On Lindy Chamberlain: Chester Porter QC and John Bryson

Last week, the Northern Territory Coroner finally found that Azaria Chamberlain in fact was taken by a dingo near Uluru some 30 years ago.

But how and why was Lindy Chamberlain ever charged and convicted for murdering her own child?

These questions took me back to the observations of Chester Porter QC, counsel assisting the Morling Royal Commission into Chamberlain convictions, who was interviewed by Richard Fidler on Conversations back in 2007:

Chester Porter is one of Australia's best known barristers, whose nickname at the bar was 'the smiling funnel-web' thanks to his legendary courtesy and forensic charm. He has often spoken out against wrongful convictions and brought to light all the forensic evidence blunders in the Lindy Chamberlain case. His new book is called The Conviction of the Innocent.

Chester also has concerns about the way witnesses and experts are judged on the stand. "There was a Court of Appeal decision [and] by two to one, the judges held that the demeanor of the expert witness could be used to judge whether the expert evidence was correct. Quite apart from experts, to judge any witness by demeanour is very risky."

He also believes a count case can be unfairly manipulated by underhand tactics. "If you appeal to the racial prejudices. If, perchance, you were appearing in court, and the chief witness against your client was an Aboriginal, to see if you could find anything the jury hated about Aboriginals and throw that around, that would be grossly unfair, and improper."

Criminal trials can be enormously stressful for the accused - a fact Chester believes it's important to bear in mind. "Very frequently the accused has to go into the witness box and in most cases, there's a person under enormous strain. It would be a most abnormal person who wasn't almost trembling with fear when they go in the witness box as an accused person."

Listen to the interview here.

Another very close to this subject, and who offers some answer to these questions, is the author of "Evil Angels", John Bryson. He was last Sunday interviewed by Jonathan Green on RN Sunday Extra:

A dingo took my baby. It's taken 32 years, but finally we accept the truth of what happened to Azaria Chamberlain on the night of August 17 1980. The fourth coronial inquest into the death of nine-week-old Azaria concluded last week, at last giving Azaria's parents Lindy and Michael some sort of finality and a death certificate bearing that elusive world 'dingo'. John Bryson, author of Evil Angels, has spent decades poring over the Azaria Chamberlain case, and speaks to us today about the hysteria and controversy the case has inspired.

Listen to the interview here.

Anger after acid tripper off hook

Meagan Dillon   | The NT News | 12 March 2012

A TERRITORY magistrate has been accused of opening "Pandora's box" after dismissing an assault case because the man was on his first "acid" trip and wasn't responsible for his actions.

James Kidd, 22, had assault charges against him dismissed in Darwin Magistrates Court because he was incoherent and not criminally responsible.

Magistrate John Lowndes used a unique part of the NT Criminal Code to find Kidd did not "act with the necessary mental elements" to be held accountable for his crime.

"In order to be criminally responsible there needs to be a marriage between the physical elements and the mental elements," he said.

Dr Lowndes found that Kidd - who was on his first LSD trip and couldn't remember attacking June Moffatt in her front yard - was not in his right mind.

Ms Moffatt, 52, said she fears this will become a precedent for future offenders to escape prosecution.

YOUR SAY
"So let me get this straight! You can get off your face on any drug or drink and cause grief to any one without any worries of prosecution? What has happened to our justice system?"
Concerned citisen

"It's opened Pandora's box," she said. She said her attacker took the acid of his own free will and should have to take responsibility for what happened.

On November 26, 2010, Ms Moffatt was punched in the head at least three times before being picked up and thrown to the ground where she lost consciousness.

The violent attack was sparked by Ms Moffatt's threats to call police if Kidd did not leave the front yard of her Millner home. "He had enough wits about him to react when I said the word cops," she said.

Prosecutor Sam Burke said: "His behaviour went from extremely violent and agitated to confused, apologetic and scared.

"He hit her deliberately, in response to her words, hard, and it was undoubtedly intentional."

But Dr Lowndes said Kidd had to "foresee" the possible consequences of his conduct to be criminally responsible - but couldn't when experimenting with drugs for the first time.

He said Kidd would not have known the drugs would "predispose him to violent behaviour".

Ms Moffatt said she was "devastated' the charges were thrown out of court simply because her attacker was oblivious to his crime.

NT alcohol laws 'don't go far enough'

Jennifer Lush | SBS Radio | 24 February 2012 




The NT government is hailing the results of its measures to combat alcohol abuse, but it's being urged to do more.

The Northern Territory government says data on alcohol-related assaults over the past six months shows new reforms are working.

The Territory government introduced the 'Enough is Enough' legislation in July last year, which included a Banned Drinkers Register and a Special Substance Misuse Assessment and Referral to Treatment court.

Dr John Boffa from the People's Alcohol Action Coalition says the initial results do appear positive.

But he told Jennifer Lush more needs to be done.

Listen to interview here

Despair grips the children of the Dreaming

Russell Skelton | The Age | February 11, 2012

IT WAS a seemingly routine day in a thriving Arnhem Land township located on a bay facing the sparkling Arafura Sea. Northern Territory MP Marion Scrymgour had flown to the unnamed Aboriginal and islander community of 2000 to meet constituents, listen to grievances, and relay them to the powers that be in Darwin. ''I was walking from the council office to the health clinic when I saw all these people running, screaming and calling out.''

She stopped a panicked passer-by to ask what had happened and was answered by a swift gesture: a hand passing across the neck. ''It did not dawn on me at first what that gesture meant. Then somebody from the clinic said a girl had hanged herself. When I heard that she was 11, I thought, what is happening to our people and families? What is it that leads a young person to give up all hope and see no alternative in life but to leave?''

Flown by air ambulance to Darwin, the girl died in hospital after life support was turned off.

The circumstances of her death remain a mystery for most. Police requested that details not be publicised and the Coroner is yet to publish a finding - he may never do so, because not all suicides in the territory are subject to coronial investigation. Police reports are often accepted at face value and passed onto grieving families.

Scrymgour, who says she was told that the girl's desperate final act had had something to do with bullying, believes there is an urgent need for much more research into the territory's horrendous number of indigenous suicides. ''There had been a lot of bullying at school, but there is nothing cultural about a kid being bullied. That is an issue that can and should be dealt with.''

The shocking fact remains that more young girls are killing themselves than ever before in the Northern Territory. It is almost impossible to put an accurate figure on the precise number suiciding because of a time lag in reporting the deaths, but no one disputes figures complied in the NT Child Death and Prevention Committee annual report, showing that territory Aboriginal children are 3.5 times more likely to die during childhood than non-Aboriginal children.

Aboriginal crime and punishment: spending on jails but not outcomes

Inga Ting | Crikey | 16 December 2011

The rise of a punitive "law and order" culture in Australia has had a profoundly racial dimension, manifested in soaring rates of indigenous incarceration. The number of indigenous adults held in the nation's jails has increased for the 11th year in a row -- as Crikey revealed in part one yesterday -- while over the past decade the indigenous imprisonment rate has outstripped the non-indigenous rate by a factor of 11, ballooning more than 47%. The non-indigenous rate grew 4% in the same period.

This shift towards the use of crime and punishment as a tool of social control -- known as "governing through crime" -- has led to the rise of a "risk agenda" that concentrates on the risk of crime occurring, not just actual crime. In this society of heightened fear and increased surveillance, punishment is increasingly targeted at those on the periphery. And no group lies more at the periphery than indigenous Australians.

That outcomes for Aboriginal Australians are deteriorating in all but a select few areas has been confirmed by virtually every government report released this year. Here is an extract from just one -- the Productivity Commissions latest Closing the Gap report, Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage: Key Indicators, released in August:

"Nine years after this series was commissioned, there is still a considerable way to go ... Wide gaps in average outcomes remain across most indicators. Of the 45 quantitative indicators in the report, for example, available data show improvement in outcomes for only 13 indicators ... For 10 there has been no real improvement, while for another seven, including social indicators such as criminal justice, outcomes have actually deteriorated."

Some of the most shocking indicators are in the area of health, where hospitalisation rates are vastly higher for indigenous men and women than for other Australians.

Ratio of indigenous to non-indigenous rates of hospitalisation

Reason for hospitalisation                                            Women               Men

Injuries caused by assault                                             31                        7

(i.e. hospitalisation rate for indigenous women 

31 times higher than the rate for 

non-indigenous women) 

Injuries caused by non-fatal family violence assault      31                        25

Mental and behavioural disorders                                  1.5                      2.2

Chronic disease:

End-stage renal disease                                                 15                        8
Diabetes                                                                        5                         3.5
Circulatory                                                                    2                         1.5

According to the same report, indigenous adults indicate having a disability that profoundly or severely restricts core activity at around twice the rate for non-indigenous people. They are also twice as likely to be recent users of illicit substances as other Australians and four times as likely to be homeless.

David Woodroffe, managing solicitor in criminal law at the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency in the NT, says the Northern Territory intervention has invested heavily in institutions focused on punishing criminal behaviour, while providing minimal services to help those who turn to crime in the first place.

"There’s more policing in communities -- more police stations and police posts -- so more people will come to the attention of police, will be charged, get into the [criminal justice] process. But there’s no corresponding in relation to other services ... there’s no youth diversion programs, there’s no rehabilitation services, etc. So basically, government’s providing an impetus for detecting crime and prosecuting crime but there’s not the services there for reducing crime or turning people away from it. And that’s why we see, with the lack of services like that, people becoming entrenched in the criminal justice system."

Breaking the prison cycle

Mike Steketee | The Australian | 15 October 2011

IN Canberra, a hung parliament has given a Labor Party too scared to take action on climate change before the last election the courage of its convictions.

In NSW, a very different parliament in which the government has a lopsided majority may have a similar effect on law and order policy. An opposition as weakened as that in NSW may not be ideal for democracy but it does allow the government to focus more on policy than populism. And in no area has the auction for votes been more unseemly or come at a greater cost to sensible policy.

As NSW shadow attorney-general, Greg Smith called a halt to the law and order auction. While strongly conservative, he saw during his previous life as a crown prosecutor the failings of the lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the-key approach - namely that, despite costing a packet, it does little to reduce crime and in some circumstances increases it. One pointer to that is the 43 per cent of prisoners who are back in jail within two years in NSW, compared with 34 per cent in Victoria, where there has been less emphasis on the punitive approach and there have been more resources for rehabilitation and other services for prisoners before and after they are released.

Now he is Attorney-General, Smith is saying much the same things and is starting to act on them. In parliament in May he claimed the previous government regarded the prison population reaching 10,000 as a badge of honour. "I thought it was a disgrace," he said. "This government does not believe success on law and order issues can alone be judged by how many people are locked up. We believe in policies that break the cycle of re-offending. Every prisoner should have an opportunity for rehabilitation and that is in the interests of the whole community."

Smith has commissioned a review of the bail act, particularly because of concern that too many juveniles are remanded in custody and are introduced to what he calls "the university of crime". He has asked the NSW Law Reform Commission to look at sentencing legislation to, among other things, give courts greater discretion. He has announced extra funding for education programs in prison, drug and alcohol rehabilitation services and a second drug court with detoxification facilities, drug testing and treatment.

It is early days and it remains to be seen where these measures lead and whether the O'Farrell government succumbs to a "soft on crime" campaign. Nor is the law and order traffic all one way: the government has legislated for mandatory life sentences for killing police officers.

But this is an issue which has come to defy political pigeon-holing. Bob Carr in NSW took the same attitude as Tony Blair in Britain: that a populist, punitive approach to law and order would protect his political flanks from right-wing attack. Pity about the merits of the policy. Now the coalition government in Britain is changing tack, as has the O'Farrell government. Yet its Liberal-National counterpart in Victoria is headed at least partly in the opposite direction, with moves for mandatory minimum sentences for some juvenile offences, despite the evidence of Victoria's superior performance with its emphasis on alternatives to prison.

The change in thinking was perhaps best captured by another conservative politician, New Zealand's deputy prime minister Bill English, who in May described prisons as "a fiscal and moral failure". No Kiwi, he confidently asserted, wanted to see more large-scale prison building.

Booze Territory: The Crisis of Alcoholism

 Anna Krien | The Monthly | September 2011 

On a Tuesday morning, I make my way to the Gap View Hotel for a drinking session starting at 10 am. I’m told this is one of Alice Springs’ three notorious ‘animal bars’ but, when I get there, the hotel is all shut up. The car park is empty except for a car with an Aboriginal couple sitting inside. I tap on their window and wave my hand at the closed pub. “Not open?”

“2 pm,” comes the answer.

“Oh,” I nod. I’m about to get back into my car when I realise the woman is talking about the bottle shop.

“You mean the bottle shop isn’t open till two?” I ask. She nods. “You waiting around for that?” She nods again. “Isn’t there a bar here?” That’s when I discover a section of the pub is open. The woman directs me out of the car park, back along the main road and down the side of the hotel. A small concrete corridor with no roof doglegs until it is hidden from street view, where a toothless security guard greets me. He raises an eyebrow, then runs a metal detector across my clothes and confiscates my pens.

“Someone’s been stabbed with a pen before,” he says. “You can grab ’em when you leave, luv.”

Behind me an Aboriginal boy, just turned 18, offers a scrap of paper to prove he’s of age. Kindly, the security guard explains how to get a proper ID and turns him away. I walk up a cement ramp to a bar, billiard tables and pokies. There are lots of people milling around but the guy at the entrance tells me it doesn’t “get pumping till 11.30 am”, when the bar “switches to full-strength beer”. Techno music blares out of speakers. As I wander around, a Sudanese security guard approaches me, his face concerned. “Am I lost?” he wants to know.

In a way, I am. I don’t want a beer. It’s 10 am, for Chrissake.

*

At the Todd Tavern down the road it’s just after midday and the place is jumping. Billy Joel is on the jukebox and women jiggle in time, waiting to be served. On one side of the tavern is the Riverside Bar, the original ‘animal bar’, complete with blackened windows creating a kind of false night for its drinkers, who chuck their empties into wheelie bins dotted around the room. A lone white man runs the bar.

“They’re comfortable in there,” numerous people say to me when I ask about the low-slung ceiling that makes you hunch and the permanent night. “No oneforces them to drink there.”

In 2009 CCTV footage revealed 236 people inside the small bar at 11.48 am when it is licensed for 100 – the Todd was suspended from trading for 5 days. Today, around the other side of the tavern, the cleaner and more sophisticated bar with clear windows is also full of Indigenous people. What used to be a voluntarily segregated pub – blacks in the animal bar, whites in the classier section – is now black and black.

Outside, Indigenous people are hanging around the closed roller doors of the Thirsty Camel drive-through bottle shop attached to the Todd Tavern. Some form small groups, others wait in banged-up cars across the road, and a lone man, his purple shirt tucked into black pants, his belt buckle and boots shining, with a cowboy hat tilted over his eyes, leans against the brick wall, waiting.

At 2 pm the shutters will open, the tavern will close and the drinking will shift to the dry riverbed of the Todd River.

The change in the hour brings about a different kind of busyness as pubs are cleaned for the late afternoon trade. It is rush hour for Alice Springs taxi drivers. “No car, no drive-through” is the new rule for these bottlos (unless you’re white, in which case you can walk up and buy whatever you want), and taxis are hailed for the 10 metre trip and paid much, much more than the distance demands.

‘Bush’ minibuses that drive back and forth from remote Indigenous communities are cheered and hailed into the Gap View Hotel car park, the accordion doors opening for six or so blackfellas, some so zonked they can barely muster any sign of life. And then off they go! Through the drive-through!

I watch as the guy in the purple shirt and cowboy hat approaches the bottle shop and is shooed away like a feral dog. “No car, no drive-through,” an attendant yells at the man’s back as he slinks away.

Indigenous incarceration: jumping off the treadmill

ABC Radio | The Law Report | 12 July 2011

Indigenous incarceration: the figures are shocking. But what can we do about it?

Meet some people working hard to break the cycle in the Top End. Darwin based workers with the North Australia Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) help released offenders find education, work, and accommodation.

And if offenders come from remote, traditional communities they help smooth their return and deal with thorny issues like payback.

Hear the audio here and read the transcript below:

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Damien Carrick: Hello, welcome to the Law report. We know Indigenous incarceration rates are unacceptably high in this country, but what can we do about it? Well, there's no silver bullet. But today I'm speaking to people who work very hard to try and turn around the abysmal figures. Recently I was in Darwin, and I called in to the office of NAAJA, the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency. It provides legal aid services to Indigenous people across the Top End. But NAAJA staff do more than just represent clients in court. They also work with convicted offenders to re-integrate them back into their communities and to reduce their likelihood of re-offending.

Bottlos can 'ignore' law

Nigel Adlam | The NT News | 6 July 2011

BOTTLE shop workers were yesterday told they could use their discretion over the Banned Drinkers Register.

Attorney-General Delia Lawrie said sales assistants could "use their common sense" when checking ID.

After being told tourists were being refused service because international driving licences don't scan, Ms Lawrie said: "If the person's clearly not a chronic alcoholic, then go ahead, proceed with sale."

But the CLP said this was "totally wrong"

Opposition alcohol policy spokesman Peter Styles said: "The law says that a driver's licence or other form of approved identification must be scanned against the register. If it can't be scanned for whatever reason, then the sale of alcohol can not proceed.

"That's the law - there's no room for discretion ... "

The Liquor Act says: "An authorised seller must not sell liquor to an individual without scanning an approved identification of the individual with the scanner."

Ms Lawrie said the operator could also manually check the customer's name and DOB against the banned drinker's register.

Another 63 put on grog ban list

David Wood | The NT News | 5 July 2011

MORE than 43,000 people had their IDs scanned when buying alcohol from Friday to Sunday, with 63 added to the new banned drinker register.

From July 1 everyone buying takeaway alcohol in the Territory must have their ID - driver's licence, proof of age card or a passport - scanned. Those on the banned drinkers register cannot buy grog.

Liquor Stores Association of the Northern Territory president Faye Hartley said Friday night was "horrific" in her Stuart Park shop with IDs failing to scan because they were old and faded.

But Ms Hartley said they would give the technology a chance. She said about 40 per cent of customers on Friday were upset and they could not sell alcohol to about 30 people who did not have ID.

Nightcliff Supermarket owner Linford Feick said they had been visited by both police and government inspectors to make sure the system was working and said that it had not caused any major problems.

Territory Alcohol Policy Minister Delia Lawrie said between Friday and 10pm on Sunday night more than 43,000 people had been scanned, with five refused service because they were on the register.

She said 63 new names had already been added to the banned list.

"Extensive work has been undertaken to ensure that the scanning of IDs ran as smoothly as possible," Ms Lawrie said.

There were already 500 people on the register as it was being used in Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek.

People can be added for various drinking related offences including being locked up for being drunk three times in three months.

Ms Hartley said people were getting irate on Friday, partly because it was cracker night and very busy.

"It was just horrific. There were a lot of people in the shop," she said.

"A lot of the IDs are faded and do not scan properly and we have to enter a person's details manually."

Ms Lawrie said the Government was offering free proof of age cards until September 20.

Cops' cock-up puts end to gay-sex trial

Sarah Crawford | The NT News | June 8, 2011

A MURDER trial involving gay sex for cash was abandoned yesterday after an extraordinary police cock-up.

Lost evidence showing that another man's shorts were stained with the victim's blood was suddenly found.

Defence lawyer Jon Tippett told the Supreme Court in Darwin: "It does not get much worse than this."

Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions immediately launched an investigation into how the critical evidence was lost for seven months and was only rediscovered two weeks into the trial.

Jordan Danny Thompson, 18, was freed after nearly a year in custody. The teenager, from the remote community of Ngukurr, 314km east of Katherine, was surrounded by family and friends as he was driven away without commenting.

Mandatory Sentencing: Back to the Future in the Northern Territory

With mandatory sentencing back on the agenda in NSW and Victoria, it is worthwhile to reflect on an Australian jurisdiction with recent experience of the practice, namely the Northern Territory.

RG practiced in the NT between 2006 and 2008, during which time the Labor government went to an election promising mandatory prison sentences for first offenders convicted of assault causing 'harm'. Labor won, that legislation passed and continues to be law today.

In 2007-8, I appeared for young men in their late teens who faced mandatory jail for the first offence of having consensual sex with girlfriends under the age of 16.

Thankfully, by that time, the infamous mandatory prison laws for property offending had been repealed, although mandatory jail for certain serious violence offences (including assault causing serious harm) and for a second or subsequent offence of breaching a domestic violence order survived.

Following the introduction of the new provision for a first offence of assault causing 'harm', Charles Darwin University lecturer and veteran Aboriginal Legal Service lawyer, Steve Barlow, analysed the scene, including the history of the notorious period 1997 - 2001:

(2009) 33 Crim LJ 231 

Contemporary legislation comment

BACK TO THE FUTURE IN THE NORTHERN TERRITORY – THE

RETURN OF MANDATORY IMPRISONMENT FOR FIRST OFFENDERS

Mandatory imprisonment for first offenders has returned to the Northern Territory. Any adult, even a

first offender, who is sentenced in the Northern Territory for an assault causing “harm” now faces a

term of mandatory imprisonment. The major impact of the new law is to expand mandatory

imprisonment for violent offences to first offenders. The previous law mandated prison for “second

strike” assaults. The new law has been introduced despite the legal and political failure of the

1997-2001 mandatory sentencing regime for property crime.1

OVERVIEW OF S 78BA OF THE SENTENCING ACT (NT)

The amended s 78BA of the Sentencing Act (NT) came into force on 10 December 2008.

Section 78BA provides:

78BA Mandatory imprisonment for certain violent offences

(1) This section applies to:

(a) any of the following violent offences:

(i) an offence against section 181 or 186 of the Criminal Code;

(ii) an offence against section 188 or 189A of the Criminal Code that results in harm to the

victim; and

(b) any other violent offence committed after the offender has (before or after the commencement

of this section) been found guilty of:

(i) a violent offence; or

(ii) an offence substantially corresponding to a violent offence committed against a law that

was later repealed or the law of some other jurisdiction (including a jurisdiction outside

Australia).

(2) If a court finds an offender guilty of an offence to which this section applies, the court must record

a conviction and must order that the offender serve:

(a) a term of actual imprisonment; or

(b) a term of imprisonment that is partly, but not wholly, suspended.

The four offences covered by s 78BA(1)(a) are serious harm, harm, assault causing harm, and

assaults on police resulting in harm. Actual imprisonment is mandatory for any adult found guilty of

any these four offences, even if he or she is a first offender. The definition of “harm” in s 78BA is

different to its definition under the Criminal Code. Under s 78BA, “harm” involves an interference

with health. Pain on its own does not amount to harm.

Actual imprisonment is also mandatory for s 78BA(1)(b) “violent offences”, but only if the

offender has a prior conviction for a “violent offence”. Examples of s 78BA(1)(b) “violent offences”

include common assault, terrorism, attempt to murder and manslaughter.2 The prior conviction can

pre-date the commencement of the legislation, making its operation somewhat retrospective. The prior

conviction can also be from another jurisdiction, even outside Australia, if the prior offence

“substantially corresponds” to a Northern Territory “violent offence”.

The interaction of the first offence and second offence mandatory imprisonment provisions are

somewhat illogical. A first offender who commits assault causing harm must be sentenced to actual

imprisonment, but not a first offender who commits terrorism, manslaughter or attempted murder. The

retrospective effect of the law is also harsh. Actual imprisonment is mandatory for common assaults

(no harm) if a person has a prior finding of guilt for common assault, even if the prior offence resulted

in a “non-conviction” sentence order, was many decades ago and in a foreign jurisdiction.

1

Under that regime, offenders for were imprisoned for a minimum of 14 days for a “first strike” property offence, 90 days for

a “second strike”, and 12 months for a “third strike”.

2

See Sch 2 of the Sentencing Act (NT) for a complete list of “violent offences”.

Shane Stone and the NT’s mandatory sentencing regime

Bob Gosford | The Drum | 7 January 2011

Earlier this week former Northern Territory chief minister Shane Stone was interviewed by the ABC’s Andrew Dodd for the return series of Premiers Past, in which ex-state and territory leaders get a soft but well-informed grilling on their time in power.

To his credit, Stone was refreshingly frank in his discussion of some of the major events of his tenure as chief minister of the Northern Territory’s Country Liberal Party (CLP) governments between May 1995 and February 1999, particularly in his admissions of failure to effectively prosecute the case for NT Statehood in 1998, the parlous relationships between successive CLP governments and Aboriginal Territorians and the fallout from the prosecution of Lindy Chamberlain in relation to the death of her daughter Azaria.

I’ve never voted for the CLP and most likely never will. But I respect Stone because he is in a select group of NT politicians that could be classed as true leaders.

I’m not alone in my vigorous disagreement with many of the CLP’s policies over time but Stone deserves his due because he prosecuted his policies with a courage, commitment and enthusiasm not seen since from either side of politics.

But perhaps not always with the best of judgement. On his own admission Stone “…ran a very high-level law and order government.” The high point of Stone’s implementation of that philosophy was the NT’s mandatory sentencing regime that ran from 1997 to 2001.

One comment that caught my ear was Stone’s response to a question from Dodd about his policy of mandatory minimum sentences for minor property offences – in part because of my own very small involvement and also because Stone reckons that he should have expanded its operation to include a wider suite of offences.

“Andrew Dodd: One of the most controversial things during your period of chief ministership of the Northern Territory was the introduction of mandatory sentencing. When you look back on that now do you suppose you went over the top on that a bit?

“Shane Stone: Didn’t go far enough. Only applied it to property offences. I mean you have to remember I came out of a background of practicing criminal law, both at the Victorian Bar and in the Northern Territory. So I knew precisely what I was doing and I clearly, I had a clear understanding, about the way that the judicial system operated. The Northern Territory people had had a literal gutful of people breaking into their homes and stealing their property and committing a whole range of other offences and when you map out the effects of mandatory sentencing we had a dramatic decrease in crime. The same people committing the offences, over and over again. I didn’t go over the top. I didn’t go far enough. I have a regret that I did not apply it to violent assaults."

I’ll leave aside Stone’s relationship with the judicial system for now and return to Stone’s comments in a while but I first want to relate my personal perspective on the mandatory sentencing regime in the NT from my experience as a solicitor with a small general practice in Darwin in the late nineties.