hijacked the Republican Party, to reject and overlook the policy platforms of the Labor Party,” he said.

WA Greens MP Brad Pettitt criticised the WA government’s “harsher and more punitive” approach after detailing for the forum his impressions of Banksia Hill during a visit.

“They were no place for a child,” he said.

“They were graffitied, they were dirty, they were extremely run down. There is no way a child would come out from that better than they went in.”

In response to questions from the National Indigenous Times, the WA government denied that a Royal Commission had been offered as an inducement to drop the class action and the Premier said his focus was on delivering tangible youth justice outcomes.

“My government announced more than $60 million in November for improvements at Banksia Hill,” the Premier said, citing $10 million to expand mental health services and support programs, $30.9 million boost to deliver infrastructure upgrades, and almost $22 million for a staged expansion of staffing at Banksia Hill.

“The new funding is on top of the additional $25.1 million allocated in the 2022-23 Budget for Banksia Hill – which included funding a new Crisis Care Unit and a new Aboriginal Services Unit,” Mr McGowan said.

“Alongside our $15 million investment into an on-country residential facility in the Kimberley, this brings our investment over the past 12 months into youth justice to more than $100 million.”

The Premier also listed investment in early intervention programs across the state.

“These are complex issues and there are no overnight fixes, but we’re getting on with tackling the problem – rather than just talking about it.”

The WA justice department raises the chronic understaffing at Banksia as having necessitated the isolation of children, often for extended periods, despite solitary confinement use on youths, as well as its prolonged use in general, breaching international minimum standards for inmates.

WA Children’s Court president Hylton Quail remarked in early 2022 that the young at Banksia are treated like animals via the practice of isolation. But as it simply continued on, more disturbances erupted and a “difficult cohort”, one as young as 14, were transferred to Casuarina’s Unit 18.

So, when these young bastardised and demonised Unit 18 detainees rioted on 15 April, injuring seven prison officers, the McGowan government feigned surprise, labelling the youths “appalling”, and has since continued on with the arrangement, with further incidents occurring.

However, key WA prison reformist Megan Krakouer, the Perth Citizen of the Year, asserts that not only are authorities refusing to look beyond the punitive when dealing with lawbreaking youths, but the state of WA has already shown in practice that its well aware other methods are more effective.