Dr Nelson, the head of a Senate Inquiry Committee for Mandatory Sentencing, has told Sky TV the UN should never be ignored. The UN's top race committee last night issued a report which called on the federal government to review mandatory sentencing laws in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said mandatory sentencing laws discriminated against indigenous Australians and conflicted with the UN conventions on human rights.

Dr Nelson says it shouldn't take a report from the United Nations to show that mandatory sentencing is wrong.

He says the report will put a little bit more pressure on the territorial government to work at the social and economic reasons behind juvenile crime.

He says the issue of why youths turn to crime should be researched.

AAP

FAIRA Aboriginal Corporation
Phone +61 7 3391 4677 • Fax +61 7 3391 4551 • email letterbox@faira.org.au
Post Office Box 8402 Woolloongabba Q 4102 Australia
37 Balaclava Street Woolloongabba