Ms MARTIN - 2000-02-22
Mr Speaker, the NT News of 16 February said, and I quote: ‘NT Chief Minister, Denis Burke, said he has already reviewed mandatory sentencing’. Will the Chief Minister tell this House when exactly he carried out this review, what process did he use for the review, what public input was there, when will Territorians see the results published and did the review show improved outcomes for victims of crime?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, as everyone in this House knows, shortly after I became Chief Minister I said I would review mandatory sentencing. I sought advice from a number of quarters including the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, the Police Commissioner, Attorney-General’s departments, various other groups including my own parliamentary colleagues, with regards to changes which I felt were appropriate to our mandatory sentencing laws. I have made those changes. Certainly some of the groups I consulted with by themselves were representative of other organisations and therefore they brought to that forum, to my mind, appropriate consultative mechanisms. It would never be good enough in the Leader of the Opposition’s mind that one does anything other than have some sort of a wide talkfest. I mean, the last time the Labor Party in the Northern Territory looked at law and order issues, I remember the leader at the time, Mr Brian Ede, wrote to a lifer in prison and asked him his opinion on how they could deal with certain changes to laws. That sort of consultation is not in the minds of this government.
I have conducted the review. The changes that we made to our mandatory sentencing laws are most appropriate. There is sufficient avenue for genuine people to avoid detention if they so wish, but for those who continually persist in committing property crime, they most definitely will continue to go to prison. We don’t breach international conventions. I believe that the continuing debate, whilst I have no doubt that the Senate committee report will say that we do, I have no doubt in my own mind that the fundamental issue of the fact is that under the Federation, and the fact that we are a self-governing entity, law and order issues are fundamental to the Self-Government Act, that the rights of Territorians to decide their own laws and to support or otherwise their government to make those laws, will be fundamental in any decision the Commonwealth makes as to intervene or otherwise.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, as everyone in this House knows, shortly after I became Chief Minister I said I would review mandatory sentencing. I sought advice from a number of quarters including the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, the Police Commissioner, Attorney-General’s departments, various other groups including my own parliamentary colleagues, with regards to changes which I felt were appropriate to our mandatory sentencing laws. I have made those changes. Certainly some of the groups I consulted with by themselves were representative of other organisations and therefore they brought to that forum, to my mind, appropriate consultative mechanisms. It would never be good enough in the Leader of the Opposition’s mind that one does anything other than have some sort of a wide talkfest. I mean, the last time the Labor Party in the Northern Territory looked at law and order issues, I remember the leader at the time, Mr Brian Ede, wrote to a lifer in prison and asked him his opinion on how they could deal with certain changes to laws. That sort of consultation is not in the minds of this government.
I have conducted the review. The changes that we made to our mandatory sentencing laws are most appropriate. There is sufficient avenue for genuine people to avoid detention if they so wish, but for those who continually persist in committing property crime, they most definitely will continue to go to prison. We don’t breach international conventions. I believe that the continuing debate, whilst I have no doubt that the Senate committee report will say that we do, I have no doubt in my own mind that the fundamental issue of the fact is that under the Federation, and the fact that we are a self-governing entity, law and order issues are fundamental to the Self-Government Act, that the rights of Territorians to decide their own laws and to support or otherwise their government to make those laws, will be fundamental in any decision the Commonwealth makes as to intervene or otherwise.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016