Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Sonya Kilkenny:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Michael O’BRIEN (Malvern) (11:19): I am pleased to rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025. I will just recap for the house and for Hansard on how we got to where we are with bail laws in this state. Victoria used to have quite strong bail laws. They were strengthened considerably under the former Liberal–Nationals government because community safety was a priority to us. Under Labor there was a bit of weakening of some of those laws, under I think it was Attorney-General Pakula. Then we had the horror of the Bourke Street tragedy, and bail laws were significantly strengthened again, and that was the right call. But then we saw the government, under then Attorney-General Symes, take the view that bail laws were too strong in this state, and the Labor government made the decision to deliberately weaken Victoria’s bail laws. This took effect from March last year.

The government ignored the warnings from the opposition and the police and others. The government believed it knew better. The government believed that weakening bail laws was somehow going to protect community safety. The consequences of that weakening of bail laws became pretty obvious pretty quickly, and we saw criminals becoming emboldened. We saw criminals being arrested for serious violent offences, bailed and released only to commit the same offences time and time and time again. The government got it wrong, and the government kept refusing to admit it got it wrong. How many times? Three, four, five times this side of the house sought to bring in changes to bail laws to reverse some of the worst of the weakening of bail laws that had been undertaken by the Allan Labor government, and every single time members opposite stood up and blocked those changes being brought in – every single time.

This government put politics before community safety. It weakened bail laws. It saw that damage was being done in the community, and it refused to allow the opposition to bring in laws to fix up their mess. Eventually the polls started to turn; we know the only thing that drives members opposite is the polls – it is not about community safety at all. The spin doctors got in the Premier’s ear and told her she had a real problem with this, a real problem with community safety – Victorians do not feel safe because Victorians are not safe. We keep hearing from members about perceptions of crime. Well, perception is based on reality. Victorians do not feel safe because they are not safe. They are not safe on the streets. They are not safe in their homes, they are not safe driving their cars down the streets. Because Victorians are not feeling safe, the government finally felt compelled to act. But we know that when it comes to this government, it is not what they say, it is what they do.

We saw the first tranche of attempts to repair some of the damage done earlier this year. I could not quite believe it when I saw the bill. It was the Bail Amendment (Tough Bail) Bill 2025. The gall of this government to put the phrase ‘tough bail’ into a bill title just shows you everything you need to know about the fact that this government is obsessed with spin and is not about substance, because, number one, the bill was not tough on bail at all. It was not even close. The bill did not even reverse the changes this government brought in March last year, which led to a massive spike in repeat violent offending by offenders in this state. It did not even reverse those changes, so they were not tough at all. I was very pleased – notwithstanding that we were here until about 2 o’clock in the morning, member for Gippsland East. It was something like that. It saved me from watching Carlton get done at the MCG, so there was probably one upside to that late night.

A member interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: I will ignore that interjection. The one change we did succeed in persuading even the left-wing crossbench in the other place to support, the one amendment of mine that they agreed to, was to delete the words ‘tough bail’ from the name of the legislation. because even the leftie crossbench could not cop that. We wanted to strengthen the bill. We were not able to get those substantive changes through, but we did succeed in at least removing that pantomime of a title. Just as a matter of parliamentary procedure and practice, the idea of inserting political slogans into the title of legislation is pretty off. I am pleased, at the very least, that the government, in introducing this Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025, seems to have walked away from this performative nonsense of trying to put political slogans in the titles of legislation, because it is really quite demeaning to this Parliament. I would say that to all sides of Parliament. Frankly, your legislation should speak for itself. It does not need to have political slogans – you know, focus group workshopped phrases – stuck into the middle of titles of bills.

But what did the bill that passed actually do? Well, not all that much. The government promised to have the toughest bail test in Australia. That was not in that bill. The government said, ‘Well, we’re going to reintroduce the offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail,’ and it is true they did that, but it is without any consequence, because it used to be that the offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail was a schedule 2 offence. The effect of that was that if you did commit an indictable offence whilst on bail, you automatically faced a tougher test to stay on bail. On this side of the house we say that is the way it should be. If you get the privilege of bail and you abuse that privilege by committing a serious offence or you are charged with committing a serious offence while you are on bail, you should face a tougher test to stay out in the community because you have already given up the chance you have got. You have abused the chance you have been given. But no, this government does not believe that, so it has reinstated an offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail but not as a schedule 2 offence, which means effectively it has no consequence.

The government also reinstated the offence of breaching bail conditions, but again not as a schedule 2 offence, so there is no practical consequence for anybody who is charged with breaching a bail condition in terms of making it harder to stay on bail. Remember that the previous offence was not an unreasonable one; in fact the actual offence was breaching a bail condition without reasonable excuse. For example, if somebody had a curfew as part of their bail conditions and there was a train strike or some train derailment and they could not get home and they missed their curfew by 45 minutes, nobody was getting charged with that. Nobody was going back on remand because their train was delayed. So there was always that sensible release valve, if you like, of ‘without reasonable excuse’. But the government said, ‘Oh, no, that’s still too tough, so we’re going to nominally reintroduce the offence but with no consequence for bail.’ So it is still weaker than it was in March last year.

The government retained the loophole for under-18s, so if you are an under-18 and you breach your conditions of bail it is not even an offence. If you are under 18 and you breach your conditions of bail, it is not an offence under Labor. Explain to me how that sends any message to young offenders that they need to be accountable and that they need to keep to the conditions – and we are not talking about necessarily minor conditions. The conditions can be serious conditions. They can be not to approach witnesses. It can be about reporting to police on a regular basis. It can be not associating with certain people. Conditions are a very important part of bail. But this government says if you are under 18 you do not even need to keep to your conditions because you cannot be charged with an offence for breaching them.

Tim Bull interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: It is disgraceful, member for Gippsland East. While the government actually call these bail laws tough bail laws, they are about as tough as a roll of Sorbent. That is how tough they are. The government still refuses to make burglary and robbery schedule 2 offences. Under this government burglary and robbery are the sorts of crimes you can engage in and get the weakest, easiest test to get bail. That is the way Labor thinks you protect the community. Well, Labor could not be more wrong. For all the performative slogans we hear from this government, bail laws in Victoria are still weaker than they were in March 2024, and we are seeing the consequences of that on our streets every single day, because this government does not have the heart to actually introduce strong bail laws. It wants to be seen to be responding to community concern, but its heart is not in it. It does not want to actually see bad people locked up, and the same government philosophy which led to the weakening of bail laws is still there. It is still riding the government, but they have to pretend to dress it up.

That is where we are today, and now the government has this Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 before the house. I will talk about some of the less central changes. It provides that the statutory review of bail law changes, which, if it is to occur, must also consider their impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons. I do not know if there is a need to specify that, because I would have thought that any statutory review would consider their impact on all relevant persons, but we do not object to clarifying that. The government bill also provides that where the Bail Act requires surrounding circumstances to be taken into account by a bail decision maker, this includes the accused being pregnant or having caring responsibilities. Once again, I would have thought that was something that does not necessarily need to be specified. I would have thought that any bail decision maker would be considering all those matters as a matter of course, but the government obviously feels there is a need to set that out and specify it, and we do not object to that so far as it goes.

The government is prohibiting the electronic monitoring of bail conditions by private companies, subject to certain exceptions. This is a government that is pretty much asleep at the wheel, because it allowed the courts to work with private electronic monitoring companies, some of which were run by people of not necessarily the highest repute. Some of these companies went under and some of these companies did not do what they told the courts they were going to do. For a government that is pretty left wing, the whole notion of saying that you can buy your way to bail – because if you are rich enough to be able to afford to sign up to a private electronic monitoring company, you can get bail; if not, you are on remand – I would have thought there was a pretty strong equity argument against that in the first place. The fact this government left it for so long and allowed this practice to arise before the courts says to me that we have had attorneys-general for too long under this Labor government who have really been asleep at the wheel. They have not been watching what has been happening, and as a result we have had people who should have been properly monitored who were not. We have had people who arguably should not have been given bail who were, and that does not keep the community safe. The government is belatedly now moving in this bill to clean up its own mess by prohibiting the use of electronic monitoring of bail conditions by private companies, subject to certain exceptions.

In terms of some of the changes that the government is introducing, we are going to hear a lot of rhetoric from the government about how we have got the toughest bail test in the country – it is not. This new high degree of probability filter which is to be applied to the unacceptable risk test for bail is essentially exactly the same as the high degree of confidence test that New South Wales uses. The government seems to think that they have reinvented the wheel, and they expect the Victorian people to be sort of showering rose petals in their path because they have come up with a new test called ‘high degree of probability’, when in effect what they have done is they have just looked over the shoulder of Chris Minns in New South Wales, who has got the test there of ‘high degree of confidence’ and borrowed that.

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: The minister at the table says that they are applying it to everyone. Yes, but it is only for six offences. It does not apply to any other offence. I am quite pleased the minister raises this. It is not actually a new test, because for the six specified offences, which are armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion, aggravated home invasion, carjacking and aggravated carjacking, those tests will still be subject to the normal two-step process. The first step of that two-step process is usually a show compelling reason test. There the onus is on the applicant for bail. They need to show the bail decision maker, but in these sorts of cases it will be a court, that there are compelling reasons why they should be granted bail, so the onus is on the applicant, and that is entirely proper. What the government says is if they pass that first test, then there is a second test, which is an unacceptable risk test. The onus for this is on the police. It is the police that need to satisfy the court that the person poses an unacceptable risk. What the government says here is: for these six offences, if you have committed one of these offences or you are charged with one of these offences you get bail, and then if you are charged again with another one of only those six offences, the unacceptable risk test is modified – effectively saying that the bail decision maker has to be satisfied there is a high degree of probability that the person will not commit another one of those offences. It is not actually a new test, it is a modification of the unacceptable risk test, and it only applies in circumstances where somebody has been charged with one of those six offences, gets bail and then is charged again with one of those six offences.

Jackson Taylor interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Well, it is still the unacceptable risk test, member for Bayswater. It is still the unacceptable risk test. It is a show compelling reason test as step one, and then it is the unacceptable risk test as step two. It is simply a modification of the unacceptable risk test; it is not a new test at all. If the government had wanted to introduce a new test, it could have done so. The government could have done it in a way which applied to a broader range of offences. When the government says, ‘Oh, it’s the toughest test in the country’ – no, it is not. It is just a copy and paste from New South Wales, and it only applies to six particular offences.

Of course this government cannot simply increase tests or make it harder for bad people to get bail – no, they have to weaken bail laws at the same time. What the government does not talk about in this bill is its weakening of bail laws in this same bill. What we see is that the government says, ‘Well, look, we are going to uplift the bail test for those charged with certain indictable offences while already on bail for an indictable offence, but we’re going to carve out a huge raft of indictable offences where you won’t face a tougher test.’ Before this government weakened bail laws in March last year, if you were on bail for an indictable offence and then you were charged with committing an indictable offence whilst on bail, you automatically faced the tougher bail test. You automatically faced the show compelling reason test.

What the government has done is say, ‘Here is a whole list of offences in schedule 4 and in schedule ‍5 where you don’t face the tougher test, even if you are on bail for an indictable offence and then you commit another indictable offence while you are on bail.’ It is quite an extraordinary list of offences which the government has carved out and said, ‘You don’t face a tougher test for bail.’ The government says, ‘Oh, look, we’re very concerned about crimes of poverty,’ and I get that, but explain to me how proceeds of crime – money or property worth $10 million or more – is a crime of poverty. Seriously, how many people deal with proceeds of crime worth $10 million or more as an act of poverty? But that is what this government does there in schedule 4, carving it out for a weaker bail test. If you are dealing with proceeds of crime worth $10 million or more, you get a weaker bail test. Explain, for the love of God, how that keeps any Victorians safe. Explain the logic in that, if you can.

Tim Bull: That won’t be in their speaking notes.

Michael O’BRIEN: No, it will not be, member for Gippsland East. How about possessing a tablet press, possessing precursor chemicals, possessing controlled drugs or possessing controlled precursors? These are the sorts of offences that are committed by drug producers and drug traffickers, not people with a little bit of possession for personal use. We are talking about major drug dealers, organised crime and bikie gangs. But this government has carved all these offences out and said, ‘You won’t face a tougher test for bail for these offences.’ Again, explain to me the logic for carving out drug offences by bikie gangs and organised crime for weaker bail tests. These are not crimes of poverty, these are organised crimes, and this government is deliberately going weak on them. It is absolutely disgraceful.

The government says in schedule 5 there are certain limitations. Theft of a motor vehicle of any value faces a higher test. Theft of property worth at least $2500 faces a higher test. Destroying or damaging property where the property is worth at least $5000 or the damage is worth at least $5000 faces a higher test, but not if it has been marked with graffiti. In other words, you can cause damage to someone else’s property through graffiti and even if it is more than $5000 worth of damage, you will face no tougher test for bail. It makes very little sense. This government, as I said, love carving out and weakening bail laws, even under the guise of strengthening them. I do ask members opposite to have a look at the list in schedule 4 of this bill, have a look at all those offences which the government says it is carving out, so if you are charged with these offences while you are on bail, you will not face a tougher test. We are talking about drug production, drug trafficking – major crimes, serious offences ‍– and this government is saying it is going to make sure that it is easier for people to get bail. It makes no sense at all.

Look at the default commencement date for this bill. We face a crime crisis, notwithstanding the current Treasurer, the former Attorney-General, famously saying at a press conference that she was not going to talk about a youth crime crisis that does not exist. I do not hear too many members opposite repeating those words, that we have a youth crime crisis which does not exist. They were the words of the then Attorney-General, now the Treasurer. We do not just have a youth crime crisis; we have got a crime crisis full stop. The government says that the default commencement date for this bill is 31 March 2026. Well, the minister at the table says default. How long have we been waiting for the anti-vilification changes to come through there?

Anthony Carbines interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: No, we did not vote for them, because you did a dirty deal with the Greens to make sure the DPP could block any charges. The minister and the government did a dirty deal with the Greens to deliberately gut the criminal provisions of those anti-vilification laws. When they come in, they are going to do nothing, Minister. They are going to do nothing to keep Victorians safe on the streets. They are going to do nothing to stop the hate, the antisemitic vilification we see day in and day out on the streets of Melbourne. The reason they are not going to do anything is because the government chose to do a dirty deal with the Greens rather than work with the coalition. That is the reason. I am grateful for the minister’s interjection.

Every time this government introduces these changes to criminal law it waits until the default date. We saw it with the fatal strangulation laws. We are seeing it with the anti-vilification changes – we are seeing it with everything. When this government says the default commencement date is 26 March next year, take them at their word. When people show you who they are, believe them. This government is not going to do anything on these laws until the end of March, and that is a disgrace, because Victorians need action now. I note that the coalition put out our ‘break bail, face jail’ policies.

Anthony Carbines interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: They have gone very well, thank you, Minister. I know they have gone well because they are strong enough that not one single element of them has been picked up by this government – not one single element of the Liberals and Nationals ‘break bail, face jail’ policy has been picked up by this government. We will reinstate the offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail as a schedule 2 offence, triggering a bail uplift. We will reinstate the offence of breaching bail conditions as a schedule 2 offence, requiring offenders to show compelling reasons to be granted bail again. We will remove the loophole for youth offenders who breach bail – we will end that free pass for the under-18s – and we will list robbery and burglary as schedule 2 offences, meaning tougher bail tests apply. Not a single one of those elements is in this bill. I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this house refuses to read this bill a second time until the Allan Labor government:

(a) urgently provides Victoria Police and Corrections Victoria with all resources necessary to implement this bill without further delay; and

(b) adopts the Liberal and National parties’ ‘break bail, face jail’ policy to ensure that Victoria’s bail laws do not continue to fail to protect community safety.’

I move that reasoned amendment because the government has claimed the reason for this long lag in implementing this bill, this 26 March next year default commencement date, is because Victoria Police do not have the resources and Corrections Victoria do not have the resources. This government has just shut down Port Phillip Prison. If this government is worried about having places to keep bad people who are dangerous people and keeping them off the street, the government could have just not closed down Port Phillip Prison. But no, this government is more interested in playing games than keeping Victorians safe.

The government keeps talking about how keeping Victorians safe is its number one priority. Well, it is time for this government to act like it. What, $13 million for some machete bins? I am fascinated to see how that is going to work. I am fascinated to see how many thugs are going to roll up to the $13 million machete bins and put it in. They are more likely to cash a can than they are a machete for recycling. Let us see. They can find the money for $13 million machete bins, but they cannot find the money to reopen one of the 43 police stations they have closed down, including my one in Malvern, Minister for Police. They cannot find the money. They cannot find the money to reopen prisons with prison guards to keep Victorians safe and to put people on remand who deserve to be there.

This should not have a default commencement date of 26 March next year; it should be implemented as soon as possible. That is why my reasoned amendment calls on the government to give the resources we need to Victoria Police and to give the resources we need to Corrections Victoria to make sure that the minor positive changes – apart from the weakening – can be implemented without any further delay. Victorians should not have to wait until March next year to see the weakening of bail laws, which they have suffered under this government, being slightly arrested.

We also call on the government to implement the opposition’s policies on ‘break bail, face jail’, because if they are serious about wanting to keep Victorians safe, that is the way to do it. It is not rocket science. It would actually be doing a lot of what previous governments, both Liberal and Labor, had agreed on and that was keeping Victorians safe. But no, this government run by bleeding hearts is more interested in keeping criminals on the streets than keeping Victorians safe in their own homes. That is the reality, and we see it. Even when they try and improve bail laws to a minor degree, they cannot do it without also saying, ‘We’re going to go weaker on a whole lot of other bail laws.’ I look forward to hearing why somebody having $10 million in proceeds from crime is a poverty offence and why therefore they should have a weaker test for bail. I look forward to hearing from members opposite about holding precursor chemicals for drug production. What, is that a poverty offence as well? No, it is an organised crime offence. Why are we going weak on organised crime and drug traffickers and people trying to sell poison to our kids?

That is what this bill is doing. It is weakening bail laws, not strengthening them. It is weakening them, and there is no need for it. The government could have taken the minor positive changes in relation to the six nominated offences and just be done with it. But no, the government cannot do that without weakening a whole other raft of bail laws. Mark my words, this will come back to haunt the government. I do not care about the government, but I do care about Victorians. When we start seeing the weaker aspects of these bail laws flow through the system and organised criminals – drug traffickers, drug producers and people with $10 million or more from proceeds of crime – getting bail because this government have weakened the bail laws, I look forward to hearing the government justify why they have weakened the bail laws and why they have put ideology before keeping Victorians safe.

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (11:49): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025. I commend the member for Malvern for seeking to distract from the very purposeful elements of this bill, which are really fundamentally underpinning the rationale for the changes being brought forward. It is extremely serious subject matter. Yes, there was a bit of flourish and drama to his contribution – I get that, with ‘break bail, face jail’ and other slogans that they are continuing to run – but substance is at the heart of this, and I would hope that we would have a very serious debate. It is a really difficult discussion to have. It is an unpalatable discussion because we are talking about, on the one hand, very serious offences and how they are managed and also about preventing and curbing intergenerational poverty in our state. So I think conflating some of the offences that have been mentioned is a little mischievous, because we really need to look at the core of the reforms being implemented.

I will just diverge for a second to go a step back in history. When we are talking about some of the reforms that were brought in a little while ago, looking at deaths in custody and other aspects that those opposite conveniently always avoid – because clearly it is not a priority for them – the fact that it is always avoided in any discussion of criminal matters I think is disgraceful, because it is an oversimplification of the complexity of managing these kinds of reforms and offences. I think just a little bit of humility in that regard would be appropriate to respect the nature of the reforms that we are speaking to.

We are delivering the toughest bail laws in the country for high-harm repeat offenders. I do just want to take up the question of why the specified schedule 1 offences have been selected, because I saw there was a lot of debate about, ‘Why this? Why not that?’ Available data indicates that people on bail are more likely to be charged with one of the specified offences than other schedule 1 offences, so there is a very specific and purposeful rationale for the offences that have been selected. I think that it is unhelpful, to say the least, to be completely disparaging of the legislation when you can see that there is a purposeful rationale for the offences that have been specified.

We did promise to deliver two packages of legislative reform this year to get our bail laws right. The first package passed in March and is already working. Remand numbers are up, so I think that should be taken seriously by this chamber. As at 6 August 2025 there was an increase of over 26 per cent of remanded youth and over 27 per cent of remanded adults since the same time last year, so to suggest that the reforms are doing nothing et cetera could not be further from the truth.

We introduced the second package of reforms, bringing in the toughest bail test in the country for repeat, high-harm offenders and a second-strike rule for those who commit indictable offences on bail. And we will not apologise for being very purposeful in the particular offences and the manner in which we are seeking to manage really difficult circumstances in society – fundamentally, when we are talking about the serious criminal acts that we have been speaking to. Having a targeted and specific approach based on data and evidence surely should have credence in this chamber.

These reforms are strong, they are necessary and they are working. From the rhetoric of those opposite I am hearing, ‘One size fits all; blink twice and you’re in jail.’ That is kind of the rhetoric I am hearing from those opposite. And when we are thinking about the nuances, there was a slight query there about factoring in pregnancy, although they are not going to object to it, but having absolute clarity about such matters surely is really important when we are looking at actually preventing further crime and intergenerational crime into the future. I think making light of or trying to in any way vitiate from the importance of clarity on those matters also does not do well for those opposite.

In a just society, we do not want to punish people for being poor, but at the same time we hold people accountable for doing harm. It is a very delicate and nuanced balance, and to suggest the opposite is really, you know, sticking a middle finger up at the legal system. I do not think that is helpful, because sweeping slogans are not the way to resolve the serious matters that are before us.

With the new test for repeat or serious schedule 1 offences, including aggravated home invasion, aggravated carjacking, armed robbery and aggravated burglary, we are introducing a new high degree of probability test. That means a bail decision maker must now be satisfied that there is a high degree of probability that the accused will not commit another serious offence while on bail. This is one of the strictest bail tests in the country, and it sends a clear message: if you continue to pose a serious risk to the safety of Victorians, you will not be granted bail.

Second-strike rule – if you are already on bail for an indictable offence and you are charged with committing another indictable offence, you will now face a higher threshold, the show compelling reason test, in addition to the usual unacceptable risk test. This change is about accountability, not for minor offences but for those who repeatedly disregard the law while already on bail.

There are legislative safeguards as well, as there need to be. The safeguards are built to ensure that low-level, nonviolent offences like minor shoplifting, low-value theft, low-value property damage or low-level drug possession do not trigger this uplift, and I go back to what I said from the outset, that as we are talking about the behaviour of human beings, it should be a very nuanced discussion and not a wham-bang, one-size-fits-all ‘you’re in jail because you looked the wrong way’. I know that there might be some conjecture and you might say I am being a little bit blanket in terms of my criticism, but after what we have heard for the past half hour, which was incredibly disparaging in light of the fervent work and research that has been done to come about to these very important reforms, I am going to take a little liberty in that regard.

Also, as has been stated, and I am going to reiterate this because it is very important, pregnancy and caring responsibilities must now be explicitly considered by bail decision makers, and that means the system will better recognise the impact of incarceration on mothers, children and family stability, because we know that obviously, on the one hand, it is absolutely paramount when it comes to the safety of the community and also defending victims, because we know that a crime of any kind is one crime too many and can impact the life of a person for the rest of their lives. It can have a detrimental impact, and no-one is resiling from that in any way, shape or form. We are also banning private electronic monitoring of people on bail, because no-one should be able to buy their access to bail.

On the one hand, you can have slogans; on the other hand, let us look at the action that has been taken. We have introduced the nation’s first ever machete ban, taking dangerous weapons off the streets. We launched a trial of state-run electronic monitoring for youth offenders, giving courts and police the tools to ensure bail conditions are met and to prevent repeat offending. We are giving Victoria Police the powers they need to deal with radical, extreme and violent actors who hijack peaceful protest and put public safety at risk. We have passed landmark anti-vilification and social cohesion laws – opposed by those opposite – protecting Victorians from hate speech, division and harm. They opposed them, so they have got to live with that. They are accountable for that.

Later this year we will introduce further legislation to better protect victims-survivors of family violence, knowing what a dreadful scourge that is and also, when you are looking at intergenerational harm, the ramifications that family violence can have in terms of how it can disrupt what otherwise should be a nurtured pathway from childhood to adulthood. That is not to mention the holistic approach in terms of free TAFE and other measures to deal with cost-of-living measures. So we look at the whole picture, factoring in all the factors that can contribute to crime.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (11:59): I rise to talk on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 legislation report. Unfortunately our current bail laws and bail system cost lives. Why do I know this? Because I have walked in the shoes and immersed myself in a family from down in the Latrobe Valley. Their beloved son, unfortunately bail laws let him down, and it is all too commonplace. It is the story of a doctor that was going about his daily life and had that cut short because our current bail laws and judicial system let him down – and let him down to the worst possible degree, because it cost him his life. I have sat and spoken with his parents and his family, who obviously are devastated. They live day in and day out with thoughts of their son, whether they are waking up in the morning or sitting at the breakfast table. They will carry on – if you go and have a coffee and a conversation with them, they will interact like we do and talk about the current day proceedings – but there is a hole in their heart and just a black mist that fills their heads as they think, ‘Why my son?’ Why did our bail laws and our judicial system let their son down, and why did it also let his wider family down?

We need change; we all know that. Everybody in this chamber knows that we need change, and that is why we are here. We do need to strengthen our bail laws. We do not, in my opinion, have the toughest bail laws in the country here in Victoria. We have loopholes. The people that do criminal activity and apply for bail do not care where the loophole is. They will find it, to the detriment of people that walk the streets of my community in the Latrobe Valley, walk the streets of the CBD or walk the streets of every single sitting member in this chamber. I am sure they have people walk through their office or pull them up in the street and say, ‘I feel unsafe, because I know people are being charged with certain offences and they go through the revolving door of our court system and are back out on the street.’ Our police do an amazing job, but they also know they are going to arrest somebody and by the time they leave court and walk back to their car these particular individuals will be back out on the streets and more than likely going back to finish what they started.

I have got elderly people coming to me and saying they no longer feel safe getting on public transport to get a bus to the local shopping centre to go about their daily activities. They are scared, because they see the stories on the news, they listen to the stories on the radio. But more importantly, which is more worrying, they walk along the streets every day to go about their daily activities and they see it with their own eyes. They see people doing the wrong thing on the streets. When you are a shop owner, whether it be in a shopping strip or in a shopping mall, having people come into your actual place, where you put your hard-earned money and your time and effort into opening up a small business, and having them run riot with no consequences is what we are talking about here.

People are going to do the wrong thing, that is a given. People that want to do it will do it, but there are no ramifications for them. The police will go and make these arrests. They will be taken to court and they will get out because our bail laws do not cut the mustard. That is why the member for Malvern said with the coalition – and we get some kickback from the government – if you break bail, you will face jail. That is what people on the street want: they want protection. And where do they get that protection from? They get it from us here in this chamber making concerted efforts, making the right calls, not cowering to the minority of people that are doing the wrong thing. We need to stand up for the silent majority of people that go around living their life – a mum and dad, worried when their kids are going out to work or driving their car. Who is coming the other way? Has someone stolen a car and is driving a missile at their daughter or their son that are on the roads? This is what we are left with at the moment. We can stand here and go over the incidentals of what this bill proposes, but it needs to be tougher. I think everybody in here knows we need tougher bail laws. The police are asking for tougher bail laws and they are asking for more powers.

I am passionate about this because of the Gordon family, because I see how it affects them. They lost a son, a son who was giving back to society as a much loved and respected doctor, whose life was taken, tragically, because someone broke into his house and stole stuff from him – all he was doing was trying to get it back, and his life was taken. That is not right. For a year they have been trying to get over the loss of their son, and this is going to continue at family weddings, at birthdays and at Christmas – continually coming up I need to stand here and hold the government to account for the people in my community and for the Gordon family. That is my role. That is what they have asked me to do – stand up here at every opportunity I get and not let them just be a statistic on a bit of paper that says, ‘My son was killed on the street.’ That is no good for anybody. We need to make a real difference right across the community. It is not just about the Gordon family, it is about every single Victorian. They need to know that the politicians that stand in this chamber have their back, that we have got them 100 per cent and that all the time we are going to be making decisions in this chamber that allow them to go about their daily lives safely.

We have had a reasoned amendment moved by the member for Malvern, and I am fully supportive of that, because we need tougher, harder bail laws. We need tougher policing on our streets. We need the police to have the power to be able to go and police properly – police how they want to police. Yes, we need to have guidance over that, but there are certain laws that have been wound back in this particular chamber that have actually made the lives of Victorians more unsafe, more vulnerable. Why should a person not want to go down the street to do their shopping or go to the post office to get a letter that has been sent to them? Why are we stopping that? Why aren’t we being more proactive here and doing the right thing for the Victorian people? That is my job. I have been voted in to stand here and, if I need to, hold the government to account. Yes, we are making changes with these amendments to bail, but they do not go far enough. For goodness sake, we need to make sure that all Victorians – and in particular in my case the Gordon family – know that I am fighting tooth and nail for them, because they do not want another family to go through what they go through every single day. Whether they are awake or asleep, they carry this hurt and they carry this heavy heart, because we let them down because our bail laws are too weak. We need to make sure that we get it right to protect every single Victorian.

Jackson TAYLOR (Bayswater) (12:09): It is a great pleasure to rise and speak in support of the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025. At the outset, I thank the Attorney-General as well as her staff – and I know other ministers and their offices have also been involved in putting this second tranche of bail amendments and legislation to this place – and of course everyone in the department and all the stakeholders who have been part of the consultation on this very important bill. I would also like to say a huge thankyou to all of our frontline emergency service workers, in particular Victoria Police, who are charged with keeping our streets safe and keeping our community safe and of course who are charged with prosecuting this legislation in Magistrates’ Courts across Victoria. And I thank the community for making their voices heard. Safety is the right of everybody, and community safety is a critically important thing. I am very proud that this government has it as a top priority. As someone who used to serve in Victoria Police, I know this government is absolutely committed to backing in our police officers and making sure people can feel safe in their communities and can go about their business.

The member for Malvern talked about issues that he may have around the tough bail bill title, but then started talking about ‘break bail, face jail’. It does not quite make sense if your issue is that, but then you have this slogan you are rolling out. Let us be honest, the slogan is kind of used to make some people who might hear it think that they are just going to lock everybody up. It is not very clear. But then when you go into the points that the member for Malvern made, he said there is no consequence if you breach bail. That is simply not correct. If you breach bail, it is an offence. The member for Malvern also said, and apparently it is part of their plan, that there is some sort of loophole for under-18s. Under-18s were never charged with breaching a bail condition, even under the previous Bail Act ‍1977. They were not even covered by that section. So this loophole –

Michael O’Brien interjected.

Jackson TAYLOR: Go look at the Bail Act, member for Malvern. Go look at the Bail Act in 2021.

Michael O’Brien: I know it better than you.

Jackson TAYLOR: I do not think you do, because in your plan you say:

Reinstate the offence of committing an indictable offence while on bail …

That is what this bill is doing. This bill is bringing in the uplift with necessary safeguards. And then there is another point:

Reinstate the offence of breaching bail conditions as a Schedule 2 offence …

So let me get this right. I appreciate the member for Malvern has a view. Let us break down what the member for Malvern is saying. He is basically saying, ‘Well, we can’t trust police to do their job and actually look at the circumstances and judge if someone who has breached a bail condition is an unacceptable risk.’ Right? What you are saying is if someone reports 5 minutes late, whether there is a reasonable excuse or otherwise, it is going to be up to the investigating officer, and that may not be assessed at the time because innocence or guilt is not looked at when you are looking to put someone in remand. You are not judging whether or not they are innocent or guilty of that offence. That offence may be dealt with at a later time during that remand hearing. So you are essentially saying that for someone who might turn up 5 minutes late, the default should be, in the compelling reason test, the same as for manslaughter. There absolutely are circumstances when police can revoke bail. They can still revoke bail. They can still take someone to court and show they are an unacceptable risk at any point in time. They have that power, and they can use that as needed.

Again, if someone was to breach bail – this is very vague in their policy. It makes it sound like if they were to breach bail and they breached bail by committing any of the offences listed in schedules 1 and 2, or if they were subject to the high degree of probability test, the test the member for Malvern speaks about, it almost sounds like that would not count. It was very vague on purpose. No, you are held accountable for your offending if you breach your bail. If you breach your bail, you are held to account. It is an offence. If that breach is of a certain nature or circumstance, a police officer can say, ‘Unacceptable risk.’ What does the member for Malvern think the hit rate was for remand of someone failing to report maybe 5 minutes late or for minor breaches? Police can be trusted to do their job. Up until 2024, there were penalty infringement notices handed out. I handed them out. They were $148 when I was in the job. If someone of an unacceptable nature, of an unacceptable risk was breaching their bail, I would get that offender, they would go to court and I would ask for them to be remanded. I would put forward a case on criminal record, on nature and circumstances and on background, as every single man and woman of Victoria Police does today. We should trust them to do their job.

The member for Malvern spoke about the machete ban as well. We have our nation-leading machete ban, and there was this right-wing meme popping around – ‘$325,000 per bin’ – and there have been members of the opposition sharing this meme. I saw that one with the girlfriend and the boyfriend, that meme, and that is why people in my community who are not even interested in politics are like, ‘These people in opposition!’ I actually do not mind the member for Malvern; he is actually a reasonable fellow. But people just look at the opposition, and they are like, ‘What is going on?’

The $13 million investment is to support the rollout of the entire amnesty program, including public awareness, retailer education, managing exemptions for the ban and manufacturing and installation of the safe disposal bins as well as the secure collection and destruction of the items that are handed in. The fact that we have the alternative government rolling out these four-point plans at the same time as saying they have got an issue with the title of a bill – and they have got their own slogan that is vague and makes people think something that probably is not true and is not true in the detail of it, is very light on detail, and then they run out memes about the machetes. I just do not get it. I tell you what, member for Malvern, this government’s record on supporting police –

James Newbury interjected.

Jackson TAYLOR: Do not even pretend, member for Brighton, that you understand this bail legislation. Do not even pretend you understand. The member for Malvern has got a reasonable grip on it. I will give you that, member for Malvern.

But I am very proud of this government’s record when it comes to supporting police. We have recruited over 3000 new police officers. It was the biggest recruitment in the history of Victoria Police. We have the biggest police force per capita in this country, and that is something we are very proud of. We now have permanent positions, family violence detectives, for what is genuinely the biggest scourge when it comes to crime in this state and in this country: family violence. We have done a lot, and we need to do more. I am sure the opposition are on a unity ticket on this. We know we need to do more when it comes to combating family violence – it is an absolute scourge on the nation and our communities – and I am very proud of the work the government has done.

There are body-worn cameras. We have new police stations. We have rolled out tasers right across the state. We have new iPads, we have new mobile phones and we have new tech. We have family violence reforms and mental health reforms, and those royal commissions have made a real and serious impact on the front lines, supporting the police and supporting all the different stakeholders, people and communities that our police officers come into contact with each and every single day. I am proud of the investment. I am proud that this government said with those royal commissions that we would implement every single recommendation. With the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System we said we would implement every single one before the recommendations even came out, because we knew it was the right thing to do.

Sometimes politics just does not matter. What matters is doing what is right. It is making sure we have strong laws but we listen to the voices of Victorians and have a government that backs in Victoria Police with record investment and with laws that strike the right balance and that are tough. As someone who prosecuted the Bail Act 1977 at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court and someone who actually knows people who still work in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, these laws are going to make a difference.

We saw what the high degree of probability test did in New South Wales. Our version of the test is broader and it is stronger, and it includes more cohorts. It is not limited to youth, it is broader and it includes more offences. This is strong legislation. Others opposite will tell you it is weakening, but I do not understand how anyone who is reading this legislation – our current legislation and previous iterations – can look at the high degree of probability test and all the offences that have been uplifted from schedule 2 to schedule 1 and offences that were not even in schedule 2 and are now introduced to schedule 2, where the reverse onus is on the defence to prove that they have compelling reasons or they have shown exceptional circumstances. And mate, if you have committed one of these specified high degree of probability offences and you commit it again, you now have to show that you have a high degree of probability of not reoffending. These are tough bail laws. We are not just about four-point slogans, we are about making Victorians safe and backing in Victoria Police. I commend the bill to the house.

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (12:19): I have not even said a word, and they are already up and about on the other side. It is very, very interesting. I rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 and support the position put forward by the Shadow Attorney-General and member for Malvern. Anybody sitting in this place, anybody who just may happen to be watching at home and anybody who is living in this state of Victoria knows right now that what this government has done with law and order in this state has failed. We know that the last time the Liberals and Nationals were in government we strengthened bail laws. We introduced offences for breaching bail conditions. We introduced a reverse onus test for offending whilst on bail. Since 2016 Labor has weakened and weakened and weakened these laws. I say to the Victorian people: can you really trust the government who made the problem, who created the issues we have now, to be the ones to fix it?

They had one crack at it earlier in this term to try to fix these things. They tried to introduce the ‘tough bail laws’ bill – you know, they could not even get the name of the bill through with how tough the laws were. They are having another crack at it, a further amendment to this. They are delaying the timeline upon implementation of this bill. I can tell you right now that there are offences being committed in my electorate and I am sure in the member for Malvern’s electorate – we heard a passionate piece from the member for Bayswater; I am sure there are crimes being committed in his electorate – that will continue to be committed between now and March 2026, whether or not this strengthens these bail laws in any way. There will be no implementation of these laws until that time. How many more Victorians are going to become victims of crime before this government takes immediate action?

They talk about their leading machete ban and the bins they have placed around, expecting criminals who run around terrorising people in their homes and carjacking to all of a sudden have a conscience, wake up tomorrow morning, get that machete, wander down to the bin and place it in there and think, ‘Jeez, I’m a great citizen now’ – that they are going into people’s homes at night and holding people to ransom with machetes and all of a sudden they will go and just put them in a bin. That is going to be an acceptable way to move forward.

Michaela Settle: It was okay for gun control.

Sam GROTH: It was called a buyback system. Are you buying the machetes back? I also support the member for Malvern’s reasoned amendment:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this house refuses to read this bill a second time until the Allan Labor government:

(a) urgently provides Victoria Police and Corrections Victoria with all resources necessary to implement this bill without further delay …

Well, that would make sense. But also that it:

(b) adopts the Liberal and National parties’ ‘break bail, face jail’ policy to ensure that Victoria’s bail laws do not continue to fail to protect community safety.’

I would think that in this place our responsibility is always first and foremost to those law-abiding citizens of our communities, not necessarily to those repeat offenders who continue to go through Victoria’s revolving door on bail, because as I have heard the member from Malvern say many times, bail is a privilege. Bail is a privilege that is granted to people. It should not be a revolving door where these people continue to offend and continue to be let out. The government spruik that there are six offences that will have bail conditions removed, but what about the dozens that they have missed out? What was the one you said, member for Malvern – $10 million proceeds of crime? That does not count. It is ridiculous, some of the offences that are being left off when it comes to bail uplift tests. It also exempts those who are under 18, and we know in the state of Victoria we have a youth crime crisis. We also know it is not just about locking up youth offenders, it is about implementing the programs they need to make sure they have a better opportunity in life. But just letting them out to reoffend and reoffend – and we have all seen the news reports of offenders who have been let out 10, 20, 50 times on bail – I do not think any member of the community finds that acceptable. I do not think any member of the community would be coming to people in this chamber on all sides and saying that what is currently out there in the public is working and that should be the measure which we work on. We should be asking the community what is protecting them.

I have, as I am sure many other people do, people coming to me every single day in my office. A car was rammed through the Blairgowrie pharmacy, and now the guy is too scared to open his doors because he is wondering when they are coming back. The IGA at Blairgowrie was held up. The pub at Dromana has been broken into, with money stolen; he had his car stolen from out the back. The bottle shop has had its windows smashed in so people can take more money, and there is no consequence for those offences. I have a constituent Travis Robertson – he is happy to be named – who was at Rosebud plaza recently with his fiancé, who now refuses to leave the house. They had a 17-year-old come into the shopping centre with an imitation gun and hold her to ransom. How was she to know it was an imitation gun? I do acknowledge the work of Victoria Police and everything they do, but we do know they are severely under-resourced. The Rosebud plaza, I kid you not, is 400 ‍metres from Rosebud police station. It is 400 metres down the road. Those police officers were called to another situation, and so you had a youth running around pretending they had a gun in Rosebud plaza and a police car unavailable to attend. That is not about Victoria Police not doing the job, that is about Victoria Police being under-resourced to be able to do their job properly. If they had had a car, they could have been there in 40 seconds, they said. I have Rye police station closed. I have Sorrento police station closed. And when you have got someone running around with a gun – honestly, thank God it was not real. But what happens when it is? What happens when it is a real weapon and the police cannot turn up on time? Then what happens? We are having a far different conversation.

For too long, offenders have had no consequence. And we all know what happens: if there is no consequence for action, the actions continue. And under this government, for far too long there has been no consequence for action. That is why we encourage the government – the government does not have a monopoly on good ideas. I know they like to think they do, but sometimes other people have a good thought, a policy, that has been worked on. I know they like to call it ‘stunts’. They like to call it ‘political game’. But the reality is I would like to think there are members in this chamber who actually do have good ideas that can be discussed and that there is the opportunity to sometimes allow a piece of legislation to come in, whether or not you agree with it, in two weeks time, so it actually has the chance to be debated and you can read it. But at the moment we cannot even have the opportunity to introduce legislation that you will read. You do not even know what our ideas are. We get a 5-minute procedural debate to put things on the table. So I encourage the government, as the member for Malvern has done with his reasoned amendment, to look at the ‘break bail, face jail’ policy put forward by the opposition, by the Liberals and Nationals, to reinstate key bail offences and reverse-onus provisions that have been repealed by the Labor government, to remove exemptions for bail breach offences for youth offenders and to list robbery and burglary and other things that have been currently missed in this piece of legislation.

They have not adopted a single piece of the suggestions that we have put forward that we believe would make Victoria safer as soon as they were introduced. This government needs to properly resource Victoria Police. We see it every day in every community, and we see it in the legislation that the member for Caulfield tried to bring forward this morning related to the protests. But every time one of the 500 protests has happened – and yes, we want protests, we support that right, but it needs to be done correctly. But every time they happen – and we now know it is 22,000 shifts for police that are brought into the city – that means they are not in the member for Malvern’s community, the member for Brighton’s community or the member for Mordialloc’s community. They are being brought into the city to deal with these things, and when there are 1100 vacancies at the moment, it leaves those communities already short of police resourcing even further exposed. When things happen, like what happened in my community a few weeks ago at Rosebud plaza, the likelihood of those incidents occurring and someone being severely injured or worse continues to go up.

I encourage the government: do more on this. Take action now. Do not wait till March next year. Do not implement it in an election year because it looks sexy when there is an election coming in six months time. Take action now. Look at some of the options that are being put forward by this side of the house, because this should not be about the government versus the opposition. This should be about the people outside of this building who want to see Victoria better, who want to feel safe on the streets and who want to feel like they can go to the supermarket and enjoy their time.

Martha HAYLETT (Ripon) (12:29): I rise today to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill ‍2025. This bill is all about keeping families and our whole community safe and building on the reforms that we have already made to our criminal justice system. I just note the member for Nepean’s contribution before me. Those opposite like to talk a very big game on crime, on bail, but it is actually our side of the chamber that is doing the most and has done the most in the past. I have had feedback from police officers and others in Ripon that they have been more resourced in their police stations than ever before. You like to talk a big game, but it is actually we who are delivering on it.

Earlier this year, we strengthened bail tests for serious crimes and we reintroduced bail offences. This bill goes that step further to jolt the system and to send a message that bail must be respected. This bill introduces a new high degree of probability bail test for those accused of repeat serious offences committed while on bail, including home invasions, carjackings, armed robbery and burglaries. It uplifts the bail test for people accused of committing an indictable offence while already on bail for an indictable offence and specifically lists pregnancy and caring responsibilities as surrounding circumstances to be considered in bail decisions. The bill also amends the existing statutory review provision in the Bail Act 1977 to require that review to examine the impact of bail reform on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and it bans private electronic monitoring of people on bail, because no-one should be able to buy their access to bail. Importantly, the bill also includes further amendments to improve the operation of bail laws, including ensuring individuals released on bail pending family violence intervention order proceedings can be charged with contravening their bail conditions and providing for reforms in the bill to be captured in the scheduled statutory review of the Bail Act.

Our community has been calling for these changes; they deserve to feel safe on our streets and in their homes. They look to our government to listen and act accordingly, and we have done just that. We have introduced the toughest bail laws in the country, putting community safety first to protect families from serious repeat offenders who endanger other Victorians. We have also banned the sale of machetes, with a ban on possession of them kicking in from 1 September, and we have expanded random knife search powers for Victoria Police so they can seize thousands of weapons off our streets.

Locally I have recently attended community safety meetings and visited police stations in St Arnaud, Avoca, Maryborough, Creswick and beyond to discuss crime and how we can best address it. I recently hosted the Minister for Police in Ripon, who is at the table today, where we met with Victoria Police members and residents in Creswick and St Arnaud to talk through practical ways that we can strengthen community safety across our region. To my earlier point, those police officers, when the minister and I met them and went to their police stations, said that they have been more resourced under this government than ever before and really reiterated the point that there is a perception in the regions of crime but the data is actually looking pretty good. The data is not necessarily up across our regional towns in Ripon, but the perception, as I said, is there, with many feeling worried about safety in our towns, and those feelings are genuine. You cannot go to someone and say, ‘Well, the data isn’t what you think.’ If they feel that there is that perception of crime, then we have to take that really seriously.

Victoria Police are doing a power of work to better equip our communities with information about the police assistance line, the Hoon Hotline, Crime Stoppers and other resources. Often many people I speak to across Ripon are not aware of some of these resources, like the Hoon Hotline, which I very much encourage people to take advantage of – that is through Crime Stoppers, the Hoon Hotline – because we know that we see a lot of hoons around, and we need to report them.

We have unfortunately seen some opportunistic crimes across Ripon in recent months, including theft from unlocked cars and homes and vandalism of property. I know, having grown up in country Victoria, we never locked our doors growing up. Many people just do not lock their doors and do not lock their cars, and there are criminals out there that take advantage of that. We need to make sure that we do what we can to prevent that crime from happening. Police have hosted community meetings about these issues and given advice about how locals can best avoid falling victim to such crimes, as well as how best to report them. We rely heavily on the men and women of Victoria Police to keep us all safe, and they do an incredible job. I want to sincerely thank every single police officer and Victoria Police member across Ripon. They are a part of our rural communities and work tirelessly day and night to protect our mums, dads, grandparents, kids, cousins and business owners. They are a part of our communities and they know our communities. I remember going into the Smythesdale police station for a cuppa with some of their police officers, and they knew every person by name in the town when someone came in to report something. They are very much ingrained in our communities, and we thank them for all that they do.

I also want to give a particular shout-out to our prison staff across Ripon. I have got several correctional facilities and I have got I think the most correctional employees of any electorate in Victoria. Employees from Hopkins Correctional Centre in Ararat and Langi Kal Kal Prison outside Beaufort do really tough work and they protect our communities in so many ways.

This bill today will help strengthen the system to support our local police and our corrections staff across Ripon by strengthening our bail laws even more. It will mean people repeating serious crimes will not be allowed out on bail easily, and this is what our police officers want to see and also our local communities. Many have said to me their resources are up, they are doing well, but they want to see those bail changes, and that is exactly what we are doing. Many people have raised their concerns with me about repeat offenders getting off too easily, and they worry that they are getting a slap on the wrist and it is not being taken seriously, but this is changing, and the proof is already there. As of May this year there are 465 more people on remand in our prisons compared to April last year.

We have also introduced post-and-boast offences targeting people who commit crimes and boast about them online. It is all part of our government’s focus on cracking down on crime as well as breaking the cycle of reoffending and preventing crime before it begins. To do this we have delivered a massive record $1.6 billion for our community safety package in this year’s state budget. This includes $727 million to expand capacity in our prisons and youth justice system, making sure that we have the infrastructure to hold serious offenders accountable, and also $176 million to break the cycle of reoffending before it begins, including $135 million for rehabilitation and reintegration programs to give young people a real shot at turning their lives around.

Our government is adapting laws to address new challenges and make sure that our system is responsive to those community concerns. Unlike those opposite, who have a lock-up-everyone approach, this is bail reform that truly prioritises community safety and ensures that the most serious and repeat offenders are held to account, not vulnerable individuals caught up by disadvantage.

We have included safeguards in this bill to ensure that low-level, nonviolent offences like minor shoplifting, low-value theft, low-value property damage or low-level drug possession do not trigger this uplift. This side of the chamber believes in a justice system that is fair but firm, a system that protects the presumption of innocence but never forgets the rights of victims or the safety of the community. We are keeping our community safe and constantly improving our system to make sure that we get it right. This is what Victorians have called for, and I look forward to updating my community on the improvements that this bill makes this week. I commend the bill to the house.

Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (12:38): I rise to speak to the Bail Further Amendment Bill ‍2025. Victorians want to be safe; they want fewer victims, fewer break-ins and fewer families harmed by crime. They also want laws that actually work. Public safety is not about more police and more prisons, it is about more care. This bill certainly will not deliver that. It layers harsher bail hurdles on top of a system that is already in crisis while the government simultaneously winds back prevention and early intervention programs – the very things that stop offending before it starts.

Let me briefly explain what this bill does. First, it inserts a new high degree of probability threshold into an unacceptable risk test for a small group of serious offences – armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion, aggravated home invasion, carjacking and aggravated carjacking – where the person is accused of that offence while already on bail for one of those offences. In those circumstances a risk that the accused would commit a schedule 1 or 2 offence is deemed unacceptable unless the bail decision maker is satisfied that there is a high degree of probability that the person would not commit one of those serious offences if released. In plain English, for people accused of repeated offending while on bail, that hurdle to get bail becomes extraordinarily high.

Second, the bill creates a broad second-strike two-step test. If a person is accused of committing any indictable offence while on bail for an indictable offence and is also charged with the accompanying commit indictable offence while on bail offence, they must now meet the show compelling reason test to get bail, unless the later offence is carved out by new schedules 4 or 5 or is not imprisonable. This substantially expands the number of situations where a tougher first-step bail test applies.

Third, the bill makes related changes to schedules and flow charts in the Bail Act 1977 to support new tests and clarifies that descriptions in schedules do not alter the legal effect of the listed offences. Fourth, it restricts electronic monitoring conditions so that they can be imposed only in limited circumstances, and it – positively – expressly requires pregnancy and caring responsibilities to be considered as part of the surrounding circumstances when bail is decided. Finally, the bill amends the Summary Offences Act 1966 regarding the offence of contravening certain bail conduct conditions. That is the machinery.

The government says that this will target repeat high-harm offending and make us safer, but the evidence and the expert advice tells us otherwise. The Law Institute of Victoria has warned that tougher bail laws of this kind will not make the community safer in the long term and that the bill’s intent to strengthen the response to repeat high-harm offending is not the solution to community safety concerns. When you drive more people into remand without addressing the causes, you often increase re-offending on release. That makes our communities less safe. The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission has already cautioned in relation to the government’s earlier tranche that the direction of these reforms limits rights, will incarcerate more young people and risks the overincarceration of marginalised communities for lower level offending. The commission urged investment in prevention rather than headline-grabbing punishments. That warning applies just as much to this bill.

The children’s commissioners likewise expressed grave concern that harsh bill settings undermine community safety by harming vulnerable children and young people rather than supporting them out of reoffending. We should listen. Jesuit Social Services has been crystal clear: these reforms focus on the wrong end of the system. They will not prevent crime. What is needed is more investment in preventing offending in the first place. There is a notable thread of common concerns and common feedback from all of these organisations.

The Federation of Community Legal Centres says that returning to failed punitive approaches ignores the evidence and will harm, not help. Instead they are calling for Poccum’s law, a fair bill model that saves lives and reduces harm. For First Nations communities, the stakes could not be higher. The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service has campaigned with more than 100 organisations for just and fair bail laws, warning that these tough settings will inevitably result in more Aboriginal deaths in custody. We should not pass laws that our First Nations legal services tell us will make things worse.

Even the government’s own narrative admits that these laws will increase remand. They modelled for it. A surge in remand, though, is not a marker of success; it is a signal that the front end of the system is failing and that we are paying far more to achieve far less. We cannot divorce this bill from the broader picture. At this very moment the government says that community safety is paramount, but funding for crime prevention and for youth diversion has been shrinking, with programs facing the axe for want of support. The Greens have asked questions in budget estimates hearings for the last two years. Why has crime prevention funding disappeared? The result has been and will continue to be predictable – less outreach, fewer mentors, fewer targeted interventions, more police, more prisons. That is an expensive way to fail.

There is another path – the path that the Greens have proposed, the path that all these organisations are proposing – grounded in evidence, prevention and care. First, reinvestment: redirect the enormous costs of expanded remand and prison infrastructure into what we know works – intensive case management, youth work, family therapy, alcohol and other drug services, mental health support, safe housing, education re-engagement and employment pathways. This is what being smart on crime looks like, and it reduces victimisation over time. That is what our legal, human rights and community sectors are asking us to do. Police alone cannot solve this. We need credible messenger programs, positive mentoring, digital literacy and counter-narrative work, as well as restorative justice that builds accountability and builds community ties. These approaches are being piloted here and proven overseas. They are cheaper than prison and far more effective at changing behaviour and keeping our communities safe.

Third, fix bail fairly. Keep the recent evidence-based improvements that narrowed net-widening and recognised the tragedy of Veronica Nelson’s death. Do not re-expand bail hurdles where there is no link to crime prevention. Where risk is real and specific, courts already have the tools to refuse bail. But blanket settings like this that presume the worst will always scoop up the wrong people, especially kids, women, First Nations people and poor people, and they create more harm than they prevent.

Finally, listen to the experts. When the Law Institute of Victoria, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the equal opportunity commission, children’s commissioners, community legal centres, First Nations organisations and social services are all waving red flags, the responsible course of action is to step back, consult and invest in what works, not double-down on the futile politics of appearing tough.

This bill moves us further away from a system that is effective, humane and just. It will inflate demand, entrench disadvantage and divert resources away from prevention. It will do little to stop the small number of people driving serious harm, but it will catch many, many more in the net who could have been safely supported to change course. This is not safety, this is a false promise. The Greens will vote against the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025, and we call on the government to drop this second tranche, to stop defunding intervention and to bring back a reinvestment strategy that funds prevention and diversion. That is how we make Victoria safer.

John LISTER (Werribee) (12:48): I would like to start off on speaking about this bill by reiterating that community safety is our priority on this side, and we are delivering tough bail laws – some of the toughest in this country – banning machetes and backing in Victoria Police with the resources and powers they need to keep our communities, like mine in Wyndham, safe. The Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 is part of our reform agenda, and the second tranche, as we have already heard. Since that first tranche, we have seen an increase, as of 6 August, of over 26 per cent of young people remanded in custody and over 27 per cent of adults remanded in custody since that same time last year. While we have heard from the other side there are still offences that we are seeing come through those crime statistics, the crime statistics period still does not cover the period that we have had this first tranche of bail laws. So we do look forward to seeing what those crime statistics are saying about some of the challenges that we do have in our communities, including in mine in the electorate of Werribee.

This further amendment bill introduces the high degree of probability test that we spoke about when we first brought these bail laws to Parliament, and that is about looking at people who are accused of committing specific high-harm, high-risk offences while on bail and introducing an additional offence for that. It also uplifts those charged with an indictable offence while on bail for another indictable offence to restrict a bail test. When it comes to justice, it is important that these reforms are not about being soft or hard. It is about standing firm on the side of everyday Victorians who want to go about their lives with peace of mind.

During my community barbecues and constituent cafes and when interacting with folks at their doors or out in town, community safety is front of mind for many in my electorate. This bill, along with the raft of other measures we have introduced to this Parliament since I have been here from February or March, shows that it is front of mind for this government too. This test that we are introducing, the new high degree of probability test, will make it harder for alleged serious repeat offenders to get bail. It will work alongside the existing bail tests that apply to those charged with serious offences – namely, the exceptional circumstances test and the unacceptable risk test. The schedule 1 offences to which the new probability test will apply are aggravated home invasion, carjacking and aggravated carjacking, armed robbery, aggravated burglary and home invasion. Armed robbery, aggravated burglaries, or agg burgs, home invasion and carjacking will become those schedule 1 offences when the amendments in our Bail Amendment Act commence at the end of this month. In Victoria it is paramount that we get this right. Bail conditions – and I said this in my contribution on the first tranche – are not about set and forget, they are about reviewing and seeing how they change with community expectations and the nature of offending in our communities.

Also I want to just talk briefly to the member for Malvern’s reasoned amendment wanting to see additional resources to Corrections Victoria and Victoria Police. In this state budget we have seen a massive $727 million uplift to ramp up capacity in our state’s prisons and youth justice centres, including the one just down the road from me at Cherry Creek, to deal with this increasing number of alleged offenders. As I said at the start, we have seen that 26 per cent increase in just young offenders alone going on bail. In my electorate we also provided operational funding for the new Wyndham law courts to take the capacity of our magistrates services in Wyndham from around two, maybe three, courts, depending on the week, to 12, including specialist family violence courts and a Koori court. Also people can get their day in court earlier, which I think is an important part of this debate. We need to remember that one of the reasons why we need to have these tough bail laws is also because we need to address the issue of the timeframe between someone being charged for the first time with a serious offence or other offence and having their day in court. I know in Wyndham that has been particularly challenging, and our investment in our new law courts means that more people will get their day in court sooner.

I have said this before in this place, but I think it is worth repeating. Unlike those opposite, our government does not just bleat about crime and try and stir up fear in communities like mine. We listen to the community and the expertise of Victoria Police, including those at the Werribee police station. I had the honour of visiting our local area commander and our dedicated youth crime taskforce and proactive policing unit with the minister at the table, the Minister for Police, not too long ago, and recently met up again with our local area commander to talk about the impacts of these because, as I referenced earlier in a contribution in this chamber, we do listen to that advice from Victoria Police because we do not cross that line. They are the professionals when it comes to community safety. In talking to our local police when the first tranche came through, I explained that part of the approach with having this second tranche is we need to make sure that we have that uplift in resources so that we can deal with the increased demand for remand. They were quite understanding of that. In talking to the youth crime taskforce not long after, they have seen more of these repeat offenders – who they pick back up again – being remanded, not back out in our community.

I spoke in my first contribution about the list that the youth crime taskforce produced, with the dates that they have been picking up their particular targeted repeat offenders. I also just want to point out that this youth crime taskforce was established and funded by this government as part of an uplift to policing services across the Wyndham police service area. There are 144 new police in the West Gate division, and quite a considerable number of them went to this youth crime taskforce. I thank them for their work, because I see them at Tuckers in the morning in the coffee shop. I see them out in the community. I see them working with our local school principals as well to do that proactive policing work in schools, to not only look at those people who might be on bail for offences but also at the families around them and the young people who may be influenced by them, making sure that they do not go down that same path as well. I thank the youth crime taskforce for the work that they do out in Wyndham.

Our attention is rightly on crimes such as burglary and theft. They are things that we are seeing as crime trends throughout particularly the Wyndham police service area. But it is also important that we do not lose sight of the issue of family violence, which has almost doubled in my part of the world. We have got a lot of services out in Wyndham, but it is still one of the biggest drivers of violent crime against a person. I thank the minister and all the agencies that are involved in this space for the important work they do, particularly in Wyndham.

I also want to reflect on the fact that the idea around having this increased test makes it very clear to magistrates, makes it very clear to justices, that this is what our community expects. We cannot dictate in individual cases that this person should not be on bail or this person should be remanded. It would be highly inappropriate if we went down that path, just like it is highly inappropriate to presume to know better than Victoria Police in these matters and to presume to know better than the Chief Commissioner of Police when it comes to other matters. I think it is particularly important that when we do talk about this and about this uplift, we set the clear expectation for the judicial community that this is what communities like mine in Wyndham expect. We expect people who are on remand and are charged with serious offences to face a higher test as to whether or not they get bail.

I also want to point out that work in this space is not just about the laws at the start – so the laws for our police and the resources for our police – or the laws towards the end or the resources for corrections or our courts. It is also about the range of other things that we need to do in our community, particularly mine, to help vulnerable young people stay away from a life of crime. Working as a year-level leader, I have worked with young people who have had contact with the justice system, and the most effective thing that we have been able to do is work with our embedded youth outreach project.

Anthony Carbines interjected.

John LISTER: Yes, it is a good project. Thank you for funding it, Minister. It is a fantastic project to divert young people away from crime. We have to keep our focus also on making sure that we have good community services in communities like mine to be able to divert people away from crime.

To conclude I want to end on the thoughts of Jackson Ferreira, who is a student from Hester Hornbrook Academy, which is one of those schools that is helping students to re-engage with their education, and who recently completed work experience in my Werribee office. Jackson reflected that:

• The Bail Reform would help keep this community safe from repeating offenders.

• Growing communities like where I live will benefit from these laws and changes because I know that as a student leader at my school, I don’t want the students I represent being involved or be influenced by those who are repeat offenders.

• I don’t want my peers to get in that trouble that ruins their lives.

• These reforms wouldn’t just help protect myself or my school or my fellow students – but protect the entire community …

where we live. Thanks, Jackson. With that, I commend the bill to the house.

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (12:58): I rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill ‍2025 and support the amendment moved by the member for Malvern. Those amendments talk very much about ensuring that the government provides urgent resources to Victoria Police and Corrections Victoria – all the resources necessary to implement the bill without further delay – and, secondly, adopt the Liberal–National parties’ ‘break bail, face jail’ policy to ensure that Victoria’s bail laws do not continue to fail to protect community safety.

What this government has done in law and order has been an absolute failure. And I have got to say it was a bit rich for the member for Werribee to get up here and talk about just how important law and order is and the difficulty with crime when only in March, going into his campaign, when he was asked, law and order was not even a top-five priority. It was not even a key element that he was focused on. He could not have cared less about law and order, and now, magically, the member for Werribee has come in here and realised that he had absolutely no idea about what was happening in Werribee. He has finally woken up to the problems that we are facing in our state and has got on board. Well, welcome aboard, member for Werribee, because I can tell you your constituents have been saying for a long time that there is a crime crisis and they want the government to act. Your government, member for Werribee, has failed. Your government has failed.

John Lister: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I believe earlier today there was discussion from the Chair about the use of the terms ‘you’ and ‘your’ as reflections on the Chair. I know I have been here only 5 minutes, but I would counsel the member not to do that.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Edbrooke): As Chair I will say that that is reflecting on the Chair ‍– the use of the term ‘you’.

Sitting suspended 1:00pm until 2:02pm.

Business interrupted under standing orders.

The SPEAKER: I acknowledge in the gallery the Treasurer of the Northern Territory the Honourable Bill Yan MP.