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Archived Press Releases 2003 August 1st

Confusion Caused by Government Arrogance

(1st August 2003)

The Sensible Sentencing Trust believes the confusion and concerns expressed by recent Court of Appeal Judges was caused by the arrogance of the Government in failing to listen to the concerns of the community.

Last week we saw the Court of Appeal expressing concerns about what the Government meant by the 17 year starting point for the "worst" murders, now we see Judges are again expressing confusion about who should be ordered to serve more than one third of their sentence (Dominion, 31st July 2003).

The Select Committee considering the draft legislation in 2001 heard many submissions from Judges and the Sensible Sentencing Trust as well as other community organisations; they were warned many times of the inherent dangers and pitfalls in the proposed new legislation. Nothing was done.

The combined arrogance of the Government and bureaucrats thinking they knew better, meant we were not listened to. We are now paying the price for that arrogance, said Mr McVicar

The Select Committee process has proved to be an absolute farce in this case. The Sensible Sentencing Trust represents a large part of the community, who use us as a vehicle to take their concerns to our politicians. They continue to ignore us and you and I continue to pay the price.

Only last week representatives of the Trust and families involved in some of our more horrific crimes took another submission to Parliament expressing our concerns and asking for URGENT action by Government. Some of the points now being highlighted by the judges were also in our submission. We can only assume this fell on deaf ears again, Mr McVicar said.

Regards,

Garth McVicar
National Spokesperson,
Sensible Sentencing Trust.