CANBERRA, March 21 AAP - Labor was under mounting pressure today to blockade legislation in the Senate if the government continues to stymie attempts to overturn mandatory sentencing. A national phone link of 20 organisations representing church, community, youth, legal and human rights groups urged the Senate to consider forcing the House of Representatives to debate Greens Senator Bob Brown's anti-mandatory sentencing bill. Senator Brown and the Australian Democrats are in favour of threatening the government with a blockade of its legislative agenda.

But Labor, the alternative government which seems unlikely to achieve its own Senate majority, is reluctant to set such a drastic precedent.

"The opposition is still considering its position," Opposition Senate leader John Faulkner's spokesman told AAP. The government used its numbers last week to gag debate in the House of Representatives on the Brown bill and a similar Labor bill which would exempt children from Western Australia and the Northern Territory's mandatory sentencing laws. NSW Independent MP Peter Andren will introduce a third bill which would curtail only the NT law into the House of Representatives on April 10.

A protest has been organised in Melbourne the day before as have "encouragement" campaigns in the electorates of government MPs thought to be opposed to mandatory sentencing, Senator Brown said. But targeted MPs today vowed they would not be pressured into crossing the floor on anti-mandatory sentencing private member's bills.

"I have been targeted by Rupert Murdoch in his campaign and that failed and I can assure you that any campaign that Bob Brown runs against me will fail also," Victorian Liberal MP Fran Bailey told ABC radio.

NSW Liberal backbencher Kerry Bartlett, also regarded as potentially sympathetic, said the way ahead was to talk to the NT government and look at other ways of addressing the issue. He said he and others have been targeted with letters and e-mails pressing them to publicly oppose the NT and WA laws. "There has been a long extensive debate, a patient one and a very thorough and good one," he said.

"I would be very surprised if we revisited that issue." The government came under renewed pressure on the laws, criticised as unjust and stacked against Aborigines, with the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination today.

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR) accused it of shaming Australia's reputation by defending its 1998 Wik amendments and failing to act on the scandal of mandatory sentencing.

AAP

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