Labor veteran Kim Carr has criticised the government’s “deeply disturbing” decision to sign up to mandatory minimum sentences in a deal to pass bridging visa changes with Coalition support.
The move announced by the acting prime minister, Richard Marles, on Thursday contradicts Labor’s national platform, which states that the party “opposes mandatory sentencing” because it “undermines the independence of the judiciary, leads to unjust outcomes and is often discriminatory in practice”.
