The Queensland opposition has pledged the nation’s toughest sentences for child killers if it wins the next election.

November 4, 2018

The Queensland opposition has vowed to introduce Australia’s toughest punishment for child killers if the Liberal National Party wins the next state election.

The LNP wants a new offence of child manslaughter, with a mandatory 15-year jail penalty, and also proposes increasing the minimum non-parole period for the murder of a child from 20 to 25 years.

LNP Leader Deb Frecklington says she is determined to bring penalties into line with community expectations after the killer of toddler Mason Jett Lee was jailed for nine years with a non-parole period of six years.

“Enough is enough, no more soft punishments. It is time to act,” Ms Frecklington said on Sunday.

Katherine Christensen of the campaign group Act for Mason says there massive gaps in the systems designed to protect children and this is “a real opportunity for change”.

“Mason Jet Lee’s story has definitely exposed some pretty big issues in child safety and our judicial system,” she told reporters.

Mason died in June 2016 in his Caboolture home from a rupture to his small intestine after his stepfather, Andrew O’Sullivan, delivered the fatal blow five days earlier.

The 21-month-old spent the last of those days vomiting, feverish and dehydrated because O’Sullivan failed to get him treatment after hitting or kicking him in the abdomen in response to him crying, also yelling at him to “shut up”.

Six months earlier, O’Sullivan failed to get the boy treatment for a broken leg and perianal injuries so severe a dermatologist who treated him said it was the worst case he had seen in his 40 years’ experience.

The LNP’s pledge comes ahead of the public release of a Queensland Sentencing Advisory Council report into child homicide and the adequacy of current penalties, which found offenders convicted of child manslaughter spent an average of 6.8 years behind bars.

Ms Christensen said this figure was ridiculous.

“It’s laughable and it’s created throughout our membership at a lot of outrage,” she said.

The 10,000 member Act for Mason group will present a 38,000 signature petition demanding change to the sentence handed to child killer to the Queensland parliament this week.