The Tasmanian Law Society says a planned bail system overhaul and an attempt to reintroduce mandatory sentences for child sex crimes shows a lack of faith and contempt by the Liberals in the state’s judiciary.
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The party on Tuesday rebirthed its plan to impose minimum sentences of between two and four years for a range of sex crimes committed against children under 17 years of age.
There have been no changes to the previous legislation despite its rejected by the Legislative Council last year.
Government spokesman Michael Ferguson said the legal system was inadequately dealing with the crimes because the laws were not strong enough
"I think it was one of the great failures of the last period of Parliament that these laws were blocked in the first place,” he said.
"Going to the people at an election with a policy does give a party a very clear mandate on a policy like this," Mr Ferguson said.
Labor Leader Rebecca White said the party wanted to Sentencing Advisory Council to investigate the prospect of introducing two new offences with tougher penalties for child sex crimes.
“They failed to pass that legislation last time because it was poorly drafted and not supported by evidence or research. Mandatory sentencing is a very blunt tool.”
Tasmanian Law Society president Will Justo said there was no evidence that mandatory sentencing worked to deter offenders.
“As a deterrent, the best thing is detection,” he said.
Sexual Assault Support Service chief executive Jill Maxwell said given the legislation failed the first time, she encouraged the Liberals to revisit the Sentencing Advisory Council’s report on child sex offence sentencing in an effort to achieve bipartisan support.