Labor has accused the new attorney general, Christian Porter, of failing to stand up for the judiciary against his fellow minister Peter Dutton’s accusation that Victorian judges are “civil libertarians” who hand down lenient sentences.
The shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said Porter had been “missing in action while his colleagues make shocking attacks on the independence of the judiciary”.
Last week the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, criticised Dutton for claiming that Victorians were “scared to go out to restaurants” because of “African gang violence”.
The home affair ministers had suggested the Victorian public were “bemused” when they looked “at the jokes of sentences being handed down” owing to “political correctness that’s taken hold” in the judiciary.
On Monday the Law Council of Australia warned, without naming Dutton, that attacks on Victorian judges had eroded confidence in the judiciary, threatening its independence and the rule of law.
On Thursday Dreyfus said that “protecting the judiciary and the rule of law in this country is a vital part of the role of an attorney general”.
“As a former state attorney general, Mr Porter has no excuses,” he said. “He must know the importance of this part of his new federal role. If his silence is through choice, it is a very worrying sign indeed.”
Porter responded that he had “full confidence in the integrity of our courts”.
“However, no one is questioning court integrity, rather it has long been reasonable democratic practice to criticise decisions of courts without attacking a court’s integrity,” he said.
“The courts themselves have upheld and defended the exercise of freedom of speech and public debate in relation to public criticism of court decisions.”
Porter was appointed attorney general in the December reshuffle when it was announced the former office holder George Brandis would be Australia’s next high commissioner in London.
In 2017 the Turnbull government ministers Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge and Michael Sukkar narrowly avoided contempt of court charges by apologising for comments during an active terrorism case that called Victorian court of appeal justices “hard-left activist judges” who engaged in an “ideological experiment” in sentencing.
Dreyfus said Brandis had “let his colleagues denigrate senior members of the judiciary, resulting in a contempt case”.
“The government should have learned its lesson. Will Mr Porter let the same pattern continue?”
“Serious damage to our democracy can be done by elected politicians in their attacks on judges and the courts. It is time for Mr Porter to stand up and to speak out for the judiciary, who cannot speak out for themselves.”
Porter said data showed child offenders in Victoria received “less than half the time in custody … than equivalent offenders in NSW”.
“Victorian sentencing has been noted by the high court as being disproportionate to the gravity of offending and culpability of offenders,” he said.
In October the high court held that Victorian courts had been handing down inadequate sentences for one category of crime – child abuse in families – owing to a 1968 precedent in an incest case.
Porter said given the lower sentences and the “terrible elevation in violent gang-related offending in Victoria” it was “normal and reasonable” to expect a public debate about Victorian sentencing and criminal justice policy.
“Mark Dreyfus as a Victorian himself might do well to reflect that the people who really need protecting in Victoria are the victims of assault and robbery and home invasion.”
On Thursday Bill Shorten said he lived in the western suburbs of Melbourne and went out to dinner “on a regular basis” in the area.
“I think I’m like a lot of people - sick of the prime minister from Bondi giving Melbourne a lecture, of course we’ve got to tackle crime,” he said.
“It’s pretty rich for Mr Turnbull to give advice to Victoria … at the same time he’s cutting federal police numbers.”
