Clancy Dane

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104 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 26 May

Clancy Dane’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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7am · Kids forced to represent themselves in court: The NT’s legal aid crisis · 26 May 2026 podcast

So when people aren't represented, more charges will be contested.

There's a risk that the victim ends up cross-examined by the perpetrator in that scenario.

But more broadly, the cost to the courts and the prosecutors and the police and corrections as cases drag on is going to be massive.

So what we'll have is victims, their families and the community waiting longer for an outcome which may never come or at best holds an asterisk because the person was unrepresented.

We're trying to get something corrected that we believe was wrongly decided back in 2006.

So in 1992, the High Court of Australia said that while you do not have the right to legal representation, you do have the right not to be tried unfairly.

And in serious cases, it will be unfair to proceed against the person who does not have a lawyer.

Now, in 2006, in the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeal, they said that it doesn't apply in the local court.

And so we're trying to go back to that court and re-argue that it should be changed and should be reflected that you have a right not to be tried unfairly in the local court too.

And if you don't have a lawyer, those cases should be stayed.

Absolutely.

It's an entirely unsatisfactory outcome.

But that's where our government policy has put us, or put the courts.

It's having to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Do we prosecute a person knowing that it is unfair and knowing that doing so would undermine the integrity of the legal system itself?

Or do we press pause on that case until that unfairness can be ameliorated?

Neither one is a good choice.

Well, I think there's two things to unpack there.

First of all, those earlier points about this not just affecting accused people, this affects everyone adversely.

And it's also sad to hear from so many of my clients that

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