For serious and organised crime offences under s 38(2ba) of the Sentencing Act, 'exceptional circumstances' requires circumstances that so markedly change the nature of the particular case that it is no longer within the mischief the legislature intended to address; good reason alone will never suffice. The punitive experience contemplated by s 38(2) — that ordinarily the sentence will be served in prison — is a relevant factor in the exercise of the s 33BB home detention discretion, even though exceptional circumstances need not be shown for s 33BB. In cannabis trafficking cases, the parity principle requires that co-offenders with materially different levels of culpability receive materially different starting points, and identical starting points for offenders of different culpability may give rise to a justifiable sense of grievance warranting appellate intervention.
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