For many years, the issue of when a child can commit a crime has been quietly ticking away, but now the Government has stepped in, as they always do, and changed a system that had flaws; instead of fixing them, they have exacerbated them.

In 2024, the Government lifted the age of criminal responsibility, Doli Incapax, to 12 years, meaning children aged 10 and 11 could no longer be held criminally responsible.

Now the chickens have come home to roost with an 11-year-old armed with a kitchen knife, an edged weapon, and an imitation firearm, entering another classroom at a Primary School and injuring an 8-year-old child and a teacher with the knife. As reported in the Herald Sun, 29th of November 2025.

The 11-year-old apparently stormed a grade 1 classroom, making threats.

If that is accurate, it is tough to argue that the 11-year-old didn’t know his action was criminal.

The aggravating factor is that the 11-year-old was carrying a kitchen knife, so he was undoubtedly intending to storm another class, demonstrating an element of planning and premeditation well before the incident.

This was not some schoolyard tiff that got out of hand, but a deliberate, thought-out attack.

The problem is not as narrow as dealing with a young child, but rather that the Courts need to play a role to ensure that the child is put on the right path.

Simply sending a child who has committed what would otherwise be a crime on their way without a hint of a sanction is tantamount to giving them a free ticket, rewarding bad behaviour.

In these circumstances, not only is the 8-year-old a victim, but so is the 11-year-old, a victim of a poor legislative approach to the handling of juvenile crime.

There is a desperate need, at a minimum, to revert to the age provisions previously in place, whereby children between 10 and 14 can only be charged if they understand the criminality they have committed, and if they do not, ask why not?

Removing the 10-year-old limit would be very positive for the child as well as society. Removing the lower restrictions to allow the courts to decide, on a case-by-case basis, and on the evidence, and independently resolve whether the doctrine of Doli Incapax applies in that particular case. This resolves the flawed one-size-fits-all approach.

This would allow the court to make orders to protect the child, if necessary, as well as test whether the child knew what they were doing was criminal.

There was once a provision for dealing with children who were likely to lapse into a life of vice or crime.  It might be a good time to resurrect such a provision.

The development of our younger generation now makes them better informed and more mature than that of their peers 20 years ago, but we are raising the age of criminality rather than lowering it, which would be more practical.

Allowing anybody of any age, but particularly young people, a free ride to flaunt the law and commit heinous crimes, which this 11-year-old did, is a recipe for disaster, promoting the idea that crime is free from sanctions, which therefore loses its deterrent effect.

The chance of this 11-year-old ending up on the end of a machete is real; it will be sheer luck which end he ends up on.

We need to remember that a child of any age can swing an edged weapon – the weapon does not discriminate by age.

The legal concept of Doli Incapax is surely outdated.  Ten-year-olds should have had four or five years of schooling.  If they have not received education on the evils of criminal behaviour by then, it is a sad indictment of their parents and particularly of the education system.