Activist groups told the NSW Sentencing Council that good character at sentencing "benefits White, middle-class men". On Thursday night, Labor scrapped it for every criminal offence in the state.

The Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Amendment (Good Character at Sentencing) Bill 2026 passed the Legislative Council, abolishing a sentencing principle that's existed in Australian and English common law for centuries. From now on, no convicted offender, from murderers to drink drivers to fraudsters, can argue their sentence should be reduced because they're otherwise considered a good person.

Until last night, NSW judges weighed an offender's history, contributions and reputation alongside the crime. From the date the law is proclaimed, they won't.

The race and class arguments behind the bill

The bill rests on the NSW Sentencing Council's July 2025 report. Fourteen of the Council's sixteen members recommended abolition across all offences. The two dissenters were Bar Association members Felicity Graham and Richard Wilson SC, who argued recognising good character could encourage rehabilitation.

The Council's reasoning leaned heavily on activist submissions. The Community Restorative Centre told the review "it is generally White, middle-class men who most benefit from prior good character considerations". The NSW Aboriginal Women's Advisory Network said good character references were "an extension of White privilege" and "connected to White privilege and proximity to institutional power". Wirringa Baiya Aboriginal Women's Legal Centre argued good character sat within a "colonial western framework" that didn't account for "nuances and cultural differences" of indigenous communities.

The Council itself concluded good character was "based on a vague and uncertain concept" and "can embed and perpetuate social privilege, and disadvantage those who experience systemic marginalisation".

The compromise Labor torched

The bill that passed on Thursday went further than the cross party compromise the NSW Upper House had already approved. On 7 May, the Coalition and the Greens combined to limit the reform to sexual offences only. NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson said Labor's broader version was a "sledgehammer where a scalpel" was needed. Both sides argued sex offences were the right place to draw the line, since that's what the Your Reference Ain't Relevant survivor campaign had originally pushed for.

Labor refused to accept the limit. The Minns Government reintroduced the original bill covering all offences. The Coalition dropped its opposition. The amended version passed unchanged.

The NSW Bar Association, the Law Society of NSW, Legal Aid NSW, the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT and Domestic Violence NSW all opposed the broader version. So did the Public Defenders.

NSW Bar Association president Dominic Toomey SC told a parliamentary inquiry the reform would "unreasonably limit the ability of the sentencing court to understand the offender as a whole person". He said whether an offence was "an aberration for a person who has otherwise made positive contributions to the community is, and should remain, an important consideration".

Public defender Alexander Terracini posed a scenario at the same inquiry: a domestic violence victim with a clean record who eventually retaliates against her abuser. Under the new law, the court can't factor in her years of good behaviour. Daley dismissed the example.

Toomey also rejected the report's race and class framing. He told AAP "evidence of otherwise good character is used in sentencing proceedings by offenders from a wide range of backgrounds, including people experiencing disadvantage" and said the real barrier to equal justice was underfunding of Legal Aid and the Aboriginal Legal Service. The government didn't act on either point.

The Liberals and Greens both opposed it and got rolled

The bill Labor passed on Thursday went further than the cross party compromise the NSW Upper House had already approved a month earlier. On 7 May, the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens combined to amend Labor's original bill and limit the reform to sexual offences only. That amended version cleared the Upper House.

It's a rare alignment. The Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens almost never vote together. They did this time because the legal and advocacy sector had warned the broader bill would hurt vulnerable people, not just sexual offenders.

NSW Greens MLC Sue Higginson said Labor's broader version was "a sledgehammer where a scalpel" was needed. The Greens position was that the reform should be confined to sexual offences because that's what the Your Reference Ain't Relevant survivor campaign had actually pushed for. Anything beyond that was Labor overreach.

The Coalition agreed and helped pass the amended bill. Shadow Attorney General Damien Tudehope called on Labor to accept the compromise version.

Labor refused. Premier Chris Minns and Attorney General Michael Daley said the limit didn't go far enough. The Minns Government reintroduced the original bill covering all offences and put it back to the Upper House this week. The Liberals dropped their opposition under media pressure. The Greens held their position but couldn't stop it alone. The broader version passed unchanged on Thursday night.

Attorney General Michael Daley said the law spells "the end of the mere 'good character' defence" and that victim-survivors would "no longer be forced to sit in court and hear the person convicted of a heinous crime be described as an otherwise good person".

The choice Labor made

Toomey also rejected the report's race and class framing. He told AAP "evidence of otherwise good character is used in sentencing proceedings by offenders from a wide range of backgrounds, including people experiencing disadvantage" and said the real barrier to equal justice was underfunding of Legal Aid and the Aboriginal Legal Service.

That point gets to the heart of the policy choice. If the concern is that disadvantaged offenders can't produce character evidence as easily as wealthier defendants, there are two ways to fix it. Fund the services that help disadvantaged offenders demonstrate good character, or abolish the consideration of good character for everyone.

The first lifts the floor. The second removes the ceiling. Labor chose the second.

The reform was not accompanied by any announcement of additional funding for Legal Aid or the Aboriginal Legal Service. The race and class concerns identified in the Sentencing Council report remain. The mitigating factor said to favour White, middle-class men has simply been removed from everyone's sentencing.

What happens now

One Nation has no representation in the current NSW Parliament and could not vote on the bill. The party's NSW policy platform calls for sentencing reform that puts victims first, ensures "punishments will fit the crime", and widens the scope for victim impact statements. It hasn't issued a public statement on the bill's passage.

Victoria has signalled it intends to follow with similar legislation. Tasmania is planning a more limited version applying only to serious offences. Western Australia remains the only state without exceptions for child sex offences in good character sentencing.

The Act will apply to every sentencing proceeding from the date it is proclaimed, which has not yet been set. A statutory review of the changes is built into the legislation.

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