Bill for child-sex mandatory sentences passes Senate

The Morrison government bill that introduces mandatory minimum sentences for the most serious child sex crimes has passed the Senate

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. Picture: AAP

Paedophiles will face mandatory minimum sentences of up to seven years jail under new child protection laws, after Labor leftitself open to government attacks by delaying the bill’s passage through parliament.

Attorney-General Christian Porter declared the bill, which also includes a maximum penalty for child-sex offences of lifeimprisonment and a presumption against bail, should have become law in three months and lashed Labor for “opposing it forthree years”.

“There was no reason it should have been such a fight,” Mr Porter said after the bill passed the Senate on Tuesday.

“The idea that Labor opposed it for three years because they were, as they say, opposed to mandatory sentencing in principle — when they supported it (mandatory sentencing) in the Labor Party in Victoria (and) they supported it at a federal levelwith people smuggling — it just made no sense.”

Labor on Monday night managed to amend the bill with the support of the Greens and some crossbenchers to carve out mandatoryminimum sentencing, which is opposed in the party’s national platform.

On Tuesday, it backed down and agreed to let the legislation pass without insisting on its amendment.

The party’s tactics frustrated some Labor MPs who said it should have been anticipated the amendment would succeed, givingthe government a chance to wedge Anthony Albanese.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton accused the opposition of backing paedophiles over Australian kids.

“It is one of the worst acts I have seen in my 20 years in parliament,” Mr Dutton said. “Anthony Albanese needs to look parentsin the eye and explain his betrayal of them.”

Labor’s caucus last week agreed to try and amend the bill to remove mandatory minimum sentences but decided that, if thatfailed, the party would ultimately wave the bill through.

Opposition legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus, who colleagues said did not want to support the legislation unless it carvedout mandatory sentencing, told caucus on Tuesday the party should not “let the perfect be the enemy of the good”.

Labor strongly supported the vast majority of the bill, he said, including the presumption against bail for serious offendersand lowering burdens on child witnesses.

Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick, who supported Labor’s amendment but also voted to pass the bill when it came to the Senatea second time, said his party believed sentencing decisions should be left in the hands of the judiciary.

While the Law Council of Australia has pushed against mandatory minimum sentences, which it described as “abhorrent to thewhole notion of sentencing where judicial discretion is essential” and warned it could lead to perverse jury decisions ofnot guilty, Mr Porter insisted it was a perfectly reasonable and acceptable tool.

“In this particular area of sentencing, at this particular time and in the context of larger and larger amounts of this offendingbecoming known, the best thing the parliament and government can do is send the clearest possible message to offenders thatif you engage in this abhorrent behaviour you will ultimately face very serious and mandatory jail terms,” Mr Porter said.

How it played out on Monday and Tuesday

While Labor on Monday voted for the bill, it teamed with the Greens, the Centre ­Alliance and Tasmanian independent Jacqui Lambie in using a procedural motion to block provisions that would have imposed minimum terms of five to seven years for the worst offences.

The move prompted condemnation from Mr Dutton, who accused Labor of backing “paedophiles over Australian kids”.

“It is one of the worst acts I have seen in my 20 years in parliament,” Mr Dutton said. “Anthony Albanese needs to look parents in the eye and explain his betrayal of them. Labor has backed pedophiles over Australian kids.”

The government had vowed to send the bill back to the senate, but Labor bowed to public pressure on Tuesday morning, with shadow government services minister Bill Shorten saying the party “would not stop this law getting through”.

“If the government doesn’t want to accept the senate amendment, Labor will not oppose the Bill again when it comes back up to the senate,” Mr Shorten told Channel 7’s Sunrise.

Government Services shadow minister Bill Shorten. Picture: AAP

“We think, the Labor people think, that this improves the Bill. If the government says ‘no, we don’t agree with your amendment’, I just want to say to Australians watching the show that Labor will support the Bill when it returns to the Senate, in the event that the government

doesn’t agree with our amendments.”

The sentencing provisions were a 2019 election commitment but are opposed by groups including the Law Council, whose president Pauline Wright on Monday described mandatory terms as ­“abhorrent to the whole notion of sentencing”.