Breaking Law And Order's Gavel

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday January 8, 2009

NSW politics has differentiated itself from other Australian political arenas on many fronts but perhaps none so remorselessly predictable as the law and order auction. For the past 20 years, come election time, our politicians have fallen over themselves promising to spend millions on more police, more weapons, more jails, longer sentences - anything, in fact, that assuages voters' fears about law and order being out of control. So the undertaking by the Opposition's shadow attorney-general, Greg Smith, to end such an unseemly and wasteful buying of votes is certainly a welcome and desired development.

Mr Smith gave an indication that the Opposition was shifting position last month when, amid reports of record prisoner numbers, he suggested rehabilitation might be a better way to spend money than jails. He wanted funding to concentrate on post-release programs and keeping young offenders out of prison. Now he has also criticised his own side of politics for its part in hyping punitive policies on law and order. Further, he considered that some Opposition policies, such as grid sentencing, should be dumped, not least because they were ultimately election losers.

Mr Smith has generally resisted the lure of populist positions since becoming the shadow attorney-general. A former deputy director of public prosecutions himself, for years he sat at the right hand of Nicholas Cowdery, the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions. Mr Cowdery distinguished himself and his office by infuriating both sides of Parliament with his continuing and public critique of the use of community fears, courts, police and prisons for political ends. While the Coalition has never been a friend to Mr Cowdery, last year when the State Government moved to nobble him by reducing the DPP budget, Mr Smith said the cuts were a retaliation for his old boss's willingness to criticise the Government.

Mr Smith has shown an admirable ability to move on from past positions and his reformist attitude to the problem of law and order auctions is commonsense. He is the first MP from a major party who dared to cut free of the "tough on crime" and "lock 'em up" sloganeering that has been the usual political response to a crime wave mostly caused by drug and alcohol abuse. Whatever the Labor position on the law and order auction, the biggest challenge now facing Mr Smith is to resist pressure from within Coalition ranks from those who would retain their time-honoured toughness on the issue.