The NSW Good Character Bill Gets the Goal Right. The Scope Is the Problem

Let me say something that might surprise you, coming from a criminal defence lawyer: I understand why this Bill exists. The New South Wales Government has introduced the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Amendment (Good Character at Sentencing) Bill 2026, legislation that would abolish good character as a formal mitigating factor at sentencing across every criminal offence in this state.

I understand why it exists not as an abstraction, but because I have sat across from the survivors who drove it. People who endured years of abuse and then sat in a courtroom and listened to a bishop, a headmaster, or a senior barrister describe their abuser as a man of uncommon decency. I understand exactly what the Your Reference Ain't Relevant campaign is about. I think they are right, the law needed to change.

Where I part ways with the Bill, and where I think the legal profession's concerns deserve to be heard clearly, is on scope. This is a New South Wales bill. It operates only in NSW courts. However, it applies a blanket prohibition across every criminal offence on the NSW statute books. That is an overreach, and it will produce consequences that nobody in this debate is actually asking for.

Sentencing has never been a mechanical exercise. It has always required a court to look at the whole person, not to excuse, but to understand.

What the Bill Actually Does

The Bill proposes to remove good character as a formal mitigating factor at sentencing for all criminal offences. Not just serious sexual offences. Not just offences where the perpetrator's respected position was used to gain access to victims. All offences.

• A young person from a disadvantaged background facing a first drug possession charge.

• A nurse with twenty years of unblemished service who made a catastrophic error of judgment.

• A small business owner with no prior history of dishonesty charged over a financial dispute. All of them would lose the ability to formally place their character before the court as mitigation.

I want to be precise about this, because there is some imprecision in public commentary. The Bill does not make a defendant's background invisible. Courts could still consider rehabilitation prospects, the absence of prior convictions, and personal circumstances. However, it removes the mechanism by which a court formally weighs that history against the severity of the sentence. In practice, that distinction matters more than it might sound.

What the Sentencing Council Actually Recommended

This part changes the terms of this debate. The NSW Sentencing Council, in the report that preceded this Bill, recommended abolishing good character as a mitigating factor across all criminal offences, not just serious sexual offences or offences involving children. It also recommended repealing the existing special rule that already limits good character mitigation in child sexual offence cases. The Bill appears to implement those recommendations faithfully. My concern, then, is not that the Bill has gone beyond what the expert body advised. It is that the question of proportionality was not adequately answered before that advice was given.

I have enormous respect for the work of the NSW Sentencing Council. However, expert bodies are not infallible, and their briefs are not unlimited. When a recommendation would remove a formal mitigating pathway for every defendant in every court in New South Wales, from the most serious indictable matter to the most minor summary offence, the question of whether the reform is proportionate to the specific harm identified demands a rigorous answer. I do not think it has received one.

Who Bears the Cost of Getting This Wrong 

The NSW Bar Association has put this well: every day across the Local and District Courts, defendants from disadvantaged backgrounds, including Aboriginal defendants who already face profound systemic inequity within the criminal justice system, rely on character evidence to place their full circumstances before the court. That evidence is not always a stack of glowing references from well-connected employers. It is sometimes the account of a community elder, a foster parent, or a youth worker describing what a young person has overcome. Removing the formal framework that makes that evidence legally significant does not make those circumstances disappear. It just makes them count for less.

I have spent my career representing people the system would prefer to forget. I have seen how powerfully a court responds when it is given the full picture of a human being, not as an excuse for what they did, but as context for what sentence serves both justice and the community's long-term interest. Rehabilitation-focused sentencing does not happen in a vacuum. It requires courts to be able to see the person as well as the offence

The Reform I Would Support

Removing good character as a mitigating factor in serious sexual offences and offences against children is a reform I would not oppose. The Your Reference Ain't Relevant campaign foregrounded those cases, the bishop, the teacher, the trusted coach, and the courts' handling of good character evidence in that context has been, at times, indefensible. The specific harm is real. The current law's treatment of it is inadequate.

Yet, the Sentencing Council's recommendation went further than that, and the Bill follows it. My argument is not that reform is wrong. It is that a blanket abolition across every NSW offence is a broader instrument than the problem requires. Extend that reform to every assault in a pub car park, every drug possession charge, every theft matter before the Local Court, and you are no longer addressing a specific injustice. You are making sentencing across the board less responsive to the individual. That is not justice reform. That is sentencing by formula.

The law is a blunt instrument by nature. Sentencing is where we try to make it less so. 

I hope the Standing Committee on Law and Justice, in its report to the Legislative Council, recommends amendments that reflect the specificity of the harm identified, rather than a solution so broad it catches everyone in its wake.

The survivors who drove this campaign deserved better from the courts that handled their cases. They also deserve legislation precise enough to address their actual experience, not a reform so expansive that it transforms sentencing across the entire NSW criminal jurisdiction.

In summary, I support removing good character as a mitigating factor for serious sexual offences and offences against children. However, I oppose the Bill's blanket abolition across every criminal offence in NSW. The reform, as written, is disproportionate to the specific harm it was designed to address.

Authored by Peter O'Brien of O'Brien Criminal & Civil Solicitors

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Peter holds specialist accreditation in criminal law from the NSW Law Society, is a recipient of the NSW Law Society President's Medal (2023) and the Law Council of Australia President's Award (2024), and is co-author of Intentional Tort Litigation in Australia (Federation Press). He has represented clients in criminal defence, civil liberties, and police accountability matters for over 25 years.