By Bill Rowlings
The NT government’s response to the horrendous stabbing homicide of Declan Laverty at the Airport Tavern BWS at the weekend must not be panicked, but should be calm and considered, writes the Civll Liberties Australia’s chief executive officer Bill Rowlings.
As a society, you can’t lock down every shop and till behind wire mesh and bars, and it is entirely counter-productive to turn children into ‘the enemy’.
Governments frequently think tougher laws can prevent or solve social problems, so they go overboard in response to one incident. Redneck laws never have, and never will, prevent or solve anything. People committing crimes don’t stop to think what the penalty is, and then choose a lesser crime to avoid a year or two extra in jail.
Crime doesn’t work that way. Criminals don’t think that way. In fact, criminals have to ignore the law to become criminals…so why would anyone think tougher laws are the answer?
The NT Government needs to be balanced in response to what is an awful crime of a stabbing death. If they adopt a knee-jerk reaction, they’ll end up exactly where Victoria is now, having to rewrite its bail laws because an Aboriginal woman who should never have been in jail on bail died in custody.
First Nations woman Victoria Nelson should have been in hospital, but she was locked behind bars on bail for a very minor alleged offence, with no-one seeming to care that she was in agony.
The NT should also avoid going down the slippery slope of Queensland, which is currently passing laws cracking down on kids by making breaching bail a crime for children.
A raft of bail and law changes are being applied to 10-17 year-olds, indicating the state is switching full time to a penalty regime, including electronic tacking bracelets for kids, instead of an education and support system for children, even if they are detained in juvenile jails.
The answer to community crime, especially by children, has to come from within the community. Parents, aunties, uncles and even kids’ mates have to rein in the idiots and hot-heads who think force, with fists, or knives or guns, is the solution to their instant wants or needs.
In almost every case, the communities know who these hot-heads are. In most cases, the police do too. And police or magistrate bail authorities usually have a good idea of who is, or will be, dangerous in they continue down a path they are on.
Police, bail and detention provisions can help, but they have to be proportionate and balanced, which is really the basis of all rights and liberties that we all, children and adults, live under.
If police need slightly expanded powers, to cope with an outbreak of wave of crime, the powers should be time-limited – have ‘sunset’ clauses attached – so they expire in six or 12 months when the emergency situation is over.
The NT Government should hasten slowly and carefully to change relevant laws. Whatever the current problems, our children are the future of the NT.
The government needs to hear from kids themselves, from families and community members, from police, liberty and rights advocates, from business people, and then produce a sensible, measured response. You can’t do all that in a few days. An instant coffee approach to making laws is never a good idea.
Bill Rowlings worked as a journalist in Australian, United Kingdom and Papua New Guinea daily and Sunday newspapers, as well as being editorial director of a monthly business and sports publishing house. He was media adviser to a senior federal politician and consulted to major corporates, federal departments and agencies and NGOs, as well as co-authoring an Australian tertiary PR textbook. In 2013 he received an OAM for services to civil liberties and human rights. From co-founding Civil Liberties Australia in 2003 with Dr Kristine Klugman, he has managed the organisation’s affairs day-to-day, and edited the monthly CLArion newsletter, and also, briefly, served as president.
The Government has been spruiking diversionary programs for years now. They have failed to develop effective services in that area. There are private providers out there that provide excellent services but constantly have issues with Territory Families and slow payment. Instead we have poor alcohol policies and government funded security without treating the real problems