Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Bills

Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed.

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (14:45): Where I left off was referring to the issue that we have in this state about law and order and the crime crisis that we are experiencing and that the government have only just started to wake up to this huge problem. This problem did not happen only yesterday. This has been a 10-year problem because of the failure of the Allan and formerly the Andrews Labor governments. The government has had its head in the sand, and now what we are seeing is catch-up. But unfortunately it is catch-up which is all too little, all too late and also all too soft. That is why the member for Malvern, in the amendment that he has proposed to this bill, talks very much about how we can actually make our bail laws stronger.

If you look at the history in terms of bail laws, back in 2013 one of the focuses that we had when the Liberals were in power was to strengthen bail laws, particularly for those people that were reoffending and were serious threats. We looked at really ensuring that we got on top of where things had been left by the previous Labor government. That changed, and there was a reversal and a weakening of those laws by the Labor government. Then we saw the Bourke Street situation with the Gargasoulas case, which was that horrific attack, and that is certainly very traumatic and memorable to me because 10-year-old Thalia Hakin was murdered by a person that was out on bail at the time because of weak bail laws. Those laws were then strengthened as a result of the Bourke Street attack, and then we saw them wound back in 2020. So the pendulum keeps shifting, unfortunately, and who ends up worse for wear? Victorians end up worse for wear. We even had a situation in 2020 when the bail laws were weakened again and the government said, ‘We’re actually going to get to a situation where we don’t even need the amount of prisons because we’re going to ensure that we have different programs.’ So a lot of our prison system had an early retirement scheme for a lot of our prison staff. This government shut down prisons. We saw the Malmsbury youth facility shut down, and we are now seeing the Port Phillip Prison being shut down. This is in the middle of a crime crisis.

The government can say they are doing all these wonderful things, but we know that there is a 1200-police shortage – they have not been hired – and we are five years away from police being at full strength. On top of that we have another 700 police that are on WorkCover and 300 on extended sick leave. So we are over 2000 police short in Victoria in the middle of a crime crisis. We do not have enough police, and the police that are doing the job are doing it with their arms tied behind their back, because literally as soon as they arrest somebody they are back out on bail, as we have seen.

Some of the changes proposed here still do not deal with bail for youth offenders. For example, a 16-year-old recently drove a stolen car while taunting police and the courts, reoffended and again was let back out. A 16-year-old had an alleged aggravated burglary spree within 48 hours of bail release, and a 17-year-old breached bail in under 48 hours and was involved in a deadly car crash whilst on bail. These are recent examples of young offenders under 18 that again will not be covered in these kinds of situations because the legislation excludes minors in these kinds of offences.

There are exclusions when it comes to robbery and burglary that the member for Malvern has suggested, again under our ‘break bail, face jail’ element, that we would have included. There are a number of elements in this bill that are soft, that do not allow the strength of what ‘break bail, face jail’ would be under a coalition government, a Liberal–National government.

Even in this bill there is reference to electronic monitoring. This shows you just how bad this government is. This government, with electronic monitoring, gave a contract to a company called Bail Safe and had eight people disappear whilst on bail, whilst being electronically monitored. Why? Because Bail Safe went broke and this government had no idea what was happening. That just shows you how bad this government is. Everything they do is about catch-up. We have seen this government react, react, react, but unfortunately it is catch-up, and that is what has led to the crime crisis that we have. You only have to look at it. Whether it be tobacco licensing – we have pushed for tobacco licensing. We came in with a private members bill on how to do it. This government finally said, ‘You know what, we’ll catch up. We admit there’s a problem. We’ll do something.’ But again, they do not have proper enforcement. They only have four officers that go out there and do the job. We are seeing an underworld of activity; 130 tobacco stores have been firebombed under this government and counting. And what does this government do? They give council workers the opportunity to go there and do the regulation of that stuff. Again, not strong enough, a catch-up but too weak.

The same thing applies to the machete ban. We called for the machete ban four times over a number of years. The government finally said it would do it. But how did they do it? You could not make it any worse. This is a government that said, ‘We’re going to do it, but what we’ll do is we’ll allow them to be sold until we get our act together. We’ll have a September date when people can hand them in in an amnesty.’ Well, that has been wonderful. Then with the pressure that we had, the government said, ‘Maybe we should make that sooner.’ Instead of banning the sale of machetes immediately, they gave people three days. What happened in the three days? We saw retailers discounting machetes to $5 a machete. Then this government spent $13 million on 40 machete bins. You could not make this stuff up. Now we are expecting thousands of machetes to be handed back, for good citizens, good Samaritans, to say, ‘You know what, let me just hand in my machete.’ With the $5 machete that was being discounted and sold, the government should have just paid the retailers and taken them off the shelves immediately. If you work out the $13 million from how many machetes we get back, I reckon each machete will cost thousands of dollars. That just shows you that instead of doing it properly this government does it haphazardly.

We see it in every single situation. It is the same with our laws when it comes to protest. They promised to ban masks and now that is going to be watered down, and who knows when that is going to happen? They promised stronger vilification laws. Where do you think that is? They did a dirty deal with the Greens, and the Director of Public Prosecutions needs to approve any prosecution. Eight months later we are still waiting for the Nazis on the steps of Parliament to be charged. This is a useless government, a hopeless government, that gives us weak laws.

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (14:53): I think I speak on behalf of the chamber in saying the member for Caulfield needs to pause, sit down and take a sip of water, because it is feeling kind of hysterical in here – quite ridiculous actually. I get sick of these kinds of performances, as much as I truly adore the member for Caulfield.

What I will do, as I rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025, is make a call-out again in relation to machetes. People in my community, regardless of what your age is – whether you are a young person, whether you are an adult – you have an amnesty until 1 September. If you have a machete, if you have a knife – it might be at your friend’s, you might not have it at home; you might know of someone who has got them, but you do not want to dob them in – you have an opportunity to go to the disposal safety bins that are located in our community throughout the western suburbs. You have the opportunity to drop the knife and save a life. If you need another reminder about where they are, those safety disposal bins, they are in the safest place possible that machetes can be handed in: they are at the local cop shop. You can drop them off at Werribee police station. You can drop them off at the Sunshine police station or the Altona police station. Drop in your knife and save a life. I really wish that the opposition would get behind the message to drop machetes – regardless of the price that people have paid, member for Caulfield – into those locations, to get rid of them or face serious consequences come 1 September.

What I will say at the outset on this bill is I really regret – I am looking around at my whip here – I did not get the chance last sitting week to speak on our bill to criminalise post-and-boast offences, because this kind of stuff is just so important. Thanks to our government, Victoria has one of the strongest bail laws in this country. Despite what those opposite continue to say, the fact is we have one of the strongest bail laws in this country. We have taken action – real action – to make sure that community safety is at the forefront of our response to crime. I do not just want to say it is reactionary at the forefront of our response to crime. There is a power of work – and I had this conversation multiple times over the weekend – that is happening behind the scenes to actually prevent these crimes from happening in the first place. The prevention work that our government has implemented – not just in the last 12 months or 24 months but since we came to government in 2014 – to prevent crimes from happening in the first place has been unlike anything those opposite have ever attempted to put forward here in this house or go ahead and fund in their local communities.

I think it is really important when we are talking about bail, when we are talking about dropping in machetes and when we are talking about going to prison and facing serious consequences, that we do not want people, whether they are young people, whether they are adults – whoever they are, whatever background they are from – to commit crime in the first place. The power of work that is happening in that prevention space is something that needs to be talked about in this chamber by those opposite more often than not. Do you know what, it also needs to be put on the front page of newspapers like the Age and the Herald Sun just once in a while. They should go out and talk to the services and the organisations at the front line rolling out prevention work, working with people from all different backgrounds. Some people have stories of horrendous things happening to them and they are doing terrible things in our community, and we know they are most at risk. Just once I would like to see the front page of the Herald Sun thank those organisations and those workers for their tremendous work, their commitment, their dedication and their tireless work, particularly with young people and particularly with young people in the western suburbs. If any of those journalists are listening to this contribution, they should go and visit the Visy Cares Hub and see what some of those organisations are doing and the tireless work they do with youth across the western suburbs. They can start right there.

I want to get back to this bill, because there is some really good stuff in here. As I talked about, as of last week the number of remanded youth – and I know this has been talked about in this place – has increased by 26 per cent since this time last year. For remanded adults this has increased by 27 per cent. When we talk about the number of folks in remand increasing, it is not something to be proud or boastful about; it is one too many that have found themselves in a less than ideal situation, some of them doing horrendous things, that have now interacted with the justice system and are likely to end up in prison. But that is more people who are on remand and who are not out in the community, potentially committing all kinds of offences. That is something the community has been asking for, and that is something we have done. I know that in many ways my community are really happy to see that we are taking action and clamping down on these very serious criminal activities.

When we introduced these tougher bail laws back in March this year, we said that a second piece of legislation would be coming and that we would continue to do the work, and it is now before the house. This bill is the second piece, the missing piece – a brand new bail test to apply to repeat offenders for the serious offences that we are trying to tackle and clamp down on. I will again make it clear: our government does not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to bail. We do not believe in punishing people for being poor. Yes, that does happen; we know it has happened in the past. It would be irresponsible for us to go down a pathway where we are punishing people for being poor, particularly in a cost-of-living crisis. We do not think that folks who are charged with stealing a loaf of bread – yes, that still does happen – should be held in remand for months with people accused of murder.

Of course this is not the only thing we have done in respect to tackling crime over the course of the past two months. I have just talked about our nation-leading – we forget that: nation-leading – machete amnesty program to get dangerous knives and machetes off the streets before the ban comes into effect. Just last sitting week, as I also alluded to, we passed legislation in this place to tackle performance crime, the post-and-boast penalties for those who commit horrendous kinds of offences. And yes, it has happened in my community. It is absolutely appalling. They go ahead and they brag about this kind of activity through social media. Well, I certainly do not want my kids seeing this on social media. I do not want to have to watch it on social media. We know that it has become a big motivator for a lot of young people, concerningly, and these changes ensure that this element carries a two-year imprisonment penalty. Just down at Werribee police station a couple of months ago the Wyndham MPs had a great conversation with our local police force. Yes, we on this side spend a lot of time talking to local cops in our community. They actually are out on the beat in our local streets and neighbourhoods. One of the things they talked to us about is the problem with social media and kids getting on social media recording themselves doing awful things to other people and it being normalised – it is normalisation of violence. That is not something that is new, it is not something that is unknown, and cracking down on these kinds of offences with a two-year imprisonment penalty is a really good thing. With this bill’s new test, the second-strike test for offenders on bail, we are making progress on stopping these crimes from happening and ensuring that our communities not only are safe in practice but feel safe as well. They are very much two different things – whether people are actually safe or they perceive themselves as being safe. I will always say that people need to actually be safe; that is more important than the perception.

I have no doubt that those opposite have had and will continue to have a lot to say on this bill. They will say it does not go far enough; we have heard that. They will say that we should just vote for the ad hoc legislation they try to shoehorn into our parliamentary business week after week. Better yet – and I am not sure if we have heard it yet, but I am sure it is coming – they will try to spruik their ‘break bail, face jail’ policy. My staff and I have had a laugh about that. We think it belongs on the back of a car as a bumper sticker. We have been very clear from the get-go about our bail reforms: they are firm but they are fair – and they must be fair. Those opposite seem to target the very worst and the most concerning of offences that Victorians are quite rightly worried about at the moment. Many of those offences do tend to happen in my local community in the western suburbs, whether it is in Wyndham or in Brimbank. But there is good news that I have been telling folks. Out on the weekend when I was doing two Saturday morning street stalls, we talked a lot about crime and we talked about a lot of the action that the Allan Labor government has taken and is continuing to take. I have to say it was received really well. People were really happy with the reforms that we are putting into place. I commend the minister for bringing this second but vital piece of legislation before the house, and I commend it.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (15:04): This bill is Labor’s attempt again to patch over the mess that they made themselves when they weakened Victoria’s bail laws in 2023. We have heard many contributions on this side so far – and there are many more to come, looking at the speaking list – that talk about the weakening that had a predictable and devastating consequence of repeat serious offending. The government has promised the toughest bail laws in the country, and I have said repeatedly that we just want the best bail laws in the country so that our communities feel safe. What is in front of us today is not even as tough as laws that existed pre March 2024. Instead of delivering real protection for the community, Labor has cherrypicked six serious offences for a new high degree of probability test while quietly giving a free pass to dozens of other indictable offences, some of which, as we heard the member for Malvern say, could be linked to organised crime. Under Labor’s bill for handling stolen goods there is no tougher bail test; dealing with the proceeds of crime, no tougher bail test; large-scale drug possession and drug trafficking, no tougher bail test.

I have heard from the other side today, as the member for Ripon indicated during her contribution, that the crime rate has not escalated, that it is just a perception. I want to give you a few indicators around what the crime rate has done in my local community of Mildura. I just googled a few of the crime stats. In the year ending March 2025 Mildura recorded 11,042 criminal incidents per 100,000 people, which makes it among the highest in regional Victoria. This was nearly 5 per cent higher than the previous year. That is an increase. Local crime trends are stark. Break-ins are nearly 150 per cent higher than the Victorian average. Motor vehicle theft is around 70 per cent higher, and this includes motor vehicles from farms. We have seen on-farm crime really escalate in the past few months. Violent crime stands at almost double what it was a year ago. Family violence breaches in Mildura have reached a 10-year high, which is just an absolute scourge. It is very obvious that that is a passion point, finding ways that we can bring that down. At the moment in Mildura an incident occurs every 4 hours, which deeply affects women’s safety and affects children’s safety, and there just does not seem to be even any acknowledgement. These numbers are not abstractions. These are our neighbours and our families and our friends. Is there anything in this that makes those people feel safer? No is the answer to that.

Let us be clear. This bill still leaves bail laws weaker than they were before. It is smoke and mirrors, designed to give the impression of action while avoiding the hard decisions needed to protect Victorians. If we are going to talk about some of the hard decisions and smoke and mirrors, let us look at the machete program with the bins. Those carrying machetes, I am sure, are very law-abiding citizens and will obviously take them to those very expensive bins. Where is someone going, ‘Why are these bins $350,000?’ Where is anyone asking questions around this? It would be interesting to see who got the contract for that, honestly. And it will be even more interesting to see, when that program does eventually commence, how many machetes are actually collected. It would be very interesting to see that and to then put a return on investment figure next to it, which should be common practice you would think.

The member for Laverton said that she had not heard this side talk about our policy around ‘break bail, face jail’. I think every member that has contributed on this bill so far has referenced it. We urge the government to at least have a look at the bill that was presented and that policy to reinstate commit indictable offence while on bail as a schedule 2 offence so bail is harder to get and to reinstate breach bail without reasonable excuse as a schedule 2 offence so breaches actually have consequences. If there are consequences for your actions, that is a deterrent and you would change your actions one would think.

We would remove the youth free pass for breaching bail. We heard the member for Morwell talk about the consequences for those that are put through the ‘rinse and repeat’, which is what Victoria Police call the judicial system, particularly with youth offenders at the moment. It is a rinse and repeat: in through the police station, out through the courts and straight back onto the street. We heard the member for Morwell – and we do often in this place – talk about the consequences that have occurred for the Gordon family. I know that this is a very strong passion point for the member for Morwell, and he has really embedded himself within the Gordon family and is desperate to help. We heard during his contribution how even for the Gordon family and even for the member for Morwell, who is, like I said, very embedded in this issue, it is still as if the government is not listening and will present bills such as this to get a media release out of and a media conference out of but not to actually have any consequences.

I do just want to touch quickly on the start date. The community cannot wait another seven months for this. We cannot wait until 31 March 2026, but that is what this bill is doing with the delayed commencement date – seven more months of risks and seven more months of repeat offending. So of course we support on this side of the house the reasoned amendment from the member for Malvern:

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.’

While we are talking about Victoria Police, I heard again the member for Ripon during her contribution say that she had spoken to Victoria Police members in St Arnaud that had said that they have never been better resourced. I do neighbour the electorate of Ripon, and in communities and stations surrounding Ripon if in fact there is a Victoria Police member in some of those small towns they are saying quite the contrary, and I speak to them on a weekly basis. There are single-member stations that are not resourced at all. There are over 50 vacancies in Mildura. They no longer have the embedded mental health clinicians in the station to support the Victoria Police members that are there. While this government talk about how much they have invested in recruitment, how much are they investing in retaining those police officers that have 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years of experience? You just cannot replace that. You cannot recruit that kind of experience.

Some of the things, honestly, that we hear come from the other side, when they are in complete contradiction to what I am sure all members on this side of the house interacting with their Victoria Police members and community members are hearing on a daily basis, are just mind-boggling. It is just another example of an Allan Labor government that refuses to listen to the community and refuses to do anything about it. If they were actually interacting with Victoria Police, they would know that is not the case, and if they were actually interacting with members of their community and victims of crime and those that are too scared to walk to the post office in the middle of the day, they would fully understand that this is simply not enough.

Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (15:14): I rise to also make a contribution on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025, and I would like to thank our fantastic member for Clarinda for allowing me the opportunity to make this contribution at this time. A lot has changed since I last had the opportunity to speak on bail act reforms approximately a year ago with the Youth Justice Bill 2024, but I do want to begin by reiterating two important points that have not changed since then. The first is the principle, very important to all of us in the Labor Party, that no child comes into this world wanting to be a criminal. No child chooses to be exposed to the neglect, to the abuse, to the family violence situations and to the other risk factors for interaction in the justice system, and more broadly, all of us should have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes in life. I remember the member for Frankston and I had an exchange on this when this matter last came before the house, talking about the fact that we have had the opportunity to learn from our mistakes in our lives, and it is something that we should extend to everyone, including those who have come through some very difficult childhood circumstances. Of course our government is committed to programs that divert people away from the justice system not only within the justice portfolio itself but in all the work we do in the children’s portfolio, in education, in health and mental health and in other portfolios.

But I would like to reiterate a second important point that I have made previously, and that is we do need to understand that criminal behaviour is very difficult to predict ahead of time. It is not possible to know, walking around this state, who is about to commit a crime. We know that perhaps across the course of today there may be 10 shoplifting incidents. Some of them, maybe three or four of them, will be committed by people who have never previously committed an offence. But there are 7 million Victorians. We do not surveil them all. There is no way of knowing who those three or four people are who may today, for the first time, commit a criminal offence. Even if you zoom in on high-risk cohorts – so young males and other groups that do have a higher risk of offending – it is still always the case that the vast majority of people have very, very little chance of committing any offence this year, let alone in the next few hours. I raise that because when people like the member for Richmond in her contribution say, ‘Why do you arrest people and lock them up? Why don’t you invest in education and mental health and support programs?’ it is frustrating because of course we do invest in all those things. This government invests in them very significantly and in fact increased our investment in the most recent budget.

But it is important to understand that you do not know who is about to commit a crime. You cannot put those intensive support services in front of them before they do so. That is the reason why most of our support has always been directed at those who have already had an interaction with the justice system, and indeed when you think about the drug and alcohol support we provide, the housing support we provide to people, that support is typically provided at the point where someone has been charged but not yet convicted. I say that because it brings us to the real challenge in the justice area, which is that when someone has been charged of a serious offence, they are of course still innocent as a matter of law. There is no difference between them and any of the rest of us. They are innocent as a matter of status at that point. But what we know as a matter of statistical risk assessment, if you go and read what criminology academics and researchers say, it is an empirical fact that someone who has been charged with a serious offence is roughly 100 times more likely to commit a further offence, a different offence, throughout the rest of the year than the average person is. It is important to be clear that that is true even with the world’s best rehabilitation programs, with all the support you can have. There is no jurisdiction in the world that has been able to change the fact that someone who has been charged with a serious offence is more likely to offend than the average person in their society.

Bail decision makers always face what is a very difficult decision. On the one hand are the very real costs both to the state but more importantly to the individual themselves of denying someone bail and incarcerating them. None of us on the Labor side deny the negative consequences of incarceration, even for relatively short periods. But on the other side of that judgement that bail decision makers have to make is the very real risk – often a risk that is 10 per cent or 20 per cent, a very nontrivial risk – that the person they are facing will commit a further violent crime. So I find it very frustrating that the Liberals and the Greens simply do not engage with this key, difficult, risk-based trade-off that everyone who is serious about our justice systems knows is the key topic to engage with. In fact we had a very, very strange sight – members will appreciate the very unusual sight earlier today – when the member for Richmond and the member for Brighton agreed with each other, and agreed with each other unfortunately, on this notion that all the government was doing with this bill was going through a futile act of trying to look tough. I just absolutely reject that crude and juvenile characterisation of what we are trying to do here. We are trying to support bail decision makers with what are undoubtedly some of the most difficult decisions that get made in our community.

I want to engage with a particular version of that argument that some people make when they say we should just strip the Bail Act 1977 all the way back and make it a very short and simple thing. I particularly want to engage with the version of that argument put forward by the Yoorrook Justice Commission, which did incredibly important work which I think is incumbent on all of us to engage with. But in their recommendation they said we should strip back the Bail Act so that essentially bail is granted at all times unless the prosecution can prove ‘a specific, serious or immediate risk to the safety of a person or to the administration of justice, with the exception of murder, terrorism and like offences’. I absolutely understand where they are coming from with that important work. But when we speak with bail decision makers, they do say that it possibly still downplays the amount of pressure that is on bail decision makers when you have a Bail Act that essentially asks them to make all the judgement of risk with very little in the way of guidelines and live, as they have to do, with the consequences of being wrong, knowing that you cannot get it right every time.

Coming back to where I started, crime is difficult to predict and sometimes those consequences will be very serious. If we put ourselves in the shoes of a bail decision maker who may have reached a decision that someone has a one-in-1000 chance of committing a child safety offence, for instance, which we have been talking about in this chamber, do you grant that person bail or not? It is an inherently very difficult question. I push back on the notion that the Bail Act should be simplified. I think the Bail Act is much improved for the work of this government in this term. I am pleased and I support the guidelines we put in there. It is an act that includes flowcharts, but I think the flowcharts are helpful, and it is an act that importantly takes into account someone’s prior charges, their convictions and their behaviour on bail, which are statistically practicable risk indicators for re-offending. But importantly it also asks bail decision makers to take into account many other circumstances, including particularly importantly whether the accused is a child, whether they have a First Nations background and whether they have been involved in family violence circumstances.

I support today’s bail bill. I reiterate what I said: the Bail Act is much improved by the good work of this government over the course of this term. We have importantly removed those uplift provisions which previously saw people remanded for very low-level offences, as happened in the tragic Veronica Nelson case. We have substantially improved section 3A that sets out the First Nations factors and section 3B that sets out the factors relating to children. Importantly, this bill introduces further factors relating to pregnancy and caring responsibilities. We have retained and improved those parts of the bill that force someone to clear a higher burden for proving that they need bail for those schedule 1 and schedule 2 offences and amended the specific contents of schedules 1 and 2. We have retained that uplift from schedule 2 to schedule 1, and in this bill we are reinstating uplift for some other indictable offences into schedule 2, with the exceptions that are set out in schedule 4.

I briefly note the member for Malvern claimed that some of those offences were not crimes of poverty, and I would just point out to the member that if he had been paying proper attention to the debate, we never made such a claim. Some are, others are nonviolent crimes, but I think it should be obvious to him why there are in that particular category. I think this is a good bill that ensures that we have the right settings in our justice system, and I commend it to the house.

Kim WELLS (Rowville) (15:24): I rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025. There is no doubt that crime in Victoria, adult crime and youth crime, is out of control, and the reason it is out of control is because there are no consequences. Why a government would come in and, as one of the first things it does, reduce the severity of bail legislation to me makes absolutely no sense. The more you look at it and the more you talk to police and victims of crime, it is absolute madness. When the government comes in and says we now have the toughest bail laws in the country, people do not believe them, because under a Liberal–Nationals government the bail laws were tough. When Labor came into government, the bail laws were weakened and weakened and weakened. For some reason the government thought that this was going to be a good thing and would have no consequences.

We have to look at crime stats, and I am just going to look at the crime stats in my area and the effect that consecutive legislation changes by the government have had. In the last 12 months, to the year ending March 2025, crime in Knox increased by 16.4 per cent. When you look at it, there have been 112 crimes in houses; 281 crimes on the street, lane or footpath; 332 at service stations; 337 at shopping centres; and 138 in driveways and carports. When you look at Knox, Wantirna South has the highest number of criminal activities, and then it is Boronia and Ferntree Gully. It is just an awful, awful situation.

But let me tell you what used to happen under the Labor government when it came to crime stats. The Premier or the Minister for Police, under the previous Labor government before 2010, would stand up and cherrypick particular crimes, and they just happened to be those crimes that had decreased. But the more serious crimes that had increased, the government and the Chief Commissioner of Police would just forget about or just look over. That is why the Liberal–Nationals, between 2010 and 2014, introduced the independent Crime Statistics Agency. So we now believe what is actually happening in our community. How many times do you hear on TV that a crime has been committed by a young person who was on bail at the time?

Members interjecting.

Kim WELLS: Member for Brighton and member for Lowan, every single night we look at the television: ‘This crime was committed whilst they were out on bail.’ Then they go back before the magistrate and, lo and behold, guess what, they are released on bail again. There are no consequences, and people in the community are going, ‘What’s the point? What is the absolute point?’ We have no confidence in the government, and we have no confidence in the legal system should people be released over and over again. It used to be that if you committed a serious offence while you were out on bail, then bail was revoked and you went into a juvenile centre or you went back into the jail system. That went out the window under a weak, pathetic Labor government, and I just cannot believe that they did it. You have got these situations of 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds outrunning police in cars, ramming police cars and committing aggravated burglaries and home invasions. People are scared out of their wits.

I will give you an example. In my electorate there is a mum, dad and four kids. Three kids have gone through school and been house captains and school captains. Unfortunately, the 13-year-old got into marijuana. By 14 he was running with gangs. He is now 15, and he was being bailed over and over and over and over again – so much so that the mother rang me and said, ‘Kim, if he is not put in jail in a juvenile justice centre, he is going to commit a very serious crime which is going to maim someone or cause serious injury to someone, and as a family we will never be able to forgive ourselves.’ Unfortunately, in this situation, he has now moved from marijuana onto ice. That means that when they are committing these crimes they have no fear. Now, as a 15-year-old, when he is committing a crime with his gang, when they are running around, he has no fear. When they are in the car outrunning police, smashing into innocent people, there is no fear. Part of the reason for that is because there are no consequences, because they know when they go up before the magistrate or the Children’s Court they will be let free and be back out on the streets. And how embarrassing is it when they give the finger, as they are walking out, on the TV cameras to the police or to other senior officials? It is just absolutely awful.

We strongly believe that we should have tougher bail laws as crime continues to increase, youth crime is still out of control and young people are still being released on bail. The government said in the last lot of ‘tough’ bail laws – I think it was part of the bill – they were the toughest bail laws or something. They had a political slogan as part of a piece of legislation, a bill. How embarrassing is that? At least the upper house looked at it and said, ‘Absolutely no way.’ I still do not understand with this piece of legislation – and maybe the police minister can answer while he is here: why does it have a start date of 31 March 2026? Why not make it immediate? You have had years and years and years of crime out of control, so why wait another seven months? Can you imagine the crime? Imagine the amount of crime that is going to be committed in the next seven months. And what do we do? Point to the government and say, ‘This is your fault, because you should have acted more quickly’?

I had to smile to myself the other night on television – when they were just reporting more and more crime – that they have now got these machete bins that they have put around Victoria, where all these law-abiding citizens who have been running around injuring people are going to turn up to the police station and put them in. How does it cost $325,000 per bin? I just do not understand the priorities. I do not understand the priorities of $325,000 per bin.

Emma Kealy interjected.

Kim WELLS: Yes, it will be interesting to find out how much per knife. All these law-abiding young people are going to be putting in all these machetes. I know that the Labor Party hate the slogan, they hate us being tough on crime, because what drives their policy is the polling. When they have done their polling they get into caucus and say, ‘We’ve got a problem. We’ve got a really big problem. Crime is out of control and people are hating it and they’re not going to vote for us, so we’re going to buy some bins. They’re $325,000. That’s what’s going to fix it. And then we’re going to bring in tougher’ – tougher, they say – ‘bail conditions,’ which they are not. They are still not as tough as they were when they came into government in 2014. And as I said, the start date of 31 March 2026 is totally unacceptable. I hope that the police minister, when the bill is between here and the upper house, looks at that and says, ‘That is absolutely ridiculous, that we are going to allow crime to be out of control for the next six or seven months.’ We need to bring it in straightaway so we can start trying to get on top of the crime wave in this state.

Mathew HILAKARI (Point Cook) (15:34): I too rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 and in support of the bill of course. Before I begin my contribution I just want to acknowledge Saurabh Anand. On 19 July this year Saurabh faced a really difficult circumstance. He was out shopping in the local community down in Central Square and was approached by five people and ended up a victim of crime – a victim of really serious crime. I thank the Victorian police for arresting five alleged offenders, all the offenders that they were looking for. Saurabh, I know this is having a really big effect on your life – both the physical injuries but also the mental toll. We have spoken and we have exchanged emails, but I also want to thank particularly those people who are supporting you, Saurabh. I want to thank your mother, who flew in from India. I do want to thank Kanika, who has been such a strong supporter of you over this really difficult time; Sudhir, who you have been in contact with; as well as the Australian Hindu Community Incorporated. These have all been really important supports around you whilst you are struggling to recover. We will keep in touch and provide those supports that you do need. But we are thinking of you, and I have thought of you many times. Saurabh, I will be in contact again. Thank you again to all those people who are supporting you through this really tough time – and to Victoria Police, who have done their job in arresting the alleged offenders, as they should. They will have their day in court, and I look forward to that.

We are introducing stricter bail laws – of course we are, because we know there is more that needs to be done around community safety. This is the second tranche of bills. Our first tranche of bills has had a significant effect: 25 per cent more people are in prison on remand due to our previous bail changes. This is a significant change, and these laws prioritise community safety. I say to the community that I represent: we have more to do, and this is part of doing more around community safety. I meet many members of the community, whether it is in local parks, whether it is on their footpaths, whether it is in the office, and we talk about community safety and how important it is to the community that I represent.

There are a few things that I want to pick up from the member for Laverton. We were at the Werribee police station, Victoria’s largest police station outside the CBD, recently alongside other members of Parliament from the south-west of Melbourne. Police officers there did talk about the rising challenges of community safety related to social media, and that is a matter that is also going to be before this Parliament. We also talked about some of those old-fashioned, really basic ideas that can help increase community safety, and they include locking your doors, locking your car doors, making yourself less likely to be a victim of crime. Members of the community that I represent have shown me videos of people who have been trying different doors or trying different car doors to undertake a criminal act. Some of these really basic actions make people less likely to be victims of crime. I do acknowledge also that we are doing a fair bit of work – and this has been a long time coming – in building Point Cook’s first police station. That construction is underway right now. There are more than 140 officers who have been funded across the local community that I represent and others represent here, and these are really important investments.

I do take umbrage at some of the comments made earlier, particularly the member for Mildura talking about the return on investment when it comes to the machete ban. That is a really miserable set of accounting that is done by those opposite – a miserable set of accounting. Getting machetes off our streets should not be counted in dollars and cents, it should be counted in terms of those people who will avoid a really life-changing event. That is how they should be counting them. But instead the member for Mildura and others count the dollars and the cents. They do not count community safety, and it is just very disappointing that that is their fundamental focus. The member for Rowville belled the cat on their recent contribution around our previous legislation. Their contribution was to change the title. It is form over substance. It is the same as their obsession with ‘tough on crime’ as a slogan or slogans in general. It does nothing to make our community safer than it is currently, because we know there is more work to do, and we are up for that work. We are less worried, though, about the slogans, and we are less worried about the title of legislation. That is something that those opposite do care a great deal about.

The bill in front of us, the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025, is the second of two pieces of legislation to improve our bail laws, and if we need to come back to it, of course we will, because the role of government is to keep on improving the legislative circumstances that this state faces. The first package was passed in March, and I did talk briefly before, but the remand numbers are up as a result of it. In early August of this year the numbers were up 26 per cent for youth and 27 per cent for adults since the same time last year, so the bail laws are having exactly the intended effect of what we put forward in Parliament. We are delivering the toughest bail laws in the country, but also targeted and tough. They are targeted at those people who are high-harm and repeat offenders. We include things like second strike rules for those who commit indictable offences. The Liberals, however, take the view of ‘Lock ’em all up’. We talked a little bit about loaves of bread. It reminded me more of the days of convicts and those people who were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia and that approach to crime. It is ‘Lock ’em all up and hope they’re locked away forever’. The sad news is that those people who are locked up for low-level offences, for nonviolent offences, face the same circumstances as all others, which is they go into youth jail, into our justice system. The facts for those young people aged 10 to 16 are that in the 12 months following leaving imprisonment, whether on remand or as a regular part of the jail system, 52 per cent of them return to prison, and they often commit worse crimes afterwards. That is a real challenge of our system in general. We want to make sure that we are targeting the right people to end up on remand or in prison.

The bill outlines a new test for those people who are seeking bail. For those people who have been charged with serious schedule 1 offences, including aggravated home invasion, aggravated carjacking, armed robbery and aggravated burglary, we are introducing the high degree of probability test. This is really aimed at speaking to bail decision makers and the high degree of probability that an accused will not commit another serious offence while on bail – because that is what we are really hoping to achieve, that those people who are on bail understand the privilege that bail is and they do not commit another serious offence in particular. It sends a clear message to both offenders and bail decision makers.

The second strike rule is another significant element of this bill, which is for those people who are already on bail for an indictable offence. If they are charged with committing another indictable offence, they must meet the show compelling reason test. They must meet this threshold alongside the unacceptable risk test. This is important because it puts the onus back on those people who are seeking bail to achieve that privilege of being on bail, because it is a privilege. For those that are not charged with those higher offences but rather low-level, nonviolent offences – we are talking shoplifting, low-level theft, low-level property damage and drug possession – those people will not face these same higher thresholds, and rightly so, because there is no need to have people who are committing low-level, nonviolent offences in jail with those who have committed higher level offences. Certainly when I speak to members of the community, they agree when you put it to them in those terms.

I would like to finish by saying we are introducing stricter bail laws. There is a reason for doing it – because we do need to address community safety, and we will continue to do so. These laws have been successful so far. Our first tranche in March has produced 25 per cent more people who are on remand than in the previous year. This is balancing the laws and priorities of community safety in our state. We will continue to make sure that we have the facilities that we need, like the Point Cook police station, the Werribee police station and more police funded across the community that I represent.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (15:44): I rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025. We are here again because this government is trying after failing, after weakening our state’s laws when it comes to bail, when it comes to making sure people on our streets and in their homes are safe. They are not safe. We know that. We know it because not only are Victorians feeling it with these crimes but even the government has been brought to the point of acknowledging it, although not acknowledging it in a way that they can work out how to fix it. They certainly do not know how to fix it, but they have acknowledged it. I remember the day when the now Treasurer, then Attorney-General, said there was no youth crime crisis, that it was not happening. I remember when former Premier Andrews stood up and said that people in my community and I did not understand crime data, and now Victoria Police have confirmed the youth crime crisis started in Bayside. What a pig of a man he was.

We are here again today because we have the government trying to solve a problem they created and they do not know how to fix it. When it comes to bail, they have again tried to fix the bail revolving door, and we know that the worst crimes are being committed by people over and over again. Not that long ago in my community there was a very serious home invasion, where the police did a fantastic job and later that same day caught the two crooks involved. They were caught in the middle of Church Street, Brighton, which shut down the street – a packed street – and the police arrested them, which was fantastic. But with the entire crowd watching, guess what the youth offender said to their mate as they were being arrested? ‘See you in a couple of hours when I get bailed,’ they shouted to their friend. What a disgrace, and Victorians know it. They know that these fixes are not actually doing what needs to be done, and that is shutting the bail door. That is what you need to do; you need to stop the revolving door. The reason why there is a revolving door is because this government is soft and sides with criminals. That is what they do, and we know they do, especially when it comes to youth offenders, because they believe that people should not only be given a second chance but should be given a 20th ‍chance, a 50th chance, a 100th chance, over the rights of the victims. That is why we have this problem in this state; it is by design. Consequences do not exist, because this government believes in giving endless chances to people who are committing the worst crimes. The government can have us here trying to solve the problem they created over and over again, and we know it will not fix it.

Can you imagine being such a limp-wristed government that you bring a bill in that supposedly deals with a very, very serious issue in the community and then not implement it for seven months? How could you possibly do that? How could you possibly say that it is going to take seven months before you are going to actually implement the laws that you say are necessary and needed now? It is not just on this bill; we know it is on previous bills and laws that the government has brought into this place. We saw it with the post-and-boast laws, which were supposed to deal with people glorifying the crimes they commit – seven months to bring about those changes. How can you bring in an urgent bill and say, ‘We’re going to put it away for seven months if it gets through the Parliament?’ What a disgrace. On machetes, you are seeing people going to a shopping centre – innocent people – and having their hand chopped off, and this government announced a machete ban that they did not bring in for three months. On bail – seven months. Post and boast – seven months. It is just extraordinary. Machetes – three months.

How can you possibly propose laws that deal with keeping people safe from the most violent crimes and delay them for months and months and months on end? You should be implementing them immediately, as we have tried to do. We have brought in our own proposed changes. We have sought to amend the bills the government tries to bring in, to bring them on more speedily. The government does not want to bring them on. They do not want to bring these reforms in quickly, because they will always side with the criminal over the victim. It is in their DNA. We have not talked about this: the most important bail reforms that are needed, which the government promised they would bring in when the Premier admitted, finally, there might be a problem – and we have got the Minister for Police at the table, so he might be able to inform us ‍– were going to be brought in later this year. The Premier said and the government briefed it out to the media that those reforms would be in later this year. Well, guess what we found out this week: those reforms will not be brought in until next year. Of course they will not be. They have delayed not acting. Not only did they announce they were not going to act till later this year, they have now announced they are going to delay not acting – how completely hopeless.

If it only affected them, no-one would worry, but this affects community safety. This affects the lawlessness on our streets, not just in people’s homes, where we have seen the most violent crimes, but in my community, where police have said the youth crime crisis started. My community cares because we are the victims. It is what you see on the streets now every single week. You have a government that promised to bring in face mask ban reforms to ensure that violent offenders who are protesting on the street cannot cover their faces so that no action can be taken against them. Where is that? There has been an eight-month delay on action there. It is eight months since it was promised – eight months – and we have seen no sign of it. All we will see is every Labor member voting against proposed laws today which would have taken action on that. We have seen a seven-month delay on bail and a seven-month delay on post and boast. We have seen a three-month delay on machetes, and we have seen an eight-month delay and still no time of action on the face mask ban. And on the most-needed bail reforms we see delay after delay. How can you possibly imagine a government announcing they will not act and then further announcing they are going to delay when they will not act? That is what has happened when it comes to bail.

This government is an absolute disgrace when it comes to law and order. The most important thing is that the community knows it. Every single member on that side of the chamber knows it, and that is why they are pushing for reforms. Let me give the members on that side of the chamber an insight. Your community also knows that these actions and these reforms are not fixing the problem. What is so terrible, though, is you cannot see them standing up and calling for the reforms that are needed. We need to be tougher. We need to have consequences built into our system. We need to make sure that the worst offenders are not allowed out of the revolving bail door that exists in this state. The community knows about the lawlessness that exists. The community are victims to these crimes. They have had enough. This government is weak, weak, weak when it comes to crime, and Victorians know it.

Meng Heang TAK (Clarinda) (15:54): I join the member for Point Cook and the previous speaker on this side of the house to support the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025. I do so because I know that this is another important bill, one that will implement the second tranche of the bail reform to increase community safety and wellbeing by reducing repeat offending. Community safety has been a big priority for this government recently. I was happy to be involved in the debate on our tough bail bill to put community safety above all in bail decisions and remove the principle of remand as the last resort, creating the toughest bail laws ever for serious offenders, including a new bail test, which is extremely hard to pass, targeting repeat offenders for the worst crimes. It was a really important measure, and we are seeing the result in the remand rate. That is really important because there was a really clear expectation from the community on this. It is one of the most common concerns, as we acknowledge, in my community, and it is still a major concern in many, along with the importance of quality public health care, major infrastructure projects and local development. We will keep working hard, particularly around community safety, and we will continue to work around the government’s new tough bail laws to keep Victorians safe by putting community safety above all and creating the toughest bail law ever for serious offenders, targeting repeat offenders of the worst crimes. We can see that here today once again, and that is why I am supporting this bill.

Again I would like to say thank you to all of those in my constituency for spending their time raising community safety with me while I have been doorknocking, at mobile offices or at the electorate office. The feedback is important to me, it is important to this government, and we acknowledge that. We have seen some positive change which sends a clear message that community safety must be placed above all, and we will keep working to make sure that is the case and that we have the legislation to keep our community safe and to keep our justice system operating efficiently and effectively. We will continue the important work here today. Even last sitting week we made further amendments with the Crimes Amendment (Performance Crimes) Bill 2025, prohibiting a person from publishing material to draw attention to their involvement in serious offences like theft of a motor vehicle, burglary, home invasion, carjacking and robbery. We can see a clear agenda and focus from the government, and I commend the Attorney-General for bringing this bill forward, along with other relevant ministers and the Premier, sending another strong message that community safety comes first. As I said, the work continues here today with the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 building on that work and implementing the second tranche of bail reform to increase community safety and wellbeing by reducing repeat offending through safeguards in the act.

There are several elements to this reform. Firstly, the bill will introduce a new high degree of probability test for people accused of committing specific high-harm, high-risk offences in schedule 1 of the Bail Act 1997 while on bail for another specific schedule 1 offence. That is another change that will make it harder for alleged serious repeat offenders to get bail. Specifically, this test means that the risk of committing a schedule 1 or schedule 2 offence will be another unacceptable risk, and bail must be refused unless the decision-maker is satisfied to a high degree of probability that the accused will not commit a specific schedule 1 offence if released on bail. Where the high degree of probability test applies, bail must be refused unless the bail decision maker is satisfied that there is a high degree of probability that the accused will not commit a specific schedule 1 offence if released on bail. This is a very strong change building on previous changes. Further, we have changes that will uplift those charged with an indictable offence whilst on bail for another indictable offence to a stricter bail test. This is another strong change that will further protect the community from harm caused by repeated high-harm offending, subjecting specifically people accused of this repeat offending to more stringent tests that make it more likely that they will be refused –

The SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for the grievance debate.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.