The long-term impact on a child’s life is devastating. The loss of innocence is reprehensible. The absolute betrayal of trust involved is detestable.

The community is unanimous in its absolute condemnation of child sex crimes – we want to see people guilty of such heinous acts severely punished.

The government was right to pursue minimum jail terms for serious child sex crimes.

Any poll on the subject clearly shows the community wants child sex offenders to face heavier punishment.

Its “tough on crime” approach was a popular part of its success at the 2014 election.

However, the idea of a mandate is complicated: that securing election gives carte blanche on all policies is specious.

A person or group of people might agree with some policies and vote for a candidate along those lines, but it does not mean they agree with every single policy.

And they might have voted for one side that goes on to form government because they simply disliked the other mob more.

There is also nearly half the population who voted for the other major party or a selection of minor parties and independents.

Therefore debate is required to get the best possible legislation through parliament.

The debate for mandatory jail sentences for child sex crimes passed the government led lower house but was lost in the upper house, where the vote was deadlocked.

No side emerged from the debate on the high moral ground.

Those who voted against the bill ignored a vast majority of the community.

If a politician or political party’s job is to ignore the wishes of the majority than what point is there of representative democracy?

The government did itself no favours though by using the issue to say that its opponents were soft on child sex offences. 

It used the basest of crimes for base politics and was not a good look. 

With an election in the offing, the government will wedge its opponents on matters where it feels it has a political advantage.

But a matter as serious as child sex crimes should not have been used in such a way. Those who voted no gave their view and it is for the public to decide if they agree or not.

Because mandatory sentences are vexing.

Taking away the discretion for the justice system to weigh up all the factors that led to the commission of a crime is troublesome.

A study called “You be the Judge” gave participants all the details of real cases and asked them to propose a sentence that reflected all those elements.

The majority of participants actually set a sentence more lenient than what the judge did in the real courtroom.

It shows that most reactions to court sentences are not based on all the information.

The media is not free from blame in that regard: we are limited by how much detail can be reported due to legal issues or simply by column centimeters.

Media can also lean towards the more damning or salacious parts of a case because that is often the most interesting element.

The real problem is that while courts are accountable and accessible to the public, most people will never bother to try and understand the tenets of our justice system.

Reactions are mostly based on emotion and ignorance – dangerous ingredients for any informed debate.

In this debate, too many sides missed the chance to put victims front of mind – and that is an indictment.