An ACT Legislative Assembly committee has strengthened proposed sentencing laws by listening to expert evidence and improving the legislation.

We’re in a world where the lone superpower (at least for most of the past three decades) is being eclipsed, with an erratic and irrational president bypassing the legislative authority of Congress with deadly effect in matters military and budgetary.

We’re in a country where a supposedly reforming second-term government with a thumping majority is widely seen as glacial at best in its legislative approach, and the Opposition as ineffectual, at least at those moments when it’s not hopelessly divided.

So, it’s heartening to live in a jurisdiction where, at least in one current instance, a parliament seems to be actually working, in the interests of all sections of the community, and, one hopes, with enough firepower to lead a government to alter course.

It’s not the most earth-shattering matter, but the progress of the Magistrates Court (Indicative Sentencing) Amendment Bill 2025 through the ACT Legislative Assembly’s Legal Affairs committee is an example of how well a parliamentary system can function, at least so far.

Indicative sentencing allows a defendant to request an indication of the likely sentence to be imposed if they were to plead guilty. The ACT Government’s aim is to reduce the number of people on bail by creating greater transparency regarding sentencing outcomes and to enable defendants to make quicker decisions, reducing overall time taken to finalise proceedings. Such schemes operate in Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory.

The committee heard from most of the major public-sector players in the ACT’s criminal-justice system – and has taken up virtually everything put to it.

Most stakeholders said the planned requirement for outright prosecutorial consent would undermine judicial independence and efficiency. The committee recommended that indicative sentencing be offered at the discretion of the magistrate alone.

The Aboriginal Legal Service and ACT Law Society submitted strongly against a proposed section that would require the Court to consider whether the prosecution believed that there was insufficient information about the harm suffered by a complaint for the Court to give an indicative sentence. The committee specifically recommended that the offending sub-paragraph be removed from the Bill.

The Society and ACT Bar Association submitted that family violence offences should be included in the scheme, saying “When properly implemented, indicative sentencing in family-violence cases can shorten proceedings, promote accountability from defendants, reduce the time victims spend in court, and limit exposure to cross-examination – all without diminishing the seriousness of these offences.”

Legal Aid ACT added that Children’s Court matters should be included, saying it would be “highly valuable” because “uncertainty can be a deterrent” to pleading guilty for young offenders.

The committee’s first recommendation was that the scope of the scheme be broadened.

The ALS, among others, pushed for clarification that the court could impose not only an increased sentence, but also a more lenient sentence if warranted by a change of circumstances since the sentence indication.

The committee endorsed that stance, and many others, including that a plea could be withdrawn where the court revised an indicative sentence or where the Prosecution successfully appealed a sentence actually imposed as a result of the indicative-sentencing process.

Relatively unexceptional submissions from the Victims of Crime Commissioner, chiefly about being allowed to call people “victims” instead of “complainants” when guilt was to be admitted under the new process, were also taken up by the committee.

Why would a Liberal Opposition-led committee be so quick to take up so many recommendations to favour defendants when the local party has such a strong law-and-order brigade?

A survey of the three individual committee members shows why.

The chair is Liberal Chiaka Barry, a Member of the Legislative Assembly only since 2024, but one who has worked in the criminal-justice system, including a considerable time in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

She knows of the complexities of those coming before the Courts. Indeed, her website declares: “I am committed to … being a strong advocate for reducing the impact of domestic violence and protecting the most vulnerable in our society”; and, as a senior legal officer with the Attorney-General’s Department “I contributed to shaping legislation and policies aimed at protecting our children from harm.”

Greens Leader Shane Rattenbury, in the Assembly almost two decades, and long a minister, including being attorney-general, but now uncoupled from a coalition with Labor, brought substantial experience and political nous to the committee.

The third member was Labor’s Taimus Werner-Gibbings. Like Barry, he is another newcomer from the 2024 election. While he lacks the direct experience of Rattenbury and Barry, he joined in all the committee recommendations and, like Barry and Ratten, he holds a law degree – something the Territory’s current first law officer, Tara Cheyne, does not.

Ms Cheyne’s government is to respond to the committee recommendations by 26 June.

Let’s hope she can persuade her ministerial colleagues to take up the progressive policy approach so neatly provided by the committee, after what was a truly conservative parliamentary process.