Re BBM: I didn't know that. Do you have a link please?
you can look it up in AustLI, or on the NSW Jurisprudence website, or , you can ask the question of google, making sure, of course that you are asking about NSW law, although, Victorian Law is precisely the same, and also Federal law. I am presuming it is also in Qld, SA and WA and TAS and the NT, but I don't know for sure, I rely on you to look that up for me.
the crimes he is charged with, that we know of, we don't know all of the criminal charges as yet, but of the ones he is currently held on , those are crimes that , should he be found guilty, will inevitably result in a life sentence, and added to that, a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Because of the murder of a child, and the callousness of the crimes associated.
If he pleads not guilty, and is found guilty, he loses any possible discount for saving public money and the courts time, but even that does not over ride the severity and savagery of the crimes. The judge is not obliged to give him any discount at all, regardless of a guilty plea. That is entirely up to the perspective of the judge, and his estimation of the public expectation.
If, in time to come, in the year ,say, 2045, for him to apply for parole, he would have to go thru Parliament. He would be out of the authority of the Parole Board of NSW. Only if a term of imprisonment is set, with the provision for an application for parole after so many years does a prisoner come into the authority of the Parole Board.
Without that provision in the sentence, the Parole Board has no authority to grant the prisoner even a hearing about parole, much less parole.
These are not egregious or extreme sentences. Some crimes attract such measures. NSW has , for some time, dealt with life sentences without the provision of parole inbuilt into the set time. Prisons have been erected and instigated with these events in mind. There are quite a few serving such sentences right now, mostly in Goulburn Correctional Facility, but some in Silverwater, some in Cooma, some in Junee, some in old Long Bay, ..
It isn't a new thing, or a radical thing, it's a result of political will in NSW, and other states, Victoria being the latest, I think, to set this kind of sentence.
But I am ahead of myself. He may be found not guilty of any damn thing whatsoever, and skip happily into the sunset, whistling merrily.