THE AGE Howard damned on four fronts By MICHAEL GORDON Friday 17 March 2000 The Howard Government stands condemned for its blatant expediency, hypocrisy, inconsistency and cant on the issue of mandatory sentencing. Expediency, because it is prepared to use the weight of numbers in its party room to thwart the will of the majority in the people's house. For it is now clear that a free vote in the House of Representatives would see the laws of the Northern Territory struck down. Hypocrisy, because it uses international obligations to lecture the states on how to behave on some issues, but not others. Witness supervised injecting rooms. Inconsistency, because it was willing to override the Northern Territory on euthanasia, when a more compelling case in terms of a fair and just society can be mounted on mandatory sentencing. And cant, because it was prepared to make great play of the lack of findings in this week's United Nations report after lobbying hard to have them excised from the document. Indeed, the manner in which the Government appears to have influenced the UN officials who were asked to investigate the mandatory sentencing laws of WA and the NT is a slur on the reputation of that body. It suggests there is one standard for "model international citizens" like Australia, another for the rest. Surely, if conventions like those on the Rights of the Child are to mean anything, requests for advice of possible breaches should be dealt with the utmost integrity and a degree of transparency. Sadly, the tone for the probe was set before the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, arrived in Darwin last month to thank Australia for its role in restoring order in East Timor. Mr Howard suggested Australia's human rights record meant the country was immune from international scrutiny, declaring: "We are not told what to do by anybody." The unfortunate impression is that Australia's reward for upholding human rights in East Timor is that our own blemishes escape proper scrutiny. Having declared himself against mandatory sentencing, Mr Howard has judged that this is not a leadership issue. Apparently, it is more important to stand up for the territory's right to pass a bad law. -- ********************************* Make the Hunger Site your homepage! http://www.thehungersite.com/index.html ********************************* ------------------------------------------------------- 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/
