GOVERNMENT Senator Sherene Golding Campbell has blasted the State’s approach to proposed changes affecting close-in-age sexual activity among minors, describing it as “unacademic” while insisting that lawmakers must rely on data rather than sentiment or pressure from interest groups.

Her criticism sparked a tense exchange with state minister in the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert, who agreed that children should not be unnecessarily criminalised but argued that, from her decades of legal practice, the present law has already derailed the lives of many teenage boys.

The clash unfolded on Wednesday as Parliament’s joint select committee reviewing the Child Diversion Act considered, once again, how to treat cases involving teenagers close in age who engage in sexual activity.