The Fyles Labor Government will today “strengthen and modernise” its sexual offence laws, it said, including forbidding good character references for child sex offenders for reduced sentences, a practice Labor engaged in last year during sentencing of its former party secretary for repeatedly raping a child.

The changes to the sex offence laws will also include a new offence of grooming a child “with the intention of making it easier to procure the child to engage in sexual activity”; further offences to protect children from people in “positions of authority”; include a crime for “stealthing”; and add a specific offence of “public masturbation”.

The reforms will also include changing the phrase “sexual relationship with a child” to “repeated sexual abuse” in the criminal code, making it the last jurisdiction in the country to do so. That change was brought about after the lobbying efforts of child sexual abuse survivor advocate Grace Tame who was in the NT today for the reforms.

Attorney General Chansey Paech celebrated the sex offence law changes, saying the Labor Government was “prioritising the safety and protection of children” with laws that “reflect contemporary expectations”.

However, the Fyles Labor Government has also proposed ending child sex offenders relying on character references during sentencing – the very practice its former party secretary Kent Rowe benefitted from last year when high-profile party members wrote glowing character references in an effort to get a reduced sentence for him.

Party stalwarts, including the wife of a former Labor deputy leader and a former deputy chief of staff to the chief minister, wrote letters of support of Rowe ahead of his sentencing last November, in which they highlighted his “successful contributions” to the party in getting them elected.

Paul Henderson’s former deputy chief of staff Jamie Gallacher wrote that he understood Rowe had been found guilty of “several charges of sexual intercourse without consent” against a child, but that he was always “professional and generally courteous”.

“If electoral success is to be regarded as a measure, then he did well overall,” he wrote.

Mr Gallacher is also married to Supreme Court Judge Jenny Blokland.

Former deputy chief minister Syd Stirling’s wife and Nicole Manison’s long-time electorate officer Jenny Djerrkura sent her character reference letter to the sentencing judge from a joint email address shared with her husband in which she wrote that she and Mr Stirling considered Rowe a “friend” and that he “deserves a second chance”.

Rowe was sentenced to five years for the continued predatory rape of a female relative when she was a child over many years, which the judge found he had shown no remorse for, but the sentence was suspended after two-and-a-half years, meaning he will be out of jail by early 2025.

Labor’s conduct in defending a child sex offender and attempting to get him a reduced sentence was strongly rebuked by Senator Jacinta Price at the time, who said the NT Labor Government had lost any moral authority to bring in crucial reforms to reduce sexual and family violence.

“It’s appalling that the Territory Labor Party can defend or make justifications for a lighter sentence for a child rapist simply because he has worked to help them win elections,” she said late last year.

“If they are prepared to stand up for child rapists, it’s no wonder that victimised Territorians feel isolated, unheard, and feel like they are not being supported in any way.

“They do not have any moral currency … because they are clearly in support of perpetrators and child rapists and individuals that would seek to harm.”

Questions about when the party and its elected members first learned of Rowe’s sexual offending have never been properly answered.

Nicole Manison and Kent Rowe at undated Labor event. (Photo: Facebook).

During Rowe’s trial it emerged that Deputy Chief Minister Nicole Manison’s brother was told about the offending back in 2013 by the victim, just a few months after he and Rowe had worked together on Ms Manison’s first election campaign and around the time Rowe became secretary of Territory Labor.

Ms Manison has publicly claimed she only became aware of Rowe’s crimes when informed by the media, but she was police minister at the time Rowe was initially arrested and charged in April 2021, which means she would have been informed of the politically sensitive case before it was made public.

She has repeatedly refused to clarify her comments or explain if her brother had ever told her what he knew in 2013, shortly after she was first elected to Parliament.

Labor has also dragged its feet on joining the rest of the country in changing laws to name accused rapists. Victims are still currently gagged from publicly sharing their story of sexual assault after all legal proceedings, including all appeals, are exhausted.