Elise Archer,Minister for Corrections
This afternoon Labor Legislative Council Members performed an incredible backflip and voted to pass the Hodgman majority Liberal Government’s common-sense remissions reforms in defiance of the Labor shadow spokesperson for Corrections, Ella Haddad.
Earlier this week Labor’s Ella Haddad said to the ABC;
“We’ve put on record a couple of times now the reasons why we don’t support this change, why we do support the use of remissions in limited circumstances for inmates who do the right thing, so we’ll be reiterating the reasons why we don’t support the bill.”*
The Hodgman majority Liberal Government’s remission reform was overwhelmingly endorsed at the last election by Tasmanians who are sick of Labor’s soft on crime approach.
Our Government has always believed there should be truth in sentencing so that if you do the crime, you should do the time set by the courts, yet this has been vehemently opposed by Labor every step of the way.
This remarkable backflip has come just hours after Rebecca White was rejected by Madeleine Ogilvie and forced to announce her revised Shadow Ministry, and now Labor MPs are in open revolt against her shadow spokesperson for Corrections, Ella Haddad, and her intransigent opposition to this common-sense reform.
Remission of sentences has remained on the statute books in Tasmania for far too long, despite being phased out in all other Australian states.
It is now time for Labor Members to perform a further backflip and support mandatory sentences for child sex offenders and for violent criminals that assault our off duty emergency service workers, an approach which was also supported by an overwhelming number of Tasmanians at the State election.
The Labor rabble are hopelessly divided and cannot be trusted to deliver reforms to keep Tasmanians safe. After five and a half years in Opposition, Labor still has no credibility on law and order and has no long-term plan for Tasmania.
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