We've Done This Twice Already!
In March 2026, we submitted a formal request for partnership to the then-Minister for Youth Justice, Enver Erdogan MLC. Five specific recommendations co-signed by the President of the United Pasifika Council of Victoria. Before we had an answer, the ministry reshuffled. We resubmitted the same request, this time to the new Minister, Paul Hamer MP.
Seven months later, on 14 July 2026, we finally received a signed response. It didn't address a single one of our five recommendations.
Sixteen days after that, the Premier resigned. Ben Carroll has now been sworn in. A new cabinet is coming, and it's likely someone else again will hold Youth Justice, or the Violence Reduction Unit, once it's announced.
We may be about to do this a third time: explaining, from the start, who we are, what evidence we've built, and what we're asking for, to another minister who will need catching up.
This isn't really a story about one minister's non-answer. It's a story about what happens to community advocacy when the people at the table keep changing before anyone has to actually answer. We've been building this case since December 2025: two full cohorts delivered, zero re-offending recorded, a peak body endorsed submission, a parliamentary question, five recommendations. None of that changes. What changes is who's meant to respond to it, over and over.
For a community already used to being asked to wait, that instability isn't neutral. It teaches you not to expect an answer at all. We don't think that's what anyone intends, but it's the pattern we're being asked to accept: we do the work of building trust and evidence, and government resets the clock every time it reshuffles.
Today we're publishing our Public Evidence Brief: the submission, the ministerial response, and the full documented timeline since December 2025. Not because we think it fixes the churn, but because a public record makes it harder to lose the thread the next time the ministry changes hands.
[Link to Public Evidence Brief]
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