Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

The circumstances affected by this particular provision are the circumstances where, when you make an assessment of the seriousness of an offence, in terms of both sentencing and bail applications, then you cannot take customary law into consideration. But we are certainly not asserting that mitigating circumstances in a criminal trial would not be taken into consideration. This only refers to both sentencing and bail applications. Of course, those sorts of circumstances would always be taken into consideration in any prosecution and defence of a criminal matter. These provisions are specifically in regard to sentencing and the circumstances of bail.