BY GARY MEYERHOFF
DARWIN — The Northern Territory Labor Party said very little about mandatory sentencing during its successful August election campaign, and what it did say was highly confused. The only people who seemed to be saying that Labor would repeal mandatory sentencing were those from the Country Liberal Party, the party which introduced the notoriously punitive law in 1997.
When pushed, Labor finally released its six-point plan to "get tough on crime". Labor promised to double the size of the drug squad and impose an "unofficial" curfew for young people set at 10pm. Further, they would replace the CLP's mandatory sentencing legislation with "sentencing guidelines".
As Claire Martin, the territory's new chief minister, told ABC Radio: "We will strike a compromise between mandatory sentencing and judicial discretion."
As it stands, five weeks into a Labor government, Territorians still do not have a clear picture of what will happen to mandatory sentencing.
After 26 years of rule by the Country Liberal Party, many honestly thought that they would wake up with an ALP government and that would mean "bye-bye mandatory sentencing". This is definitely not the case.
On August 28, 10 days after Labor's unlikely election victory, a 17-year-old man was sentenced to a 28-day mandatory sentence in the Don Dale detention center.
Louise Bennett, the young person's solicitor, encouraged him to seek an adjournment until after the first sitting of parliament, but the young man chose to be detained on that day. He was close to turning 18, and with ambiguity around Labor's stance, he feared having to spend 28 days in the adult jail next year.
The case provoked an immediate response. The Socialist Alliance, which had campaigned heavily against harsh law and order policies during the election, called a protest action outside the Darwin magistrate's court on August 31.
The protesters convened a "people's court" and issued summonses to Claire Martin and to all territory magistrates except magistrate David Loadman, who has refused to issue mandatory sentences until Labor amends the law and has adjourned all cases until next year.
In stark contrast to Loadman, magistrate Dick Wallace told the 17-year-old sentenced on August 28 that "it is not too uncomfortable in Don Dale", "you could do 28 days standing on your head" and "you have made a brave and sensible choice".
Don Dale correctional centre was where a 15-year-old young man committed suicide in February 2000, sparking a national outcry about the territory's mandatory sentencing regime.
Questioned as to whether the new government had advised the director of public prosecutions to stop seeking mandatory sentences and allow adjournments, Labor's attorney-general, Peter Toyne, told ABC Radio that all options remained open to prosecutors.
The director of public prosecutions, Rex Wild QC, has ordered his prosecutors to continue pushing for mandatory sentences.
The Public Order and Anti-Social Conduct Act, introduced during the last days of the CLP's reign, has also escaped mention from Labor now that it has assumed office.
The act gives wide powers to police to declare any behaviour as "anti-social" and therefore illegal, and attracted harsh criticisms from civil libertarians and Aboriginal groups fearing it would be used against, predominantly indigenous, homeless people.
Rushed through by then CLP Chief Minister Denis Burke as a vote-grabber, Labor's Syd Stirling, now the police minister, moved amendments seeking harsher penalties for those using illicit substances, amendments which the CLP voted down. The ALP then voted against the act as a whole.
It seems even less likely that the ALP will now repeal this legislation, rather it willjust tinker with mandatory sentencing.