The Sydney Morning Herald Inside the Liberal defeat of liberals Date: 16/03/00 By MIKE SECCOMBE By the time yesterday's fractious special meeting of the Liberal and National parties had ended, so had any prospect of Federal Government action to override the Northern Territory's mandatory sentencing legislation. Only nine people spoke in favour of action; 27 spoke against. And many of those argued by anecdote about crimes they knew of which they thought had been insufficiently punished. They say a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, and the debate showed only nine liberals left in the Coalition. Or, at least, only nine with the courage of their conviction that the NT's laws are wrong and should be changed. But by day's end, they too had been mugged and forced to toe the conservative line. Against them, speaker after speaker voiced their disagreement with mandatory sentencing, but found excuses not to act. Some were bluntly political, saying conservative voters supported mandatory sentencing; others cited States' rights. The last speaker, South Australian moderate MP Christine Gallus, said she was stunned to see most of the people who spoke against Federal intervention were the same ones who spoke in favour of overriding the Territory's euthanasia laws. Where was the consistency? "You can't always expect consistency in politics, Chris," said the Prime Minister, and ended the session. The 2-hour meeting sometimes verged on open hostility. Howard had to calm things, pointing out there was no chance of anyone crossing the floor. And he was right. Later, when a bill passed by the Senate, which would have overridden the NT laws, came to the House of Representatives, no-one broke ranks. The Government gagged the debate. Howard knew he had won long before he ambushed the moderates with the surprise party room meeting. Seven of them - Nugent, Danna Vale, Brendan Nelson, Bruce Baird, Petro Georgiou, Christopher Pyne and Kerry Bartlett - had gone to see him on Monday night. He had been unable to see them until 10.50pm, ironically because he had to attend a dinner with ATSIC commissioners. They put to him that the NT should be offered Federal support to implement diversionary programs, if it would agree to a three-year moratorium on enforcing mandatory sentencing. They suggested the NT should be threatened with the private member's bill if it refused. Howard told them he was convinced the NT would not budge, but that he was prepared to allow a debate on such a bill in the party room, so long as the moderates were prepared to accept the outcome. On Tuesday morning, the same group met at 9.15, ahead of the 10am party room meeting. But Howard's arguments about the damage which might be done to the Government had weakened the resolve of a couple of them. Nonetheless, it was decided Ms Vale would put up the bill and Marise Payne, Christopher Pyne and Bruce Baird supported her. Howard agreed to a further party room debate on the private member's bill, but did not say when it might be brought on. The fax announcing yesterday's 9am meeting went out at 10pm Tuesday, while most MPs were at a dinner for the Irish Prime Minister. Most of the moderate group did not even know of it until it was about to happen. And after it was all over, an ashen-faced Danna Vale held a press conference to admit defeat. But asked what she'd do if another child committed suicide while under mandatory sentence in the NT, Ms Vale said she would reconsider her position. In the meantime, Howard has given his Government's handful of liberal members a small bone; a committee to make recommendations to Cabinet, on diversionary and other programs which could be funded for the NT. And Aboriginal groups now seem sure to take the issue to the UN. This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. *************************** In light of the fact that the liberals with so-called 'moral conviction' against mandatory sentencing had the numbers to easily pass the Brown Bill in the lower House but chose to bury these 'strongly held convictions' and slink away at the behest of the PM, people are sending them white feathers to point out their moral cowardice. For those who also want to express their disgust in this way, here is the list of pollies responsible: Bruce Baird MP Kerry Bartlett MP Christine Gallus MP Petro Georgiou MP Brendan Nelson MP Peter Nugent MP Christopher Pyne MP Danna Vale MP The House of Representatives Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Senator Helen Coonan Senator Marise Payne The Senate Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Trudy -- ********************************* 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." 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