I am one of the growing number of people completely disillusioned with the Australian Labor Party at both state and federal levels. The reasons for this are many but perhaps top of the list has been the gradual decent into management politics. This is the politics of branch stacking, focus groups and a profound a lack of leadership.

In my mind, there is no doubt that there is a direct correlation between the systemic corruption found in the Labor Party and this decline into management politics.

By management politics, I mean a political style that is gear towards managing the electorate to ensure that you are re-elected. It’s about politics for the sake of staying in power, rather than to improve the state or nation. It leads to popularism and a lack of leadership or conviction and panders to the lowest common denominator. It’s a politics where Government doesn’t bother having the debate and convincing the electorate, it just rolls over. The Federal Government’s rollover on asylum seekers is one example, the Victorian Government’s ban on suspended sentences is another.

There doesn’t seem to have been a lot of talk in the media about the Victorian Government essentially adopting the Opposition’s policy on the banning of suspended sentences which is disappointing. It’s a difficult and complex issues that is easily made highly emotive by victim’s groups and knee-jerk reactions lead to poor assumptions.

John Champion has an opinion piece in The Age today:

It needs to be clearly understood that sentencing is more often than not an extremely complex process. Judicial officers are expected to impose sentences that properly reflect the gravity of the offending by providing appropriate punishment and denunciation of the offender, deterrence to the offender from future offending, or towards other like-minded potential offenders, while providing opportunities for the offender’s rehabilitation. The process that involves the synthesis of these and other factors must be reasoned, totally transparent, and capable of standing up to scrutiny and a sense of satisfaction from many different sources, not least of which is the victim and his or her family and friends, the offender, the community, and relevant courts of appeal. Judges and magistrates often say sentencing is the most gruelling and heart-rending part of the job they do.

The characterisation of judges as ‘soft’ on criminals is just wrong and to legislate a judge’s discretion away is to pander to reactionary attitudes rather than stopping and having the discussion about the merits of suspended sentencing.

The greatest victims of crime are often criminals themselves. If we are to have any chance of rehabilitating people so that they don’t offend again, then gaol is the worst place for them.

Gaols are criminalgenic – few people leave gaol and become law abiding citizens. Whilst I accept that prison is occasionally the only real option for someone, we should be doing all we can to keep people out of prison. Our prisons are expensive to run and already over crowded.

The Brumby Government needs to show some leadership on this issue and have the debate. They need to make sure that the population understands that a suspended sentence isn’t a ‘soft’ approach at all, but a carefully measured one that ensures that the needs of all parties, including the victim’s, are met.