Longer jail terms for serious offences do not mean a safer community but may have the reverse effect, Liberty Victoria warned today.
“They may have a simplistic appeal, especially when parties are clamouring for public attention as a State election looms, but there is no evidence that they lead to a more secure community,” said Liberty president Jane Dixon SC.
Liberty Victoria today attacked new government proposals to dilute protections against racist speech.
Liberty President, Jane Dixon SC, said that ‘freedom of speech is a fundamental value in a pluralistic and democratic society. At the same time, however, international and common law recognizes that this freedom has limits’.
The Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis, has proposed that existing legal protections against insulting, offensive and humiliating speech based on race and ethnic origin should be repealed.
As observed by the Human Rights Law Centre, Australia has sent 1300 asylum seekers to Manus Island for ‘processing and resettlement’, but not one person has actually been processed and resettled. Asylum seekers have been left languishing in arbitrary detention in conditions the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Amnesty International have described as being inhumane and a breach of international law.
As the community contemplates the Victorian Government’s decision to, as Premier Denis Napthine puts it, have the Hoddle Street murderer Julian Knight “rot in jail”, it is worth looking at similar cases.
