These are everyday items, of course, but stealing them in the Northern Territory can put you in jail - as it did for the 15-year-old Aboriginal boy who then committed suicide at a Darwin detention centre last month.

So protesters placed the items yesterday on the steps of the NT Tourist Commission's offices in Southbank, a simple ceremony to remember the boy's death - and with the aim that it might maintain the public spotlight on mandatory sentencing laws.

The indigenous film maker Mr Richard Frankland, who spoke at the rally, said he hoped the issue would not die away.

"This rally is about asking every Australian the same question: `Would you like your son or daughter to be jailed for a loaf of bread?"' he said.

Earlier, several hundred protesters had marched from Melbourne's General Post Office to Southbank, a collection of some regular activists and the not-so-usual, drawn by the particular cause.

"Hey hey, ho ho, racist laws have got to go," they chanted, passing office workers, shoppers and a bemused lunchtime crowd at Walter's Wine Bar in Southgate.

A self-described retired activist, Ms Pauline Middleton, carried a sign asking: "Why do we imprison our children in the land of the free?"

She said the mandatory sentencing laws in the NT and Western Australia show Australia does not value or respect its young people. "I don't believe mandatory sentencing is just in any sense of the word."

One placard compared Alan Bond's four-year jail term over a transaction worth hundreds of millions of dollars with mandatory sentences for stealing $23 of biscuits and cordial.

The Defence For Children International's Australian president, Mr Danny Sandor, urged the Federal Government to allow a conscience vote on a parliamentary bill that would override the laws.

[back]