Croakey, 17 July 2026

For 26 years, every Labor national policy platform has explicitly opposed mandatory sentencing. That is set to end at the party's national conference in Adelaide on 23-25 July, where a draft platform reportedly drops the commitment altogether.

In its place the draft policy platform merely states that the Labor party recognises that mandatory sentencing “does not reduce crime and undermines the independence of the judiciary”, and that Labor “will always respect the independence of the judiciary, which is fundamental to the rule of law and our democratic society”.

It has also been reported that the first version of the draft platform completely removed any reference to Labor’s opposition to mandatory sentencing.

This change in a longstanding policy position is extremely disappointing. When one considers the historical context for its original inclusion in the policy platform in 2000, the change in position could only be described as shameful.

Labor’s strong opposition to mandatory sentencing in 2000 was largely driven by the draconian and racist mandatory sentencing laws for property crimes that came into force in the Northern Territory in 1997.

Under those laws, anyone over the age of 18 who was found guilty of specified property offences such as theft or damage to property, would be subject to a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment. For a first offence, the court was required to impose a term of imprisonment for 14 days. For a second offence, the mandatory minimum term of imprisonment was 90 days, and for a third offence the mandatory minimum term was 12 months.

For young people aged under 18, the mandatory sentencing framework would come into play if the young person was found guilty of a property offence for the second or subsequent time. If a young person was convicted of a relevant property offence (for example, theft, criminal damage, unlawful entry to buildings) and had at least one prior conviction for such an offence, then that person would be sentenced to a period of detention for at least 28 days.

Mandatory jail terms were handed out to people in the following circumstances:

•    28 days detention for a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy for stealing pens and pencils

•    A one year imprisonment for a homeless 29-year-old Aboriginal man who ‘stole’ a towel from a clothesline to keep warm

•    14 days imprisonment for a 24-year-old Aboriginal mother convicted of receiving a stolen can of beer valued at $2.50

•    90 days imprisonment for a 21-year-old Aboriginal man convicted of theft of biscuits and cordial valued at $23

•    90 days imprisonment for an 18-year-old convicted for stealing 90 cents from a car

•    28 days detention for a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy with mental illness found in possession of an empty stolen wallet valued at $2.

National concern about the mandatory sentencing laws reached a new height following the death in custody of a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy, ‘Johnno’, from Groote Eylandt in February 2000. He had been sentenced to 28 days’ detention for stealing pens and paint from a local school valued at $100.

Five days from the end of his sentence, the boy attempted suicide  in his room in Don Dale Detention Centre. Despite attempts to revive him, he did not regain consciousness and died in hospital.

At this point several federal MPs strongly urged Commonwealth intervention to overturn the laws. A private members’ bill drafted by Greens Senator Bob Brown and co-sponsored by Labor and Australian Democrats Senators was introduced into the Senate and referred to a Senate Committee for inquiry.

The bill, which sought to overturn the laws was unanimously supported by Labor, the Greens, the Australian Democrats and the independent lower house MP Peter Andren.

Several Liberal MPs also indicated their opposition to the mandatory sentencing laws and expressed a view that Federal Government intervention to overturn the laws may be warranted.

However, Prime Minister John Howard would not allow a conscience vote on the issue. If he had, the NT laws would have been overturned by the Federal Government as the majority of elected MPs were opposed to the laws.

Labor was strong in its opposition to the laws. Among the many Labor MPs expressing concern were Shadow Attorney General Rob McLelland, member for the NT Warren Snowdon, Senators Nick Bolkus (SA), Barney Cooney (Vic) and Trish Crossin (NT), who were all on record stating that the laws breached Australia’s human rights obligations, were discriminatory against First Nations people, and severely eroded judicial discretion to impose appropriate sentences that take relevant circumstances into account.

This was the basis for Labor taking a strong and principled position to make a clear and public expression of its opposition to mandatory sentencing in its national platform in 2000. In 2001, the newly elected NT Labor Government repealed these unjust and draconian laws.

Labor’s continued opposition to mandatory sentencing laws gave us hope that the tragedy of Johnno’s death would not be forgotten.

This historical context helps explain why one feels so profoundly disappointed by the mooted shift in Labor’s position on this issue – a shift that is lacking in the values, principles and ideals that resulted in the strong opposition to mandatory sentencing being included in the national policy platform 26 years ago.

It is a shift that betrays the memory of Johnno, the many others who were unfairly incarcerated under those horrendous laws, and ex Senators Bolkus, Cooney and Crossin, who have all since passed away.

It is a shift that can only be described as shameful, and even that does not seem strong enough.

Dr Louis Schetzer is National Legal Research and Policy Coordinator of the Justice Reform Initiative. He has previously worked as a criminal lawyer in the Northern Territory in the late 1990s and was part of a community campaign to repeal the NT mandatory sentencing laws.