But they create grave risks. The punishment must fit the crime. Australia's mandatory sentencing laws mean that we violate the same international standards we are working so vigorously to protect in East Timor, less than an hour's flight away from Darwin. In a message the Prime Minister should perhaps take as a warning of the explosive nature of this issue, Dr Bill Jonas, the Aboriginal Social Justice Commissioner, likened it in seriousness to the stolen generations. For Howard, the Human Rights Commission report on the stolen children still reverberates in the persistent calls for a national apology.
Mandatory detention is separation under a new guise.
Mandatory sentencing ignored at least four recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, he said. In the 1980s, about 100 indigenous people died in custody. In the 1990s the toll climbed to 147. The history of mandatory sentencing in Australia goes back to 1991, when the acting premier of WA, Mr Ian Taylor, under heavy pressure from radio shock jock Howard Sattler and others, announced mandatory terms for some crimes of violence. The 1997 NT laws were largely the work of the former chief minister, Shane Stone, more recently John Howard's choice for the federal Liberal Party presidency.