Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Bills

Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Meng Heang TAK (Clarinda) (17:59): As I said in my contribution before the grievance debate, this is another strong change that will further protect the community from the harm caused by repeat high-harm offending. Subjecting people accused of this repeat offending to a more stringent bail test makes it more likely that they will be refused bail and instead be remanded. Finally, we have further changes to prohibit privately provided electronic monitoring as a condition of bail as well as consequential amendments to other acts as required. Overall, these are strong changes that send a very strong message that this serious offending will not be tolerated. Again, I would like to thank all my constituents for raising community safety with me, because that concern and feedback are driving these changes. This bill is another example of responding to community concern about the prevalence of certain serious offending.

In closing, we have seen the government’s commitment to community safety, introducing Australia’s toughest bail laws to protect people in our community from the risk of serious crime, and that continues here today. We have also seen that commitment backed up with significant investment in the most recent budget – namely, the $727 million to ramp up capacity in Victoria’s prisons and youth justice centre, bringing more prison beds on line to deal with an increasing number of alleged offenders being denied bail. We will keep our focus on community safety and will continue to work to deliver the government’s tough new bail laws to keep Victorians safe by putting our community safety above all.

As I said before, I have the privilege of representing one of the most multicultural, diverse communities. Many of my constituents that call the Clarinda electorate home would have escaped persecution, starvation and civil war in their old country, and coming to this wonderful state of Victoria is a second chance to build up their life, ideally with safety in mind, with the best education that can be offered and the most advanced medical infrastructure that we have in place. Therefore this amendment bill is very vital for my community, who again and again advocate to me, either at their door, at community events or at my mobile office. Just like you, Acting Speaker Hamer, I have been doing a lot with my mobile office, including at train stations. We listen to the concerns of our community, to the concerns of our constituents, and acknowledge that community safety is one of those that comes back to us every now and then. Here today I commend the effort of the Attorney-General for bringing this bill forward, and I commend this bill to the house.

Roma BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (18:03): I rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025. The Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 does not go far enough. We have been here too many times now to try to get this right, and it really is not that hard. Hence I support the member for Malvern and his reasoned amendment to make this bill stronger by urgently providing Victoria Police and Corrections Victoria with all the resources necessary to implement this bill without further delay and to adopt the Liberal–National parties’ ‘break bail, face jail’ policy to ensure that Victorian bail laws do not continue to fail to protect community safety. That is what really needs to happen, and then we will have a proper amendment bill that actually strengthens the bail laws.

While the government claims to be strengthening our bail laws, this still falls short of what is necessary to protect our communities from repeat violent offenders and remains watered down from the 2014 standard which we had when were in government, because we had strong bail laws, which this government has weakened. Premier Jacinta Allan has declared that community will always come first and that these reforms will make Victoria’s bail laws the toughest in the country, but let us be honest, if these were truly tough, we would not be seeing the headlines day after day about individuals committing aggravated burglaries, carjackings or armed robbery whilst out on bail over and over again.

Aggravated crime continues to be a very pressing concern in regional Victoria, including in South-West Coast, not just in the Melbourne metropolitan area. This has rippled right across our state to the very edges, where we used to feel quite safe. The community has experienced elevated rates of violent and property-related offences, raising questions about public safety and the adequacy of the current law enforcement and judicial responses. Let us be clear: it is not the police’s fault. They do an extraordinary job, and they are begging for the laws to be strengthened so that they can be effective in the roles that they are frustrated and burning out in.

In Portland the crime rate has surged over 20 per cent from 2023 to 2024 – that is a very short period of time and a very steep climb in the crime rates. Violent crimes including assault, robbery and stalking accounted for 132 incidents, or 13.18 victims per 1000 residents; property crimes such as burglary, theft and arson, 447 cases. Now Portland is ranking in the bottom 17 per cent for safety among Victorian areas. That is a one in 76 chance of falling victim to a violent crime; that is appalling. Once again, I cannot support more confidently and more thankfully the work of the local police in Portland, who do an extraordinary job. They are burnt out. I talk to them frequently, and they are frustrated. They get taken from Portland to fill gaps – there are already enormous gaps. They cannot get out to areas like Heywood quickly enough because of the workload they have got and the gaps that exist. There are 1200 vacancies in the police force, so no wonder the police, who are trying their hardest to protect communities like Portland, are struggling.

Interestingly, the government have this law banning machetes, and they have just spent $13 million to get 40 machete bins, these gold-lined bins – because that is what they must be. But no, there is not one in Portland, not one there, of course not. This government probably does not even know where South-West Coast is. They forget the importance of their responsibility to govern right from border to border, they are so Melbourne-centric.

In Warrnambool we have had an increase of crime also, with 2024 recording 2634 crimes, 345 violent crimes and 1169 property crimes. Assault and related offences accounted for 344 incidences. The odds of becoming a victim of a violent crime in Warrnambool are 1 in 91. If that was an incidence of getting cancer, you would be terrified. Well, you should be terrified now, because this is the incidence we have of violent crime. Again, the police in Warrnambool are wonderful. They are walking the streets and they are trying their hardest, but the residents are living in fear now. The retailers are living in fear. They cannot support their staff, they cannot feel safe to go to their cars after shifts and they cannot open their businesses and not have trouble out the front in the main areas of our CBD.

This is interesting. Breach of an order is the second most common offence, which is what breaking bail looks like – a breach of an order. That just demonstrates that this government has overseen a lack of respect for law and order now, because the police have not got the tools and the resources they need to put the law in place to keep people off the street.

I tell the story of a break-in in a shop in Portland. The shop owner said to me that the man was out, back hassling his shop, when they had not even finished boarding up the window. He was bailed and back out on the street quicker than he was able to board up the window that the guy had smashed.

In Terang, Koroit, Port Fairy and Heywood people do not feel safe in their homes anymore, and these are places we used to not lock our doors in. That is how I have always lived my life. I have never locked a house in my life. I did not even have a key to my home when I lived in Woolsthorpe. Not anymore – that is how rapidly things have changed in just a short five years, really.

While Warrnambool and Portland are rich in history and culture, the rise in aggravated crime threatens the sense of security that we as residents deserve. Addressing these challenges requires a coordinated effort between local authorities, state government and community organisations to ensure that justice is not only served but felt.

These figures that I have read out underscore a growing need for stronger preventative measures, more visible policing and judicial reforms that prioritise community safety. But it is not possible. It is not possible because there are not enough police and the laws are not there to support them. It is not possible because 22,000 police shifts from around the state are being directed to Melbourne to deal with unregulated, dangerous protest activity, leaving regional communities unsafe and unprotected. As I said, there are 1200 vacancies in the police force, and they are burnt out.

The reality is that our current system continues to allow dangerous individuals back on our streets, often within hours of being charged – the example I just gave you of the retailer in Portland. Why should someone who has already demonstrated a disregard for the law be given another opportunity to offend? The community deserves better than a system that gambles with our safety. Bail should be denied automatically for those charged with violent offences whilst on bail – no exceptions, no loopholes. Critics argue that tougher bail laws risk undermining the presumption of innocence. But let me ask: what about the presumption of safety for victims and the public? What about the rights of families who live in fear because known offenders are walking free? Justice must be balanced, and right now the scales are tipped in favour of the accused, not the community.

This bill also fails to address the growing concern around youth offenders. While recent amendments have removed the principle that remanding children should be the last resort, the bill does not go far enough to ensure that young repeat offenders face meaningful consequences. We need targeted reforms that hold youth accountable while also providing pathways out of crime, not vague gestures that leave victims feeling abandoned.

In conclusion, the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 is a missed opportunity. It gestures towards reform but stops short of delivering the robust protections that our communities need. If we are serious about preventing reoffending, restoring public order and restoring public confidence in our justice system, we must go further. We must demand a bail system that prioritises safety and accountability and has zero tolerance for repeat violent crime offenders.

Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (18:12): I believe I am the last person to speak. I would like to think that we have saved the best till last, but – oh, we do have another person to speak. Okay. Well, they have saved the best till last, and I will just warm everyone up for you. What can be said? Obviously there are different perceptions on different sides of the chamber. I was talking to someone today on the phone, and they brought up the problems with crime in the community. They said they sort of felt unsafe about going out. They said, ‘I go out and I see the police helicopter up in the air, and I get worried and nervous about things.’ And then she said she went off to a shopping centre and there were police around and she got really frightened that there were so many police around. I just thought that was a really interesting perception. I said to her, ‘The chopper’s up in the air because it’s chasing criminals. It’s up there to keep you safe and make things safer. They’re actually doing the job. They’re keeping you safe, and you should feel safe about it.’ It is the same for the police in the street, you know, the fact that she got nervous that there were a lot of police around. I said, ‘They’re actually looking after you. We’re working to keep you safe and keep crims off the streets.’ This idea of perception from one side of the house to the other is really quite interesting.

From my history as a performer, I always strived for perfection. That is what we do, I guess, in our professional lives. We always work to try and find that perfect moment, that perfect debate or whatever it is. But what I have always found is once you hit what you think might be that line of perfection, it shifts.

A member: What was your perfection?

Paul MERCURIO: I will tell you about that later on over a beer or something. But the idea is that perfection does not exist. It continues to shift, and we continue to strive to do our best. That is what we are doing with the bail laws. Over the years – sorry, it felt like years today listening to some debates ‍– there has been this idea or perception that the bail laws have been weakened. Maybe. That is a perception that some people hold. But in fact what we were doing was striving for perfection, striving to make the bail laws better so that we could better protect community and also better protect those on the fringe of entering into the justice system or on the fringe of committing crime. Going back to when the bail laws were changed, they were changed because police did not want kids to be put in jail. Community groups, justice people and even the coroner said that we do not want kids and vulnerable people being put in jail, because that is not the right place for them, and so the bail laws were changed to reflect that community opinion and the opinion of professionals. Okay, there were some unintended consequences from that, and so in striving for perfection and striving to get things better for our community – all of our community – bail laws have been adjusted again, and I fully support them. I fully support the fact that we continue to work to make things better for our community. That is what our job is in here every day of the week or out in our community. That is just a real quick snapshot of where I sit, having been in the chamber and listening to the debate.

I would like to congratulate the member for Bayswater for his exceptional and outstanding debate. He is a very clever, articulate, genuine, generous and good-looking member. But apart from that, what was so great about his debate – apart from the fact that he looked good in his seat as he did it – was that he has life experience. He is in fact an ex-member of the police force. He spoke with accuracy, with lived experience and with understanding of all of the concepts. As he spoke you could see that he has stood in many a police station, in many a courtroom and dealt with all of the things that we talk about in all the different legislation that we have brought to Parliament. He spoke with the realism that a lot of us, including me, cannot because I have not been in that position. So I certainly thank him for his contribution in bringing light to some of the falsehoods and disingenuous nature of comments made by those on the other side.

I will also take a moment to note that there are other members in this chamber that were police officers that have chosen not to debate this bill today. I wonder, especially after the member for Bayswater’s contribution, if the fact is they are not debating the bill because they would have to concur with what the member for Bayswater said, which would be completely against what those on the other side are saying. For those people on that side who have been in the police force, they have not come here to debate this bill because they know we are right. They know what the member for Bayswater said is right and what some people have been saying is not.

There are a lot of things I would like to talk about. One thing that keeps being said in this chamber is that Port Phillip Prison has closed. I believe that is true; it has closed. It was built in 1997 and is almost 30 years old. But every time they have said that Port Phillip is closed, not one person on that side has then backed it up and let people know that Western Plains prison has opened. Sometimes I am just flabbergasted by what is not said. Western Plains prison has opened. It has got more beds than Port Phillip Prison. It is brand new. It is fit for purpose. It is fit for future. It has been designed to be safe – to provide an environment for prisoners that is semi-comfortable but safe. It is safe for prison guards working there. It is safe for the staff that work there and safe for visitors that go to that prison. I just wanted to make that point.

The other point I want to make is about the ‘break bail, face jail’ idea. When I was thinking about what that probably meant, it is like ‘chuck everyone in jail who does something wrong’. The member for Point Cook, sadly, took a little bit of my thunder on this by mentioning the First Fleet. How dare you! He mentioned the First Fleet, and I was going to talk about the First Fleet. It came out in 1788, and when it came out it brought the first criminals to Australia. It actually brought 751 criminals to Australia. You mentioned it as well, member for Pascoe Vale; I do apologise. So there are two people in the chamber smarter than me – well, in fact a lot more. Anyway. But think about those people that were convicted in England for crimes – for stealing a loaf of bread because their family were going hungry or doing any of those sorts of things. I had a quick look at what you could be sentenced to Australia for, and there was stealing fish from a pond or river. I guess this is what ‘break bail, face jail’ time is going to look like if the Liberals get in: if you steal fish from a pond or a river, you will be going to jail for life. There was stealing letters; assaulting or cutting or burning clothing; or stealing roots, trees or plants or destroying them. And the one that I found the most amusing but also the most confusing – especially if it were part of ‘break bail, face jail’ time – was impersonating an Egyptian. That was actually one of the 19 –

A member interjected.

Paul MERCURIO: I do not know; it was just part of that. Also I note that with ‘break bail, face jail’ under the 1788 First Fleet, the youngest criminal that came out from England was a young girl by the name of Mary Wade, and she was just 11. We do not want to do that. We do not want to put young kids in jail. They come out worse off; we know that. We have talked about that time and time again in this place. The best place for them is not in jail. So I believe, again, there have been some complaints about the fact that we have not really necessarily attached the youth portion in the bail law and that those on the other side would just like to lock them in jail and throw away the key. That is not the way to go.

Is this tranche of bail legislation the most perfect it can be? Probably not, because we keep working on things. We are committed to always working for the betterment of our community – of every member in our community. That is our promise to everyone, and we will continue to do that through legislation in this place. I commend the bill to the house.

Nicole WERNER (Warrandyte) (18:22): I rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 in the time that I have left before we move on to other business. What appears to be clear to us on this side of the house is that introducing this bill and other bills since the government watered down the bail laws in March last year is an admission of guilt. It is an admission of guilt from the Allan Labor government. It is an admission that they are soft on crime, that the experiment is failing, that the weakening of bail laws in 2023 was and is a disaster and that Victorians have paid the price with their safety. Even now, this bill exempts dozens of serious indictable offences. These include handling the proceeds of crime, even when the money is worth more than $10 million. Wow! These are crimes tied to organised crime gangs, yet Labor’s bail laws still give these offenders breathing space. Why? I do not know. Why does the government want to give a pass to a person who has been caught with $10 million of drug money? I would like to know too. Perhaps it is because Labor is not actually serious about getting tough on crime. That is why we have proposed indeed our ‘break bail, face jail’ policy, which Victorians are crying out for.

That is not to say that we have not got policy as well that speaks to early intervention, that speaks to reintroducing police coming into schools so that there is that rapport there and reintroducing the programs that have been cancelled under this government. That is why we have proposed that at the end of the line there would be this ‘break bail, face jail’ policy, because the truth under this Allan Labor government in the state of Victoria is that there are youth offenders out there that have committed over 400 offences, who get bailed and bailed and bailed again and again. That is the truth here. In fact there are youth offenders in Victoria that as soon as they have committed their crime, after 90 minutes there has been a turnaround where they are back out – after being arrested and after being charged and put out on bail – to then commit an offence again. That is the reality of what the bail system, weakened by the Labor government, has done here in Victoria. That is why our policy has real consequences for breaking bail: no free passes for youth offenders and tougher tests for robbery and burglary from day one.

To speak to what the member for Malvern spoke about earlier in his contribution, another one of the bandaid solutions to the government’s weak, weak stance on crime is again playing copycat with the opposition, where we had sought five times over in this place, in Parliament, to ban the sale and possession of machetes, and each and every time the coalition sought to introduce that to Parliament or amend that in a bill in Parliament, the government voted against it. Then 18 months later, they decide, ‘You know what, that’s a good idea. Maybe we’ll give that a crack too. What we’ll do is we will make machetes illegal, the possession of them, and we’ll also have an amnesty. So here’s a bright-spark idea. This is what we’ll do: we will put these amnesty bins outside of police stations that are brightly lit, that are monitored by CCTV, so that youth offenders on their way to aggravated burglaries can drop off their illegal machetes.’ Member for Malvern, make it make sense, please.

You are telling me that the government proposes that a youth offender on their way to an aggravated burglary will think to themselves, ‘Hold up a minute, maybe what I’ll do is I’ll pull up to that cop shop that is under lights. I’ll pull up to that cop shop that has got CCTV, and I will go and just dispose of my machete that is illegal, so that they all know who I am.’ Get real. That is just simply absurd. How about adopting the policy of the late Les Twentyman, who spent his life trying to get knives off our streets, working with young people in Australia to reform them, to have the early intervention, to help them stay away from a life of crime? The late Les Twentyman proposed that it should be something that we incentivise, and he was not talking about big-ticket items, he was talking about movie tickets. He was talking about maybe a ticket to a sporting game. How about we honour his legacy, this great Victorian? How about we do that? How about we actually have some pragmatism and be realistic about youth offenders giving up their illegal machetes?

If you do the maths on $13 million for 40 bins, that is $325,000 spent per bin. These bins look like charity bins at an op shop. These bins are reminiscent of these bins that you would put outside of an op shop to dispose of clothes. That is the Allan Labor government’s priority – to cut $15 million from the budget for policing, to cut the money, but instead spend $13 million of taxpayers money on 40 ‍bins at what – I do not know – $325,000 a pop. You could buy a Ferrari with that, member for Malvern. That is absurd.

Police are straining under Labor’s catch-and-release bail system. I spoke to this earlier. Victoria Police are drowning under this system. They are sick of arresting the same people again and again, only to see them back out on the streets before the ink is dry on the paperwork. Earlier this year seven teenagers, six already on bail, were arrested after a police pursuit through Melbourne’s west in stolen cars, sometimes at more than 200 kilometres an hour, before smashing into a tree. Among them was a boy who had been released on bail dozens of times. In another case a 14-year-old described by a magistrate as causing terror in the community was released on bail again, despite having close to 400 ‍charges struck out because of his age. This boy has been bailed 50 times. The state should be appalled, the magistrate said in open court, yet he still sent him back into the community because of our weak bail laws, thanks to the Labor government. This same teen has been linked to high-speed police chases, aggravated burglaries and store break-ins.

We know that here in Victoria every 50 seconds offences occur and every hour in Victoria, while someone is home, an aggravated burglary takes place. That is what the criminal justice system looks like under the Allan Labor government. These are not isolated incidents. Crime Statistics Agency data shows child offending is now at its highest level since 2010. Offending by children aged 10 to 13 has exploded, and their involvement in aggravated burglaries, from 18 cases five years ago, is now at 84 since last year. Thirty-five per cent of all child offenders are repeat offenders. Victoria Police say youth crime is now so bad that they have had to launch dedicated operations like Operation Alliance and Operation Trinity, making more than 2700 arrests in the past year alone. This is what Labor’s weak bail laws have done. They have normalised the idea that dangerous, repeat high-risk offenders will be caught, released and caught again – revolving door, again and again and again.

The Northland gang member was out on bail and is free in the community today. Many Victorians would remember that back in May this year shoppers at Northland were forced to run for their lives as seven armed offenders, some carrying machetes and even a tomahawk, clashed in broad daylight. Cars were rammed and weapons were brandished. It was not a petty scuffle – it was violent, it was organised, it was terrifying. I had friends there. An elderly couple were separated, the man and his wife in fear because the shopping centre was shut down because of these weapons on our streets that the Allan Labor government failed to act upon. Here is the kicker: two of the worst offenders were already on bail. One of them, Abel Sorzor, was not only on bail but on a good behaviour bond. The other was on four separate bail orders, for armed robbery, assault, weapons offences and theft – four separate bail orders. Under Labor’s weak bail system, both of them were free to roam our streets and then free to go into Northland shopping centre and cause terror amongst every Victorian that was watching at home, seeing this take place. They were not sitting at home reflecting on their crimes, they were back out engaging in gang warfare in a public place. What was the ultimate punishment for Sorzor? Not jail – community service.

Lily D’AMBROSIO (Mill Park – Minister for Climate Action, Minister for Energy and Resources, Minister for the State Electricity Commission) (18:32): I move:

That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.

Ordered that debate be adjourned until later this day.