General News
1 September, 2024
Youth crime on agenda
FORMER council candidate Shane Cuthbert is throwing his hat in the ring for the October state elections as an independent with a focus on housing and a more compassionate take on youth crime.
The lawyer and former youth offender said he was not giving up on making Cairns better.
After his unsuccessful run at local elections, he’s now decided to run as an independent candidate for Cairns at the October 26 state election to exercise change for the city from the grassroots.
In an exclusive interview with Cairns Local News, Mr Cuthbert announced his candidacy and his desire to change the rhetoric around youth crime as a state member for Cairns.
“People don’t want the cookie cutter, people want genuine,” he said.
“I think politicians traditionally have a bad rap, they’ve always been seen as untrustworthy. I ran a council campaign where I was completely upfront about my own criminal history and that resonated with people.
“People are starting to see they would rather have somebody rough around the edges that is genuine and also someone that also has the courage to stand up to the major parties.”
Mr Cuthbert said his focus was on youth crime from a reformative and educational perspective and a tough stand on housing.
“Youth crime is a space that I know very well,” he said.
“Both parties (LNP and ALP) are really coming out with this ‘tough on crime’ rhetoric that I don’t think is helping. I think we need to go the other way.
“We need youth centres. Thankfully, we have one opening, but that’s a member of the public, Perri (Conti) who’s put her own money into that. It shouldn’t be residents having to do that, these are government issues.
“We have more young people incarcerated in Queensland than any other state, and now we’re seeing crime out of control because we have a lot of little kids who were locked up without support, without rehabilitation and are now being released.
“With housing, we shouldn’t have closed the Quigley St homeless shelter, we should’ve instead expanded it and for homelessness we have to seriously open up the housing market.
“One of the big things that I’ll be doing is working with the Cairns council to have a priority development area on the south side which (the) council has asked state government for.”
Mr Cuthbert asked the community to put their trust in an independent candidate these elections.
“It’s not easy running as an independent but I want to stand up and say – ‘Hey, I’ll fight for you’,” he said. “A vote for me is a vote for Cairns. If you vote for LNP or ALP that’s a vote that’s going to Brisbane and I think the people of Cairns have had enough of people in Brisbane making decisions about them. They want some real representation.
“I’m not here for the pay cheque, I’m someone who has lived and understands the struggles. I want a seat at the table to help the community.”
