Mr STIRLING - 1998-04-22
He was caught out, during the election campaign last year, issuing dodgy graphs on the impact of mandatory sentencing. I seek leave to table a graph using his own data on mandatory sentencing offences. My graph shows that there has been no significant change in the crime rate since mandatory sentencing was imposed. If the figure is taken over 4 years, it is a flat line. Will the Attorney-General admit that his boasts about mandatory sentencing are false and that his interpretations are extremely dodgy?
Madam SPEAKER: Is leave granted to table the graph?
Mr STONE: What is he tabling, Madam Speaker? I would like to see it before I answer the question because I do not recognise that as anything that has ever emanated from my office. I know the one that was issued during the election campaign. That is not it. I do not accept ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: Madam Speaker, leave is not granted.
Mr Bailey: Leave has been granted. You are too late.
Mr Stirling: You could not give a better response. That is absolutely the best response we could have had.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr STONE: Madam Speaker, the way it was put was that it was the graph that I had circulated ...
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Mr Stone: Will you let me finish? I have not finished.
Mr STIRLING: Let me give you the question again so that it is clear.
Mr Stone: No, I have not finished.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nhulunbuy, please resume your seat.
Mr STONE: Madam Speaker, I will not lend my name to a graph other than the one that I circulated during the election. This is not it.
Ms Martin: We did not say it was.
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Mr STONE: You said it was.
Mr Bailey: We did not. Clean the wax out of your ears, you dill.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! This is the last warning for the member for Wanguri. Next time, he will be out. I ask for some clarification from the member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr STIRLING: Madam Speaker, for the benefit of the Attorney-General - and I appreciate that he is a little clogged up - I will go through the question again. The Attorney-General was caught out during the election campaign last year, as he knows, issuing dodgy graphs on the impact of mandatory sentencing. I sought leave to table a graph, using his data, that I have prepared on mandatory sentencing offences. The difference is that my graph shows that there has been no significant change in the crime rate since mandatory sentencing was imposed. It uses the figures over 4 years - unlike his graph which simply took a very select, tight little time frame of 12 months. He knows that, if the full time-line over 4 years is taken, it comes up with ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STIRLING: Will he admit that his boasts about mandatory sentencing are false and his interpretation and graphs are dodgy?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I accept this as a graph generated by the member for Nhulunbuy. It is certainly not the graph that was distributed by me during the campaign. I want people to be clear about that. It is Labor's graph, not mine. I guess the Labor Party had to do something in Question Time to try to explain why, to this day, it has consistently opposed mandatory sentencing. However, one could be excused for being a little confused as to where the Labor Party is coming from.
I shall be making a ministerial statement on this entire issue at the conclusion of Question Time. The Leader of the Opposition never knew where she was on mandatory sentencing. In fact, Territorians will remember that she told the electorate before the election that she would leave it in place for 12 months to see what happened. She nods. That is true. Yet, within weeks of losing the election, the ALP had a state conference and came out with a definitive policy that it was no longer prepared even to try it. It abandoned its support for it entirely.
Mrs Hickey interjecting.
Mr STONE: The Leader of the Opposition may mumble all she likes, but those are the facts. I do not doubt ...
Mrs Hickey: Now we are 12 months down the track. What we said was true.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Leader of the Opposition.
Mr STONE: I do not doubt that the Leader of the Opposition is acutely embarrassed by the on-again, off-again policy decisions that were being taken.
Mr Bailey: Mandatory life for rape - that was your ...
Mr STONE: If the member ...
Mr Bailey: On again, off again?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: If the member for Wanguri will be quiet, in my ministerial statement I go through it very methodically, offence by offence. It is quite clear that property-related offences are all down, regardless of some concocted graph that the member for Nhulunbuy tries to pass off as providing support for his policy ...
Ms Martin: They are your figures, Shane. We have not made up the figures. They are your own.
A member interjecting.
Mr STONE: My colleague interjects. He says that the graph does not even give a source, and that is true. Of course, the source is the fertile imagination of the member for Nhulunbuy.
Surely members opposite were given the message when even Bob Collins would not vote against mandatory sentencing in support of the Democrats' motion in the Senate.
Ms Martin: No, that is a lie, Shane.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
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Mr STONE: He made it quite clear that, whether people liked it or not ...
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr STONE: In fact, I think he said it at his final farewell function.
Ms Martin: He despises it.
Mr STONE: He said that, like it or not, Territorians support it. And it works. Offences are down. I am happy for opposition members to go to the community and continuously oppose mandatory sentencing. I urge them to oppose it loudly and to tell everybody on any street corner that they are opposed to it because I will be telling Territorians not only that I support it, but that it works. As for the report that appeared in the NT News on Monday, the figures that were provided are not the figures of the police department at all. I know it must stick in the craw of members opposite to have this policy in place, fully supported by the electorate, and working. I shall persist in saying that people who break into our homes, who steal our cars and who damage our property will go to jail - no ifs, no buts. That is the view of the electorate and that is the view of this CLP government. Let the electorate know that the Labor Party parliamentary wing is more interested in the perpetrators than it is in the victims.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, it is now 10.30 and only 3 questions have been asked, due partly to the numerous interjections and partly to the lengthy answers. Let us have some questions answered in silence. Let the interjections cease so they do not detract from the answer the minister is giving. If members of the opposition continue to interrupt as they have been doing, we will get through no questions whatsoever. Only 3 in half an hour is just not good enough.
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Madam SPEAKER: Is leave granted to table the graph?
Mr STONE: What is he tabling, Madam Speaker? I would like to see it before I answer the question because I do not recognise that as anything that has ever emanated from my office. I know the one that was issued during the election campaign. That is not it. I do not accept ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Wanguri.
Mr STONE: Madam Speaker, leave is not granted.
Mr Bailey: Leave has been granted. You are too late.
Mr Stirling: You could not give a better response. That is absolutely the best response we could have had.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr STONE: Madam Speaker, the way it was put was that it was the graph that I had circulated ...
Mr STIRLING: A point of order, Madam Speaker!
Mr Stone: Will you let me finish? I have not finished.
Mr STIRLING: Let me give you the question again so that it is clear.
Mr Stone: No, I have not finished.
Madam SPEAKER: Member for Nhulunbuy, please resume your seat.
Mr STONE: Madam Speaker, I will not lend my name to a graph other than the one that I circulated during the election. This is not it.
Ms Martin: We did not say it was.
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Mr STONE: You said it was.
Mr Bailey: We did not. Clean the wax out of your ears, you dill.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! This is the last warning for the member for Wanguri. Next time, he will be out. I ask for some clarification from the member for Nhulunbuy.
Mr STIRLING: Madam Speaker, for the benefit of the Attorney-General - and I appreciate that he is a little clogged up - I will go through the question again. The Attorney-General was caught out during the election campaign last year, as he knows, issuing dodgy graphs on the impact of mandatory sentencing. I sought leave to table a graph, using his data, that I have prepared on mandatory sentencing offences. The difference is that my graph shows that there has been no significant change in the crime rate since mandatory sentencing was imposed. It uses the figures over 4 years - unlike his graph which simply took a very select, tight little time frame of 12 months. He knows that, if the full time-line over 4 years is taken, it comes up with ...
Members interjecting.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STIRLING: Will he admit that his boasts about mandatory sentencing are false and his interpretation and graphs are dodgy?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I accept this as a graph generated by the member for Nhulunbuy. It is certainly not the graph that was distributed by me during the campaign. I want people to be clear about that. It is Labor's graph, not mine. I guess the Labor Party had to do something in Question Time to try to explain why, to this day, it has consistently opposed mandatory sentencing. However, one could be excused for being a little confused as to where the Labor Party is coming from.
I shall be making a ministerial statement on this entire issue at the conclusion of Question Time. The Leader of the Opposition never knew where she was on mandatory sentencing. In fact, Territorians will remember that she told the electorate before the election that she would leave it in place for 12 months to see what happened. She nods. That is true. Yet, within weeks of losing the election, the ALP had a state conference and came out with a definitive policy that it was no longer prepared even to try it. It abandoned its support for it entirely.
Mrs Hickey interjecting.
Mr STONE: The Leader of the Opposition may mumble all she likes, but those are the facts. I do not doubt ...
Mrs Hickey: Now we are 12 months down the track. What we said was true.
Madam SPEAKER: Order! Leader of the Opposition.
Mr STONE: I do not doubt that the Leader of the Opposition is acutely embarrassed by the on-again, off-again policy decisions that were being taken.
Mr Bailey: Mandatory life for rape - that was your ...
Mr STONE: If the member ...
Mr Bailey: On again, off again?
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Mr STONE: If the member for Wanguri will be quiet, in my ministerial statement I go through it very methodically, offence by offence. It is quite clear that property-related offences are all down, regardless of some concocted graph that the member for Nhulunbuy tries to pass off as providing support for his policy ...
Ms Martin: They are your figures, Shane. We have not made up the figures. They are your own.
A member interjecting.
Mr STONE: My colleague interjects. He says that the graph does not even give a source, and that is true. Of course, the source is the fertile imagination of the member for Nhulunbuy.
Surely members opposite were given the message when even Bob Collins would not vote against mandatory sentencing in support of the Democrats' motion in the Senate.
Ms Martin: No, that is a lie, Shane.
Madam SPEAKER: Order!
Page 185
Mr STONE: He made it quite clear that, whether people liked it or not ...
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr STONE: In fact, I think he said it at his final farewell function.
Ms Martin: He despises it.
Mr STONE: He said that, like it or not, Territorians support it. And it works. Offences are down. I am happy for opposition members to go to the community and continuously oppose mandatory sentencing. I urge them to oppose it loudly and to tell everybody on any street corner that they are opposed to it because I will be telling Territorians not only that I support it, but that it works. As for the report that appeared in the NT News on Monday, the figures that were provided are not the figures of the police department at all. I know it must stick in the craw of members opposite to have this policy in place, fully supported by the electorate, and working. I shall persist in saying that people who break into our homes, who steal our cars and who damage our property will go to jail - no ifs, no buts. That is the view of the electorate and that is the view of this CLP government. Let the electorate know that the Labor Party parliamentary wing is more interested in the perpetrators than it is in the victims.
Madam SPEAKER: Honourable members, it is now 10.30 and only 3 questions have been asked, due partly to the numerous interjections and partly to the lengthy answers. Let us have some questions answered in silence. Let the interjections cease so they do not detract from the answer the minister is giving. If members of the opposition continue to interrupt as they have been doing, we will get through no questions whatsoever. Only 3 in half an hour is just not good enough.
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Last updated: 09 Aug 2016