10 July 2006

Chief Minister finds another way to defy the federales

| johnboy
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Jon Stanhope is having a good day, he’s found another way to piss off the Commonwealth while re-enforcing his right-on credentials.

This time the Canberra Times reports that he’s decided to resist federal pressure to “disregard indigenous customary law when sentencing”.

Mr. Stanhope thinks this is blaming the victim, which is odd because normally it’s the perpetrator being sentenced… Oh, wait, is he saying that indigenous people are always the “victim” regardless of what they have been found guilty of?

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Of interest in this matter
Law Council of Australia press release and submission to COAG (link at bottom of page)

http://www.lawcouncil.asn.au/read/2006/2425538642.html

Absent Diane4:36 pm 11 Jul 06

yep and left the poor old abos to themselves… they would have been so much better off…..

It all stems from terra nullius…. the british should have just said we came, we saw we conquered…

erewego – urban Aboriginals are no more connected to tribal law than you or I. Canberra doesn’t have any residents living in a tribal situation (per se). The point is moot. It’s just some vintage Sonic grandstanding.

I still think “customary law” is a load of crap; even after reading the article.

How can anyone think that it is okay not to prosecute a person to the full extent of the law after that person has sodomised a 14 year old girl? Are Aboriginal girls somehow more used to being raped; and is it somehow acceptable to think that they don’t deserve to be fully protected under Australian law?

We are living in the 21st century and it seems to be very convenient that the same people who are perpetrating these sorts of crimes are quite happy to enjoy all the other features of living in this century like electricity, motor vehicles, telephones, etc but they still want to live by some ‘code of conduct’ from 10,000 years ago whenever it suits them.

Jennifer Clark sounds like just another academic with their head well and truly up their arse!

I think tribal law, despite some percieved failings, has been around longer, developed over a longer time and should apply where it can. Obviously there are some mercantile and property complexities where the Commonwealth judicial system will need to apply. Mostly this involves lawyers and accountants, so it can be simplified to result in beheading for all parties. it wont happen overnight but I think we can look forward to a just, and honest society, free from the constraints of lawyers, and, (as most politicians are lawyers), politicians.
Probly have quite a few people limping about tho – bigest casualty will be this site, with no more whingeing about either ACT Judicial decisions, or pollies

barking toad1:51 pm 11 Jul 06

It’s a fair cop, but society is to blame…and John Howard…and George Dubya

Read the article that Binker put a link to above. Then your obvious foolishness will be made apparent to you.

One set of rules for all is a great idea, lets also add one set of opportunities for all as well. Better still lets reform the tax system to make middle class people live like really poor people and then lock them in jail when they commit crimes.

Hell lets lock everyone in jail except the really really wealthy I mean worthy people.

Master_Bates11:46 am 11 Jul 06

Noooo….. Tribal law is the best. That way, my mates and I can get toghether, One of which is an abriginal, he can declare us to be members of his tribe, and we can make our own rules. Then is’t all on….

Wo Hoo.

That’s the point – 1 set of rules for all is the only way to go.

Hey, if tribal law is okay, why isn’t the good ole “she’s me wife so I can hit her/force her to have sex with me whenever I like” defence okay anymore then?

Vic Bitterman8:34 pm 10 Jul 06

Every day, stanhope gets loonier and loonier.

It won’t be long before he becomes as loopy as john brogden…

Sonic in attempting to do a tap-dance and some arm waving will not wash with the bogans who are facing school closures.

A big shout out to any Cranleigh’s out there (while we’re on the topic of unique Canberra expressions)

The thing about customary law that I don’t understand is what good does it do the aboriginal people? My ancestral people used to practice customary law until a few decades ago and it was all shit. My sister has a co-worker with a big spear hole in his leg for committing adultery! Cultural identity is the stuff of dances and costumes, everything else is a scam by someone trying to establish power or avoid it.

so can we clarify this please

lurkergal is a bogan

or

lurkergal is a booner

which is correct ? both ?

Growling Ferret4:43 pm 10 Jul 06

Thumper – now I need to know. What is a Yonnie or a Chonk?

THere is life here, LG – great big, abounding, vibrant life. People create life no matter where the hell they are.

If you don’t like where you are, fine. But don’t blame the place, blame yourself. And make the place better.

Sorry, that’s my “anti-Canberra’s boring” rant out of the way…

Not a hope ferret. Canberra is too transient. Most people who live here weren’t born here, and didn’t grow up here, but came here from somewhere else. And those who have only lived in Canberra all there lives really do need to get away for a while and experience some life.

Growling Ferret3:59 pm 10 Jul 06

“Okay, if you’re a bogan from Kambah….”

Thumper – can I pull you up for a second on this.

How long has the word bogan been in use in Canberra? When i grew up, we had Booners, aka Westies. A Booners thick checked flannie was a Booner Doona. A Booner lived in Kambah or Charnwood, wore black jeans, desert boots, a Metallica/Megadeth t-shirt and smoked winniebloos.

Bogans were what my cousins in Melbourne called their version of booners.

Can we keep what few Canberra-specific terms alive??? 😉

Just heard that Kiera Knightley could do with some nourishment:

http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/go_…_the.html#more

ooops, sorry didn’t mean to distract anyone…

Master_Bates3:01 pm 10 Jul 06

Damm. I was kind of looking forward to the removal of the statutory set of words “I acknowledge that this is the traditional land of…” crap from the start of every govt speach.

Link doesn’t seem to work now. “%3Cbr%20/%3E” was added after the .pdf (sorry to post such a long link initially)

[link]

Worth a read if you didn’t see it in CT.

Duck and weave, duck and weave.

It’s always been hardset to hit a moving target.

The mayor can’t help himself in attempting to be the world statesman and it also distracts from the poor fiscal management of the ACT

And the burning down of a large chunk of it while he was too busy having coffee to fulfill his responsibilities as acting minister for emergency services.

“I smell distraction all over this one…”

Yeah, maybe it has something to do with the Bushfire Inquest recommencing this week?

barking toad1:57 pm 10 Jul 06

Nailed it Indi – or at least part of it.

The mayor can’t help himself in attempting to be the world statesman and it also distracts from the poor fiscal management of the ACT

I smell distraction all over this one…

As usual, the regular cacophony of shit-bags have come out to demonstrate their misunderstanding of the way the judiciary use things like customary lore in sentencing so there’s no real point pursuing further conversation on that point.

On the other hand Thumper has provided the opportunity to take the thread in an interesting on-topic direction with:

“It also may help if he read up on his Indigenous history of the area because he will find that the people that lived in, or around this area were extremely transient and that customary lore was somewhat not set in stone due in the main to the fact the peoples only ever met here at certain times of the year before disappearing off to their own lands again.”

Whilst the Aboriginal people of the Canberra area – the Ngunnawal and Wolgal – participated in a hunter-gatherer economy, it would be misguided to believe that implied some form of seasonal movement away from the Monaro. Not insignificant numbers of Aboriginal people lived here throughout the year. Furthermore, traditional Indigenous cultural structures in fact tend to be extremely rigid rather than the other way around – law/lore is the one unchanging (and unchangeable) constant – controlling both spiritual and secular Aboriginal life.

Flood makes no assertion in ‘The Moth Hunters’ regarding extreme transience nor does she draw a relationship between hunter-gatherer economic strategies and customary lore other than noting the breakdown in both with the arrival of white settlers. Not in the 1980 edition of her book, nor in her 1973 PhD thesis upon which the book is based.

i dont think were ‘taking them on’ or attacking anyone (except the druggies).

theres a very jeffersonian streak in canberra which is at odds with the way in which proposals for our liberties are on one hand reined in (drug driving tests) and expanded (customary law to be used to mitigate sentencing) depending on which special interest group the alp wish to curry favour with.

I love this website….
In just a week we have been able to take on people with a mental illness, people with a drug dependence and now indigenous australians.

Look forward to the next group of people I can feel justified in hating

Big Al, the problem is where do you draw the line? Tribal law is being used to protect some bastards from being properly prosecuted for murder, paedophilia and rape, and this is not at all acceptable to most forward thinking people.

One law for all Australians.

Some cultures now living in Australia also think that female circumcision is perfectly acceptable too, so should we turn a blind eye to that because it’s a cultural thing too?

youre forgetting tribal alp law.

One set of laws for all is the only way to go. Anything else is trouble.

As far as removing judges ability to consider things goes, I think the less leeway they have the better. The current approach seems to be that they look at the maximum sentence then find a range a of factors that makes the sentence less severe, often resulting in penalties perceived by the community as less than sufficient. Giving them yet another excuse will not help this situation.

Bugger tribal law.

The reality is that the Feds are beating up some sort of story on the customary law thing to try and look like they’re doing somthing. The danger in accepting the Feds position (appart from surrendering a right that you have no need to surrender) is that by removing a judges ability to consider the fullest range of issues in sentencing is inherantly bad law – whether its Aboriginal customary law or anything else that they look at when deciding on a sentence.

The Aboriginal groups around here don’t practice customary law.

Is it being used as an excuse in ACT courts?

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