The baseline sentencing provisions in s 5A of the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) are incapable of practical operation and do not require sentencing judges to impose sentences different from those they would otherwise impose. The provisions express Parliament's intention by reference to a statistical end-point (a future median) but contain no mechanism for its achievement, and it is beyond the judicial function to devise one. Statements in the second reading speech cannot fill the gap in the statutory text. The dissent (Whelan JA) would have treated the baseline as a new guidepost within instinctive synthesis, affecting all sentences including those below the median.
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