[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Thank-you for your email expressing your friends concerns about mandatory > sentencing in the Northern Territory. > > I have forwarded your email to the authorities and thank-you again for your > concerns. > > Yours sincerely, > > Liz Harkin > Northern Territory Holiday Centre. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ My message: July 26, 1999 To Whom It May Concern, I have been asked by a friend of mine in the Netherlands, Eric Hennekam, to convey his utter disgust with your mandatory sentencing laws. Mr Hennekam will be here, with his family, for the Sydney 2000 Olympics and since he has seen many photos of Australia he was planning on visiting other places as well. One of these places was the Northern Territory but then he found out about your mandatory sentencing laws and the terrible effect these are having on Indigenous Australians. He and his family are very impressed by Indigenous culture and art but they do no wish to support in any way a regime that harms them. Also, Mr Hennekam's three children are teenagers and he is afraid that through a misunderstanding or lack of language skills, his children might be inadvertently in danger of these laws. He is also aware that there are no interpreters provided in the NT courts. Mr Hennekam is coming with a large group of friends and acquaintances (this is how they always travel) and has informed all of them why he does not want to visit the Northern Territory and so, the NT is now off the itinerary. My personal observation to you is that it might well be that your mandatory sentencing laws are costing you a lot more than you realise for some minor property thefts. Yours truly, Trudy Bray ------------------------------------------------------- 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/