Wednesday, March 5, 2003

The Breen Machine - Reform The Legal System Party

For the past four years, Reform the Legal System has promoted human rights in the new South Wales Parliament. Our most significant achievement is the legislation, passed late last year, to require all bills introduced into the Parliament to be checked for breaches of human rights.

This legislation arose out of the Bill of Rights inquiry which we instigated. Over the next four years we will continue to promote debate in the Parliament on human rights, particularly the rights of prisoners, who are the victims of the Liberal and Labor law and order auction.


Last year the Carr Labor government introduced a vicious sentencing law that cemented in several prisoners without any consideration of their individual circumstances and possible rehabilitation.

This law was extremely popular with the tabloid press and talkback radio journalists. But the sentencing law was retrospective, it was mandatory and it involved redefining life sentences. Next month Reform the Legal System will be supporting a challenge in the High Court by the Public Defender to this grossly unfair and discriminatory sentencing law.

The former Police Minister, Paul Whelan, famously said that people would be shocked if they knew how many innocent prisoners are in jail.

Experts agree that the figure is one percent of the prison population. If you also allow for the number of mentally ill people in gaol because New South Wales Health cannot look after them, you might be shocked to learn that more than one third of the prison population should not be in gaol.

New South Wales is one of the few jurisdictions in the western world and the only one on mainland Australia to house criminally insane patients in the mainstream prisons.

Of course, as well as innocent people going to jail, many guilty people go free due to inefficient and sometimes corrupt policing.

Policing is a human rights issue the police enforce our rights and protect our freedoms. Yet police in New South Wales are under resourced, despite the silence from the major parties on the subject. Under resourced policing leads to corruption. Just a few weeks ago, one of the leaders of the major parties told us that the New South Wales police force is around 2000 officers short with another 2000 officers unavailable for duty. You might recall that the Wood Royal Commission into Police Corruption was an initiative, not of the major parties, but of the former Independent member for the South Coast, John Hatton.

Another significant human rights issue is the upcoming war in Iraq.

Reform the Legal System is opposed to any pre-emptive strike that causes the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi people.

Respect for human life is the most fundamental of all questions of human rights. Whoever you vote for on March 22, I urge you to vote for a party that is opposed to the bombing of the people of Iraq.

This is an obscene war and I ask you to use your vote in the Legislative Council as a weapon of mass destruction by voting against the war parties. If you doubt that your vote can be a weapon of mass destruction, just ask former Prime Minister, Paul Keating.

The war in Iraq, together with [USA false flag operations] terrorist activities in New York and [call to arms] Bali, have had serious consequences for [Australians and] Arabic and Muslim people living in Australia. Every Muslim Australian is a potential terrorist [scapegoat or patsy] according to some uninformed opinions.

Places of worship have been attacked and followers of the Islamic faith have been harassed and intimidated. Like those of us who follow the Christian and Jewish faiths, Islamic people are descendants of the prophet Abraham. We all worship the same God. We support our Muslim brothers and sisters in opposing terrorism. [Religous bondage instigated by the 300 club,]

It is extremely important that we build bridges to the Muslim community in New South Wales. Arabic is the second most widely spoken language after English and yet we have no Arabic and Muslim representative in any Parliament in Australia.

By way of comparison, the ethnic Chinese community has ten parliamentary representatives across Australia.The Muslim community ought to be represented in the Parliament and I am pleased to say that Reform the Legal System has nominated an Arabic Muslim man, Ahmed Sokarno, to head our Legislative Council ticket at the election on March 22.

Mr. Sokarno is well known in the community as an Egyptian journalist and Chairman of the Ethnic Press Council of Australia. Like the vast majority of people who follow the Islamic faith, Mr. Sokarno is a secular Muslim.

He is neither a terrorist not a religious extremist. His children play cricket in the backyard of his suburban home.

Use your weapon of mass destruction wisely and vote for Ahmed Sokarno in the New South Wales Legislative Council.

Secret Rulers of the World 1-29

By Peter Breen MLC 5 March 03

SKIPPY: What do we want? No War with anyone and a Bill of rights. When do we want to vote for it? March 22

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