Law Of Common Sense

At a time of extraordinary disruption and distrust around the world, matters of safety, civil order and justice, are even more precious.

This week gave ample demonstration of a growing and alarming point of difference in Australian politics. One side of politics is focused on keeping Australians safe and advancing a strong and serious law-and-order agenda. The Morrison Government has had a busy week upholding safety, justice and respect. The other side of politics is playing dangerous politics, delaying decisions and doing the bidding of others for whom fundamental values don’t matter.  The left of politics in this country display alarming levels of distrust, disrespect and disarray on the core business of keeping people safe.

First, a few foundational points. The most basic reason for government to exist is to keep people safe and maintain civil order. For thousands of years people have been paying taxes to fund police, to run courts and jails, and to have officials set laws for citizens to adhere to. The rule of law, a term first used in English around 1500, is an essential plank of western civilisation. Menzies believed in the maintenance of civil order through the police and law enforcement agencies and to administer justice through the courts and judicial system. At the same time, just as he said the state can “keep the peace and administer justice”. Menzies emphasised that the “dynamo, the driving force, of human progress is in the heart and mind and energy of the individual”.

At a time of extraordinary disruption and distrust around the world, matters of safety, civil order and justice, are even more precious. Australia cannot allow itself to slide to the left and lapse into a less safe, civil and just state. 

Last year in Australia 39 per cent of convictions for sexual assault of a child resulted in the perpetrator not going to jail. A simply shocking statistic. This week the Sexual Crimes Against Children Bill, which imposes mandatory prison sentences for child abusers, passed Parliament. Under the legislation, repeat offenders and serious child sex offenders will face mandatory minimum sentences. Yet Labor and the Greens rebuffed the mandatory sentences before backing down. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton described this decision by Labor and the Greens as one of “the worst acts I have seen in my 20 years in parliament” and told Anthony Albanese that he “needs to look parents in the eye and explain his betrayal of them”. The Prime Minister commented on how it took three years of fighting against the Labor Party and the Greens for the Bill to finally pass.

One of Queensland’s most infamous murderers, Christopher Clark Jones, was deported to the UK on Monday after serving 15 years of a life sentence for the gruesome murder of 17-year-old Morgan Jay Shepherd in 2005. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton cancelled Jones’ visa on character grounds before he became eligible for parole. Dutton said that “there is no place in the Australian community for foreign nationals who murder Australians” and that the Liberal Government is “continuing to keep our country safe by cancelling more than 5,510 visas of foreign criminals who commit crimes in Australia“.

It’s worth recalling that Labor delayed this legislation too, having cancelled just 650 visas of foreign criminals between 2008 and 2013. In other words, during similar time periods, Labor acted to remove from our country 12 per cent of the number of serious criminals a Coalition government has removed. The numbers say it all.

In the Senate on Thursday, the Greens voted against a motion condemning calls to defund police forces across the country. The motion, which was co-sponsored by Coalition Senators Canavan, Davey, Molan and Smith, recognised the “hard work, dedication and sacrifice of over 80,000 state and federal police officers in Australia”. It also noted that more than one police officer is injured every hour in the line of duty and condemned “those calling for the defunding of our essential police forces”.

Greens Senator Nick McKim justified his decision to vote against the motion by claiming that defunding police was about “justice reinvestment” and “increasing funding into social supports” like “housing, things like education, things like childcare, things that are genuine public goods”. Perhaps the Greens should pack up and move to CHAZ, the new utopian state reflecting the left’s lawless agenda.

There’s a dangerous tendency in the left these days to tear down more than statues. They don’t want to just defund the police but also redefine our long-standing traditions and understandings of the role and nature of policing. What our police represent here, and have done for a long-time, is order by consent. Namely, as a society we agree that the police are there to protect our common interests. The left see it very differently and it’s a dangerous road ahead if our longstanding policing contract is broken. 

We’re under cyber-attack, dealing with a pandemic, in recession, seeing unemployment rise and businesses close, there are border tensions between the two most populous nations in the world and race riots in many parts of the world, but the response of the left in Australia is to make people and communities feel (and in fact be) less safe. Lucky they’re not in charge in Canberra right now. Strong, stable, responsible government and actions keeping Australians safe is what we need – and what we’re getting.