Law and order is no get-out-of-jail card for floundering politicians

With confidence in politicians at an all-time low, it would be easy to assume criminal law-making is only ever about "law and order" bidding and winning elections. For example, when it emerged that Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was on bail when he killed one man and injured two others in Bourke Street, Melbourne, on November 9, the Victorian opposition reiterated its plan for a "one strike and you're out" bail system. This was classic law and order politics - though it didn't produce the result Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy had hoped.