Key Points
Tasmanian Labor values our growing multicultural communities and believes multicultural communities are an integral part of Tasmanian society.
A Rebecca White Labor Government will take action on racism and increase penalties for racially motivated crime.
Labor's plan will:
- Have a Minister for Multicultural Affairs.
- Better fund the Multicultural Council of Tasmania (MCOT).
- Work with MCOT and other multicultural organisations to conduct an education campaign to reduce racially motivated crime.
- Create a series of new offences in the Police Offences Act and Criminal Code to reflect racially-motivated crimes and hate crime.
- Amend the Sentencing Act to allow hate crimes to be considered as an aggravating factor upon sentencing.
- Create an Anti-Racism Taskforce and whole-of-government anti-racism strategy.
Why we need it
Under a decade of the Liberals’ approach to law and order, things have gone from bad to worse. Tasmania has some of the worst reoffending rates in the country and the majority of young people who serve time at Ashley Youth Detention Centre end up in the adult justice system later in life. That’s a sign of a broken system.
A Labor government will focus on the causes of crime: we will reduce reoffending, increase rehabilitation and make communities safer places to live and work.
“A Rebecca White Labor Government will tackle the causes of crime to reduce offending and make our communities safer places to live and work”
Victims of racially motivated crime report that when they report to Police they are unable to have the crime recorded or reported as racially motivated crime because the right laws don’t exist. This means that Police can’t easily record data on how much racially motivated crime is occurring.
The details
Labor will:
1. Appoint a Minister for Multicultural Affairs
A Labor Government will appoint a Minister for Multicultural Affairs to ensure that multicultural communities have a loud and tangible voice within Government.
2. Fund the Multicultural Council of Tasmania
A Labor Government will provide an increase of $500,000 per annum in addition to MCOT’s existing funding.
Labor will also work with MCOT and other multicultural representative organisation to run a campaign on uniting communities and combatting racism, as well as to recognise its role as the peak body for multicultural communities in Tasmania.
Labor values the diversity of multicultural organisations supporting our communities and recognises the importance of a range of sizes of organisations, roles and functions.
3. Create new offences in the Police Offences Act and Criminal Code
A Labor Government will create a series of new offences in the Police Offences Act and Criminal Code that mean people can be charged with hate crimes. This means that when someone commits a crime and they are motivated by racism, sexism, homophobia, disability discrimination or other forms of hatred, that they will be charged with offences that take that into account.
4. An Anti-Racism Taskforce
A Rebecca White Labor Government will create an Anti-Racism Taskforce for Tasmania, which will develop a whole-of-government anti-racism strategy, while having a more immediate focus on hate crimes. The Taskforce will consist of representatives from multicultural organisations and community members.
5. Amend the Sentencing Act
Labor will also amend the Sentencing Act, which currently only allows racial hatred or racism to be considered as an aggravating factor meaning a higher sentence. Labor will add other prejudices to be considered as aggravating factors upon sentencing. The applicable factors will be drawn from the Anti-Discrimination Act and will include sexuality, religion, political affiliation and disability.
6. Other relevant policy
Tasmanian Labor will also maintain and strengthen the multicultural working groups that exist across government as well as:
- Legislate for a Human Rights Act
- Protect, defend and strengthen our Anti Discrimination Act
And we will work with the Federal Labor Government to:
- Make sure overseas qualifications are more readily recognised and transferrable to Australian registration systems.
- Ensure visa backlogs continue to be addressed quickly and efficiently.
- Ensure the Tasmanian state sponsored migration pathway is straight forward and equitable.
- Contribute to the national anti racism campaign and related work.