Labor Left branches set to challenge the Premier on youth crime bail laws, Palestine
Labor’s first state conference since taking power is shaping up as a showdown on youth crime bail laws and the Israel-Gaza war.
NSW
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Premier Chris Minns is bracing for a grassroots revolt over laws to tackle youth crime, with the government heading for a showdown with left-wing Labor branches on bail laws at the party’s upcoming state conference.
Western Sydney branches are also mounting a push for the “immediate recognition of Palestine,” amid the threat of independent Muslim candidates running against senior Labor MPs.
The reforms, announced earlier this year making it tougher for teen offenders to be let out on bail, require a bail authority to have a “high degree of confidence” that a young person would not reoffend while on bail.
The test applies to teens charged with committing certain offences while on bail for the same offence.
A motion put forward by the Dulwich Hill/Lewisham Branch calls for the Premier to “halt the proposed laws” and adopt a “youth crime prevention plan as proposed by a coalition of Aboriginal and legal organisations”.
A number of other branches want to force the Labor government to repeal the laws.
The motions predominantly come from Sydney-based branches, rather than regional areas where the problem of youth crime has been most acute. A senior Labor source said the push to wind back youth bail reforms would be one of the main sources of conflict at state conference, with Labor’s Left faction looking to overturn what it sees as a “general overreach on civil liberties”.
Left faction members will also try to overturn tough anti-protest laws that became a flashpoint at the most recent NSW.
A number of branches, mainly from Western Sydney, are also set to cause a headache for the Premier by exposing the party’s division on the Israel-Hamas war.
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