Lees plans protest in Senate over mandatory sentencing bill Source: AAP | Published: Sunday March 26, 1:43 PM The Australian Democrats would put a ban on government legislation in the Senate unless the mandatory sentencing bill was dealt with in the House of Representatives, leader Meg Lees said today. Australian Greens Senator for Tasmania Bob Brown's mandatory sentencing bill was passed in the Senate in the last sitting period but has been shelved by the government in the Lower House. "We have had some discussions with the Labor Party as to how we can keep the pressure on the government, at least to deal with the bill," Senator Lees said. "We are talking about at least a few days, perhaps a week or so, where the Senate simply deals with its own private business, its own private members bills, goes through most of the ordinary processes that we have to go through and keeps the committee stages running but not actually dealing with government legislation until the government has dealt with the business that the Senate has referred to it," she told Channel Ten's Meet the Press program. However, the Democrats would not refuse to negotiate with the government on other issues if the mandatory sentencing bill wasn't considered. "We have said that we won't cross trade in that way, we treat each issue on its merits," she said. Senator Lees said she was embarrassed at the government's reaction to the United Nations' findings on the mandatory sentencing laws. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) report was released in Geneva on Friday night. It said mandatory sentencing laws discriminated against indigenous Australians and conflicted with UN conventions on human rights. The committee listed 13 concerns, including high incarceration rates of Aborigines and amendments to native title laws, and made 15 recommendations, including that the federal government override Northern Territory and Western Australian laws if necessary. -- _________________________________ Truth is a pathless land. --- Krishnamurti ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------ RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
