Reason won out over cynical, populist policy on forests, justice

Greg Barns gives a tick of approval to rational, logical Legislative Council decisions last week

SOMETHING remarkable happened in this island’s Parliament last week.

A government’s populist, irrational policies were stopped by politicians who actually looked at the evidence. The Hodgman Government’s latest “law and order” initiative, mandatory minimum jail terms for some sex offences, and its bizarre forestry legislation were voted down by a majority of members of the Legislative Council.

To its credit the ALP was in that group and the Greens voted against both laws in the House of Assembly.

Those MPs who stood up against populist and, in the case of the forestry law, manipulative measures, faced a sulking and nasty attack from the Premier’s office and the Liberal Party, but the victor was democracy and most importantly a rebirth of the idea that good policy should be evidence based if it is to see the light of day.

The ALP in Tasmania should be congratulated for joining the Greens in refusing to support mandatory jail terms. Unlike the ALP in every other jurisdiction in Australia, the Tasmanian party has long taken the view that such laws are unjust, do not reduce crime and interfere with the independence of the judiciary.

Independent MPs who voted in the LegCo — Ruth Forrest, Mike Gaffney, Kerry Finch and Rob Valentine — have not been afraid in the past to stop populism eroding the criminal justice system and did so again last week. The Government wanted to tell courts that they must impose minimum jail terms of two to four years, unless there are exceptional circumstances, for those convicted of serious sexual offences.

To the average citizen this might seem a fine idea, but it is not. Firstly, as Children’s Commissioner Mark Morrissey noted last week in a briefing to the Legislative Council, such laws do not protect children. This is in part because people who commit serious sex crimes do not weigh up the increased risk of a long jail term against committing the crime.

The other major difficulty with fettering the role of courts in sentencing is that it leads to more pleas of not guilty and therefore the harrowing experience of alleged victims giving evidence is exacerbated. And prosecutors, defence and the courts rightly work out ways to circumvent the mandatory sentence provisions to alleviate cases of injustice.

It is extraordinary that the Hodgman Government should introduce such a proposal in the absence of data anywhere in the world of any rigour that shows a correlation between mandatory minimum jail terms and a reduction in sex crimes, or any crimes.

It was equally extraordinary the Hodgman Government would introduce legislation to allow logging of 365,000ha of forests reserved under the hard-won peace deal between the industry and environment groups.

In circumstances where the forestry industry said it did not

want the resource and where global markets have now decided not to invest in conflict areas which Tasmania was for many years, what rational reason could there be for this legislation?

Again, seven Legislative Councillors saw the legislation for what it was: a cynical political stunt by the Liberal Party to create a fight between conservation groups and industry. And no doubt an increase in sovereign risk, which cruels investment and jobs might have occurred to some MPs. A pity the Hodgman Government did not listen to the market before launching this debacle.

The Legislative Council is far from being a beacon for rational policy based voting on all occasions, but in recent times it has demonstrated a capacity to do so that is refreshing in this era of shortterm opportunism and populist gestures.

The Legislative Council is accused by the Hodgman Government and the Liberal Party of rejecting the mandate of the people. This is a hollow argument and one which has no intellectual substance. People vote for governments for many reasons, and in the case of the Liberal Party in 2014 it was because the ALP had been in office in 16 years. There was no clamour and consensus for forestry wars or mandatory jail terms. These policies were rolled out so the Liberals could look tough on crime and anti-green.

Good policy outcomes emerged from last week. That, at the end of the day, is what counts. Populism and cheap political stunts damage communities, perpetuate unfairness and reinforce the cynicism many people have about organised politics today.

Having stood for rational policy this week, let us ensure clever MPs in the Legislative Council, Labor and the Greens refuse to vote for further examples of base populism such as the ridiculous antiterrorism laws that will make parole more difficult than it already is, and which will breed more violent offenders.

Greg Barns was an adviser to state and federal Liberal governments. Disendorsed as the party’s candidate for Denison in 2002, he joined the Democrats. In 2013, he was a WikiLeaks Party adviser.