NTPA’s Nathan Finn makes mandatory sentencing appeal to Police Minister Brent Potter

The NT Police Association is calling on the government to introduce mandatory sentencing for anyone who assaults an officer. But opponents have labelled the move ‘a cheap trick’.

The NTPA’s Nathan Finn says the union’s position is about ‘protecting frontline workers’. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

The Territory’s powerful police union is seeking an “undertaking” from the NT government that it will introduce mandatory sentencing for anyone who assaults an officer, prompting lawyers to label the move “a cheap trick”.

The NT Police Association is calling on the government to introduce a mandatory minimum jail term of three months for a first offence and six months for a second offence, regardless of whether or not the victim suffers physical harm.

The NT’s Criminal Code defines physical harm as any physical contact “that a person might reasonably object to in the circumstances, whether or not the person was aware of it at the time”.

NTPA president Nathan Finn said the union’s position was about “protecting frontline workers and ensuring an appropriate punishment that meets community expectations”.

“These law changes are urgently needed so the judiciary can send a strong message to would-be offenders — if you attack a frontline worker, you will spend time behind bars,” he said.

“In September 2021, a working group was formed to review sentencing options for assaults on frontline workers. It has only met once since it was established by former Police Minister Nicole Manison.

“Stronger penalties for cowardly offenders who attack police has been a priority for the NTPA in early discussions with Police Minister Brent Potter.”

Criminal Lawyers Association of the NT president Beth Wild said mandatory sentencing was “a cheap trick used by politicians to get votes” that “doesn’t make the community, or police, safer”.

Police Minister Brent Potter said assaults on frontline workers were ‘totally unacceptable’. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

“It doesn’t reduce crime and the Police Association knows that,” she said.

“The only thing that mandatory sentencing achieves is that more offenders plead not guilty — so the only people who could possibly benefit from mandatory sentencing regimes are lawyers.

“Mandatory sentencing doesn’t stop violent offending, at all, an offender doesn’t stop to consider that he will receive a mandatory minimum jail term in the moments leading up to committing an offence — that idea is ridiculous.”

Ms Wild said instead of reducing crime, mandatory sentencing imposed “a huge cost to the community” of more than $300 a day per incarcerated prisoner.

“In the Northern Territory we have had the strictest mandatory sentencing regime, and by far the greatest rate of incarceration in Australia, for the past ten years,” she said.

“It hasn’t worked.”

Mr Potter said all assaults on frontline workers were “totally unacceptable” and the government had already introduced “stronger penalties for these despicable crimes”.

“The maximum jail term for assaulting a police officer was increased under the Labor government,” he said.

“Last year Territory Labor increased the maximum penalty to 10 years jail for spitting on an emergency worker.”