Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance Scheme) Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms HUTCHINS:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Mr McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (18:07): I am delighted to rise and make a contribution on the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance Scheme) Bill 2022, and can I say that although it is many years late coming in I am delighted to see this legislation come to this place. Victims of crime have been overlooked for too long, and I certainly hope this bill addresses all the concerns that we have found over the years. History suggests that it probably will not, because sometimes the bills are rushed in and there are details missing. But on face value the bill seems to cover off on a lot of the issues, and let us hope that we can at last see better support for victims of crime.

Now, the main provisions as we know are that this bill will provide a new scheme to assist victims of crime as they recover from acts of violence. The bill will also amend the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 1996 and amend the Victims of Crime Commissioner Act 2015. As a local MP—and I suspect like most MPs in this place—I hear from a broad base of people. We have many people who come into our office, email us, phone us. My office in Wangaratta is centrally located in the electorate, and we get many, many constituents contacting us for a variety of reasons, some small, some large, some personal, some community issues. But often the saddest thing is that when we are asked—which I have been on numerous occasions—to assist people who have genuinely been a victim of crime and to try and support them through that process, they find that there is no pot at the end of the rainbow. There is nothing there for them to get some financial assistance, because they are not deemed to be a victim of crime or they do not fit a certain category.

Some are directly affected, some are indirectly affected, but either way, for many the pain and suffering just will not go away. And although financial assistance will not make the pain go away, it can support people who are under constant stress—and unless you have been in that situation, you really would not be able to understand the stress and the strain that these people go through. From past experiences, often the victim or victims are left to flounder without support, without counselling and without financial assistance. Let us hope that this will all change through this legislation. I mean, some of these horrendous crimes have been committed against women and children, and it is the families that are left behind to pick up the pieces. Let us hope that this is addressed through this bill. It appears to be.

Clause 3 talks about recognising victims of crime. It also talks about understanding the impacts and providing a respectful forum for victims to be heard. I will talk about that a little bit further down the track. We all know being heard is only the first step. It is the first step in a long process to peel back the layers and to navigate through the bad memories, the rocky memories, that some have before the healing process can even take shape or begin.

Now, going back to clause 1, it describes the primary victim, which is probably easy to establish in most circumstances. That is someone who has been injured or has died as a direct result of violence. For financial assistance only, a primary victim is a person who suffers significant adverse effects as a result of an act of violence. Primary victims are eligible for up to $60 000 or higher if they fit specific circumstances—that financial assistance can be for expenses incurred, medical expenses, counselling et cetera—and up to $20 000 for loss of income and other circumstances. Again, it is a significant step forward in the right direction.

Secondary victims are a little more difficult to determine, although there is a pretty good layout in the bill that talks about who secondary victims are. The secondary victims are those who are present at the scene of an act of violence and who have been injured as a direct result. This is absolutely paramount in this bill. As I said earlier, I have met with victims of crime, both primary and secondary victims. I was very disappointed a couple of years ago when I went through the Attorney-General and we were not successful for a secondary victim who was ineligible, which was quite disappointing and heart wrenching for that family. A secondary victim is also eligible for up to $50 000 for counselling, medical expenses and expenses incurred, or a prescribed amount in certain circumstances, and again up to $20 000 for loss of earnings.

Just going back to clause 3, it covers off on related victims. I know you cannot make legislation to cover every scenario all the time—that is just simply impossible—so we have got to do the best we can and then maybe we have to tweak the edges as we go. But we can try to cover off on as many scenarios as we can. A related victim is someone who at the time of the offence was a close family member of the primary victim, was or is a dependent of the primary victim or had an intimate personal relationship with, again, the primary victim. That categorises you as a related victim, and like secondary victims, related victims are eligible for up to $50 000 for expenses incurred, counselling, medical et cetera.

We could speak all day about the finer detail of the bill, but I do not think that is necessary. It has been well covered by other speakers here today, and I do not think I need to go into the detail except to say I am pleased to see the changes that have come in and I do hope that those changes reflect what we are trying to achieve. But as I say, I just hope the government has not botched it and we find that we have got to bring the legislation back like we have on so many other bills—bring it back and run it round again because we have missed something, because we have tried to rush it through because of a political agenda rather than trying to get the bill through to achieve what we are trying to do for victims of crime.

We do have a few concerns. The member for Gembrook raised a couple. Firstly, in clause 31 regarding the mandatory refusal of an application, this means if the decision-makers deem that the violent act was not reported in a reasonable time, the claim will be refused. Again, how long is a piece of string? What is reasonable? It always is a concern when there is not something hard and fast that you can actually go and point to and say, ‘Okay, it didn’t fall into this category’. Again I see some times where ‘reasonable time’ can fit in a category, but at the same time I will be waiting in anticipation with this clause to see how it is treated in the eyes of the decision-makers.

Further concerns I have are around clause 41, which states victims may hold a victim recognition meeting after a decision. Again, I have got concerns that the decision-makers have flexibility or can change things from one victim to another. There are just concerns when you may or may not. There seems to be too much responsibility back on the decision-makers.

Finally, clause 42 talks about recovery of compensation. The explanatory memorandum says:

Subclause (1) allows a person to whom, or for whose benefit, assistance is paid, on or after being notified of the decision to pay the assistance, to assign to the State their right to recover from any other person …

It goes on to finish by saying:

… offender recovery of amounts of assistance to improve sustainability of the scheme.

When we say ‘sustainability of the scheme’, it begs the question: does this mean the scheme is capped? Is there a finite amount of dollars that has already been set aside or, to make it worse, if the scheme is deemed too expensive, can it be closed down because it is too expensive?

We stand in this place hoping that we are taking a step forward for victims of crime. We certainly hope that is the case, and some answers to that would be useful, if not here in this chamber, possibly in the upper house or at another time to be determined—we would like to see some answers to that. As I say, we have come to know this government sometimes rushes bills through, and it is a concern. I hope that this bill reflects everything that it needs to because it really is an important issue. I am sure many will agree because we have all had victims of crime in our offices, and we want to help them the best we can.

On face value it is fair to say that this bill does cover off on many of the issues we are trying to achieve. I really do feel for the families and relatives and friends of victims of crime. They need to be shown more respect, they need to be treated fairly and they need to be financially compensated for the pain and suffering, because those who have been through such horrific events do need some support in many ways.

I do commend the bill to the house, because it is a bill that I see, in our community and all of our communities right across Victoria, as something that has been needed for a long time to see that victims get the support they need. I certainly just pray that this bill does not end up back here in a very short space of time because we have got to fix it up. With those comments I commend the bill to the house.

Mr CARROLL (Niddrie—Minister for Public Transport, Minister for Roads and Road Safety) (18:17): It is my pleasure to rise to speak on the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance Scheme) Bill 2022, and at the outset can I commend the Minister for Victim Support for introducing this groundbreaking legislation to the Parliament. I will confine my remarks to my role as Victoria’s first victims minister and now as the Minister for Roads and Road Safety too, where on an ongoing basis I deal with victims regularly.

I think in a nutshell the minister really summed it up perfectly in her last paragraph of the second-reading speech, which says:

This Bill represents the most significant reform to the State’s response to victims of crime since the commencement of the VOCA Act in 1997, over twenty years ago now. The scheme established by this Bill is an essential step towards providing victims of crime with the support they deserve.

That is what this legislation does. In particular it goes from an adversarial, court-based process to one where we do not have a courtroom, where we will have a people-focused, humane focus on the victims like they have never had on them before.

You have got to ask: well, how did we get here? We got here via a multitude of channels, including without a doubt the Victorian Law Reform Commission, which handed down its report into victims of crime about four or five years ago and its 100 recommendations. You have got to think: often VLRC reports get handed down and they sit on desks—but not under the Andrews Labor government. We grabbed that report and the 100 recommendations, and through this bill we will be implementing some 84 of those recommendations.

I want to pay tribute to all of the victims, to all of the witnesses and to all of the team at the Victorian Law Reform Commission for their work, because as I said at the outset, this is groundbreaking legislation which will encourage victims to come first. In so many different ways it will encourage them to come and seek compensation and, more than that, to seek support without the worry of what might come down the track.

The reason this legislation did take some time is that in many respects it goes further than what the VLRC recommended. A great example is that there will be a two-year review of the legislation, a two-year review of the scheme. There will also be an independent review tabled in the Parliament. But more than that too, what we are doing with this legislation is transforming how we support victims and really looking at them through the lens of equity, because for the first time there will no longer be a pooling of resources that go to victims.

In the year 2022 it is vital that we expand the definition of what constitutes a family when it comes to victims of crime. I am very pleased to see that this legislation embeds who is a primary victim—that is, who is the person that was a victim as a direct consequence of that illegal act—but also who are the secondary victims, the people at the scene. You can think of the Bourke Street incident and those sorts of things, people whose lives have been transformed forever—wrong place, wrong time—by what they witnessed and the emotional scars that they have. But then, too, who are the related victims? We know with family violence victims often children are there and exposed to that. How do they get the support, the psychological help and the tailored solutions that will support them going forward?

This is really, really important reform. It does make victims the priority, but it also ensures that when this new administrative scheme is dealing with victims they do not have to worry about what might come down the track. Will their evidence or will their records be subpoenaed to a higher court? Things like that in the past have been an impediment for victims coming forward. For the first time it really gets away from that adversarial, legalistic sort of courtroom focus to an administrative body within the Department of Justice and Community Safety, which has a great resource in the staff there, who I have met and seen firsthand, and the leadership. When I think about leadership, one of the appointments I am most proud of that I did as minister was to appoint Fiona McCormack as the victims of crime commissioner, who has got a longstanding history, particularly in the area of family violence; who is a trauma-informed expert; and who very much puts people and victims front and centre.

By replacing VOCAT, the Victims of Crimes Assistance Tribunal, we will not only see more trauma-informed decision-making and support for victims, we will also see a more timely and more culturally safe and accessible system of financial assistance for victims. Also there are many Australian firsts in this legislation that we are going to be doing here in Victoria—such a progressive state—where victims will get the opportunity to request a victim recognition meeting, and indeed the state will essentially be able to give them an apology and an acknowledgement of what they went through through that trauma.

I am very pleased to have had a role in this legislation, but more than that I want to pay tribute to the victims and all the people that have had a role in this. One of the most difficult tasks that the minister has is that it is difficult when you are trying to support victims. I think of the meetings I had. Particularly I had many meetings with families affected by what is called one-punch homicide. I think of Patrick Cronin and David Cassai, those young men with very big, bright futures. I met their parents on several occasions. I know the Be Wise Ball, headed up by Matt and Robyn Cronin on behalf of their son, is coming up. The way they have been able to, in a way, draw strength from what happened to their son and to ensure that it does not happen to any other family is testament to them.

But also something that stuck in my head when I became the minister was from my predecessor, Rob Hulls, who is a very strong advocate for reform in this area. Obviously he heads up the Centre for Innovative Justice at RMIT. He said to me when I held those four portfolios, like the current minister does, that you have really got to have victims front and centre and that the only way that you will get reform is if you have victims front and centre, where they themselves can see some of the benefits of some of the reform we need to do. In many respects—and I commend the Premier for creating that portfolio—I commend the minister for what she has been able to achieve through this legislation.

I also want, in my final remarks, to say it is interesting how you do not know who is a victim out in the community and you do not know who you may come across who has been a victim. Only last weekend, with the member for Melton, I did the Shine a Light on Road Safety walk around Albert Park Lake with victims of road trauma, and I met a lady, Maeve Luu, whose father, Louis Luu, essentially was changed forever. He was out running when he was hit by a car, and he has never recovered to his full capacity. Her father was a very, very well-known local doctor and a very, very bright man. When I got there I could not believe it; I actually met Natasha Cook, who is Mr Luu’s partner and Maeve Luu’s mother. Natasha sat with me on the round table of the Victims of Crime Consultative Committee, and here we were almost four years later meeting again in different circumstances. It just goes to show that no matter what portfolio you hold in this place you never know what links there might be between different portfolios.

As the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, whether it is people on motorcycles, people on pushbikes or people in cars, every day through the work of the Transport Accident Commission we are working very hard to support victims of crime, in particular too for those that have had that trauma inadvertently and through no fault of their own. Every road death and every piece of trauma that happens on our roads is preventable. So we need to do more, but this legislation goes so far. It is a real tribute I think to the minister and the Andrews government, but also to the Department of Justice and Community Safety. I want to acknowledge Melanie Heenan, who headed up the Victims Support Agency in the Department of Justice and Community Safety with a really incredible team behind her and supported by her. And this is the other thing: when it comes to victims there is a whole ecosystem out there, whether it is co-health, psychologists or supportive communities doing everything they can to support victims going forward.

Finally I want to say, often the Premier is criticised by those opposite on this subject matter, and I have sat with the Premier and with victims and I have seen the correspondence he has personally written to victims. Nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to supporting victims and getting them the justice they deserve, and hence it is the Andrews Labor government that is making the biggest reform to victims services in 50 years. I want to now, if I can, commend the bill to the house and again commend the minister and the Premier.

Mr MORRIS (Mornington) (18:27): I am pleased to have the opportunity this evening to make some comments on the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance Scheme) Bill 2022. Given the nature of the legislation we have been dealing with in recent weeks it is in fact a great pleasure to be debating a bill with a long title that says, ‘a Bill for an Act’. So it is not the usual grab bag for rats and mice with bits and pieces, it is not a so-called omnibus bill that covers the whole gamut of a department in order to make it up to 50 pages; it is actually a new act—with, obviously, some amendments to other acts. So it is a pleasure to be able to debate this bill.

I guess my perspective is somewhat different from what we have heard from the member for Broadmeadows and the Minister for Public Transport. I would say: why has this taken so long? We have got a bill where clearly the purpose is:

to provide a new scheme to assist victims of crime in their recovery from acts of violence; and

to amend …

a range of other acts. Why has it taken so long? The second-reading speech clearly confirms the problems we have with the current regime. The minister says the Victorian Law Reform Commission:

found that the experience for victims in applying to VOCAT is highly retraumatising and requires engagement with an often complex, lengthy and delayed process … victims often faced lengthy delays before receiving awards, and were sometimes exposed to the indignity of the perpetrator being notified to attend a hearing.

These issues are not new.

A member interjected.

Mr MORRIS: I am quoting from the second-reading speech.

These issues are not new. For years, victims have been emphatically telling us that more work needs to be done to provide them with real access to justice ... They see the system as broken and in urgent need of being rebuilt.

I endorse all of those remarks absolutely. This is not a new issue at all. The current arrangements do cause significant trauma. There are lengthy delays, and yes, the system is broken. I agree with all those statements from the minister. So why did it take four years to get this bill into the Parliament? A media release of September 2018 says:

The Government accepts all of the Commission’s recommendations in principle and, if re-elected, will undertake significant work to progress these reforms in the next term of government.

Well, frankly, talk about weasel words in a press release:

… undertake significant work to progress these reforms …

The expectation from the public when you make an announcement of this nature and you talk about the next term of government is that it will be done in the next term of government. But that is not what we see here. We see that almost four years after the media release we have now got a bill in the house and a commencement date 2½ years down the track—a December 2024 commencement date.

The release of the report and the media release was in the shadow of an election. The Victorian Law Reform Commission report confirms, as I said, that the system has failed too many. In fact it is probably fair to say it has failed most. But four years on, almost in the shadow of the next election, this bill lands. I might be a little bit cynical after almost 16 years in this place, but I do not see, if it takes four years, any genuine commitment to reform. We have heard lots of fine words this afternoon, lots of talk about commitment, but if it takes four years from the time you have a report with an almost fully formed process—a very, very solid report from the law reform commission—I do not see any genuine commitment, when you take four years to get the legislation and then, as I said a minute ago, another 2½ years to commencement. The only commitment I see is a commitment to stay on the Treasury benches. Now, that might be a little bit cynical, but, frankly, that is the way I view what we are going through this afternoon.

I am not suggesting for a minute that the legislation is not good—it is. I absolutely support it. The member for Gembrook and the member for Ovens Valley touched on a few niggles, a few concerns that we on this side have, but they are very, very minor concerns. The bill is good. Frankly, the credit I give the government is the reference to the law reform commission, because the model that we are dealing with this afternoon, as I said, is that of the law reform commission.

I could spend considerable time going through the details in the bill. I will not. Basically in part 2 it lays out eligibility for assistance, whether it be for primary victims, secondary victims or related victims, and there is reference to funeral expenses. Part 3 deals with the processes—with the mechanics—of granting the assistance. Part 4 talks about reviewing the assistance, variation of assistance, repayment if required and so on, and then a number of acts have some consequential amendments as well. As I said, basically I think it is a good model. The thing that really irritates me is that it has taken so damn long to get there.

I want to, I guess, change direction and just refer to the report in the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC) Alert Digest that was tabled in this place today and I think in the other place yesterday. We get these reports every week. They are very rarely mentioned in debate, and when they are, I guess it is in the nature of a stocking filler. It is an opportunity to pull a few quotes out when you have not got much else to say. In saying that, I am not diminishing in any way the importance of these reports because the fact that they do not actually get used in debate very much is an indication that the system is working, that the questions that need to be asked do get asked. So I am not belittling the reports at all.

In this case there are a couple of things that I just want to mention very quickly that relate to the charter, and I guess they are illustrative of the challenges of legislating the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities as this Parliament has done and then trying to fashion legislation such as this, where some of the issues that are laid out in the charter and that are generally universal do cause problems in this sort of legislation.

I want to say clearly that the approach in the legislation is the one I support, but SARC has raised a couple of issues of conflicts. The first is the impact through clause 22, which requires information to be fully made available when a claim is made or when assistance is sought. There are then some provisions in clause 33 that talk about the decision-maker taking account of the criminal record of an applicant or a deceased primary victim. The issues are essentially around the issue of privacy and whether spent convictions should be considered. I know the committee is writing to the Attorney-General on that.

The other issue is around the admissibility of scheme documents, clauses 63 and 64—the admissibility of materials arising from the scheme and in terms of cross-examination and admissibility of those documents by consent. So there is potentially conflict with the charter and potentially some issues with the statement of compatibility, but as I said, from my perspective what is in the bill is the appropriate direction we should be going.

This is an important piece of legislation. I can see absolutely no reason why it could not have been implemented three years ago; I really do not. Essentially the scheme was designed by the Law Reform Commission. It could have been in place. Just get on and do it, and do it as quickly as you can.

Ms COUZENS (Geelong) (18:37): I am pleased to rise to contribute on the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance Scheme) Bill 2022. I want to start by thanking the Minister for Victim Support for her great work, and I know that there are many in my community that will greatly appreciate these changes. I also want to thank all those involved in bringing this together but in particular the victims of crime who have participated, given their time, to ensure that we get this right.

I do want to comment on the member for Mornington’s contribution and those of others in this place and their criticisms and just point out that it was the Libs that created the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal, and we know it does not work, which is why these changes are in place, and some of these changes came from the Royal Commission into Family Violence, which they do not support. So the other side can criticise all they like, but I think what we are doing is really important work, and as the minister herself said, this is the most significant reform to financial assistance for victims of crime in 50 years, and it will make a fundamental difference to the lives of victims accessing support.

There are many firsts in this bill, so as part of the Andrews Labor government I am very proud to be standing here today speaking on this bill. Many of us in this place have met with constituents who have been victims of crime, and for some a life they will never live. In my electorate of Geelong I have heard constituents’ experiences of being victims of crime or a family member or both. There are terrible stories of violence. The impact of that crime has been devastating, and the effects last for years and in some cases lifetimes—and the impact on the quality of life for them. You hear those stories of people not being able to work anymore because of what they had to deal with, the relationship breakdowns, dealing with the trauma of having been a victim of violence in some form.

Of course family violence and sexual assault also form part of this bill, which is really important. We know the impacts that they have has on many in our community. This government has rolled out the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Family Violence, which I know we on this side of the house are very supportive of. To see those recommendations coming out in so much legislation and so many different portfolios dealing with some of these horrendous crimes is really, really important for all of us.

So this really is an important bill. It increases the financial support to victims, and it provides what is most needed by those victims. Obviously in listening to victims of crime they have been able to tell us what is really important and what needs to be put in place to help support them. For many people what has happened to them will never go away. They will never forget it; it will be with them for all of their life. But in to be able to provide supports that at least meet some of the needs that they have—whether it be financial support, whether it be counselling, whatever it might be—it has been really important that those victims who have participated in this process have been able to deliver an important message and outline what people who are victims of crime need.

The bill addresses improvements to prevent delays at the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal, VOCAT, and it increases the time limits to make an application for victim survivors of family violence and sexual offences. Again, this is a really important issue in our community. We know that it is still very prevalent out there in our communities, and whatever we can do to support victims of family violence and sexual offences is what we need to be doing in this place. The bill also establishes a new administrative scheme overseen by a scheme decision-maker, and of course this will assist with greater streamlining and coordination. A key guiding principle under the bill is to promote cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims. This guiding principle has been written by the Aboriginal justice agreement phase 4 women, families and victims collaborative working group—again, another important area that we need to focus on.

This bill is very much about assisting victims to understand what they are entitled to. We know how important it is to get financial support and counselling for victims of crime. It can make so much of a difference to how people cope with a traumatic experience. As I said, I have spoken to many people who have been victims of crime, and unless you have experienced it yourself you do not necessarily understand the impact that it has on that particular person but also on their family members and the pressure it puts on them when that person who has been the victim of crime is traumatised. They often feel angry, particularly in the early stages. So whatever support we can put in place actually helps them to get through that process—I am not saying it completely takes things away because it does not, I know that, but—being able to access the supports they need, particularly counselling, for example. We have some great counselling services in our community in Geelong, and I am sure there are many across Victoria, but people have to know that they are there—that specialised counselling is available to those people when they need it. So these are really important changes.

We know how important it is to get the financial support for victims of crime. It can make such a difference to how people cope with a traumatic experience. Victims of crime deserve to be supported in a safe and trauma-informed way in their recovery, including when they access financial assistance. The bill delivers exactly that. That is exactly what we are talking about today. Victims have waited too long to get the help they need, and this government is fixing that with this bill. Through the bill the financial assistance scheme will replace VOCAT with a timelier, trauma-informed, culturally safe and accessible system of financial assistance for victims of crime.

The Andrews Labor government is providing more support than ever before for the victim support system through nearly $100 million over the 2021–22 and 2022–23 budgets. As I said, in my community that means a lot. It means a lot to those families who have perhaps lost a loved one through violence or have been victims of violence themselves. It is so important for them to know that this government actually cares and has done something about—making things easy is probably not the right term—addressing those issues that they face on a daily basis from the time that they have had that traumatic experience. It is really important that we continue to offer those supports. I am really pleased to be able to say to my community: we have now passed this bill, we have now put these things in place to provide the supports that you need and that your family need to ensure that you have some quality of life going forward. It never replaces the loss of a loved one, someone who has been a victim of violence and unfortunately has died. As someone that has never had to deal with that trauma, I would have no understanding of what those people go through, but having sat with them many times and having heard people’s stories, I do have an understanding of what we need to do as a government. This is good government policy. It is really good government policy. This is a focus of this government, so I am really pleased to be part of that. These changes will make a fundamental difference to victims’ lives.

We talk in this place about lots of different things, but these are the things that really matter to people in our communities, and every one of us knows that. We all know that. It is these details that really impact on people’s lives, that we can actually make a difference with and change for the better. So for me, this is a great piece of legislation. It is a great bill that has been put before the house. I do wish it a speedy passage through the Parliament and into the other place—for me to be able to go back to my community and say, ‘This is now legislation; this now addresses the areas that you need’. I commend the bill to the house.

Mr EDBROOKE (Frankston) (18:47): Like my friend the member for Geelong, a powerful member for her community, I also rise today to speak on the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance Scheme) Bill 2022. From the outset I would like to put on the record my appreciation to the Minister for Victim Support, the minister’s staff and the department, but also to everyone who took part in the review of the operation and effectiveness of the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 1996 and the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal (VOCAT). This was the first review of this legislation in over 20 years, and I think there have been some members in this house who have certainly outlined how many changes in our community there have been in that time, how many royal commissions there have been on different issues in that time and how much information was probably absorbed into this review that needed to be acted upon as well.

One thing I did pick up on while I was listening to this debate was that I think there are some members of the opposition that think that maybe they were the ones that needed to be consulted on this—and how far from the truth that is. I just wanted to list some of the people that have been consulted on this bill. A number of stakeholders have been consulted of course, and they basically informed the policy settings for this bill, for the foundational scheme, and also for the development and rolling out of this bill should it pass this house and the other place. Those stakeholders include victim-survivor representatives of the Victims of Crime Consultative Committee, the victims of crime commissioner, the Victim Survivors Advisory Council, the Dhelk Dja Koori Caucus, the Aboriginal Justice Caucus, the Aboriginal justice agreement for women, the families and victims collaborative working group, Aboriginal community controlled organisations, the LGBTIQ+ Taskforce and family violence and sexual assault sector peak bodies. I think we should certainly consider that the foundation of this bill has been based on the feedback from these bodies who deal with these issues every day.

Like the member for Geelong, I can say that I am not a victim of crime, but we do have people attending my office on a regular basis who need assistance. Like many members, my office has a bit of an open-door policy, I guess, for people who need help. Regardless of the help they need, we will find it for them. Much like the member for Geelong has already stated, with some of the stories that these people tell you about their lived experience it is very hard to comprehend being in their position. It is very hard to think about how they are getting on with their lives. It is very difficult to think about what they would need—not, as some people would say, to ‘get over’ but to manage these issues, have a good and fulfilling life and be able to travel on their journey.

As I have suggested, there will be some issues that opposition members have with this bill, but certainly the feedback that has gone into this bill from the Victorian Law Reform Commission review has been immense, and it has been taken into account. What did the VLRC find about what victims currently experience in the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal system? They experience significant delays. There are challenges in keeping pace with the increased number of applications and unique needs of victims, which is highly retraumatising for victims. This is something that we heard about certainly through the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and also the Royal Commission into Family Violence in Victoria, and I say to anybody who was able to come forward and, I guess, had to relive that trauma in order to inform this piece of legislation: I thank you. I thank you because that is very hard.

The VLRC also found that at times the current system can be counterproductive to victim recovery due to the court-based model, it may not provide meaningful acknowledgement for victims, it exposes victims to the indignity of the perpetrator being notified to attend a hearing, it has a fractured application process, and it generally requires lawyers to help victims navigate the process. These findings were strong and they were consistent, and feedback from victims and interest groups was basically, ‘We want major reform’. That is what this piece of legislation brings to this Parliament and will take to our community when it receives royal assent.

There is a new financial assistance scheme introduced in this bill. It introduces an administrative model that brings Victoria into line with other states and territories. I think that has been spoken about in quite a fulsome manner, so I will not go into that, but it is certainly something that, from my point of view, I support, and I know the people in my community would certainly support that too. Essentially this bill delivers a simplified service so that victims get the assistance they need without the requirement to negotiate the complexities of a, you could say, quasi-judicial VOCAT model. It places the needs of victims at the centre of the new scheme, ensures victims are better connected with a broad victim support service system and acknowledges the harm that victims have experienced through victim recognition meetings and statements as well. This is something we hear a lot about through my office, and I know my team, Team Frankston, have certainly brought this up through what we heard in the family violence royal commission: the exposure of victims to their assailants, of victims to perpetrators, and that something needed to be done about that. And it has been done. We have changed various pieces of legislation over the years since that family violence royal commission to reflect the changes needed, and this is another piece of legislation that actually does that.

Another really interesting part of this bill is the guiding principles that are taken into account in the new administrative scheme, basically to assist victims of crime in their recovery from acts of violence. The guiding principles have to be taken into account when the scheme makes decisions. These principles include that victims should be protected from further trauma, that they should be protected from further intimidation or distress, and that the needs of victims, including their safety and wellbeing, are paramount. Essentially victims will have up to three years after an act of violence to place an order and make an application, compared to the previous two-year deadline. Primary victims will now include children exposed to family violence, and the definition of ‘close family member’ has been broadened to better recognise close personal relationships.

In this bill more sexual offences are covered by the scheme than were covered in the VOCAT, including upskirting and image-based sexual offences. We have seen the issue of upskirting in the media quite recently, and it is a terrible example of someone who was a leader in their community and what they did and how they tried to say that was not the case. But this bill obviously caters for that in making sure that victims are looked after. The maximum amount of special financial assistance payable to primary victims will be doubled through regulations to $20 000, or $25 000 for related criminal acts, and victims can request recognition statements and victim recognition meetings as well.

This scheme will commence on a date to be proclaimed but not later than 1 December 2024. After royal assent there is a whole gamut of work that needs to be done to continue to establish this scheme, including recruiting the scheme decision-makers and consultation on detailed service design with victim representatives, service agencies and other key stakeholders. This is already underway but much more will have to be done in order to roll this legislation and the actual scheme out.

From the perspective of a local member, I can say that this is welcomed in my community, whether it be by the police, by normal community members or by people that deal in the justice and legal side with victims. From a parliamentary secretary point of view, being the Parliamentary Secretary for Police and Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Services, I know that this is also welcomed in this field, whether it be people who were in accidents that were caused by crimes or whether it be for actual emergency services workers. It is another, I guess, card in that deck, another tool in the toolbox, to help us look after people that have been wronged.

From an outsider’s point of view, it might be very black and white. If something happens to a person, you see it on the news and that is it, but for those people who are victims of crime, they never forget about this. They never forget about these incidents. Sometimes it might affect them for the rest of their lives, and the least we can do is make sure the process is simple and efficient and it takes their trauma into account and compensates them to the rate that we are doing in this bill. Adding different sexual offences and the clauses about children in this bill is also something that I highly commend, because these people are also victims of trauma and victims of crime. This is a bill that would only come from an Andrews Labor government, and I certainly commend it to the house and wish it a speedy passage through this place and the other place.

Ms RICHARDS (Cranbourne) (18:58): I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Victims of Crime (Financial Assistance Scheme) Bill 2022. This bill proposes the establishment of a new financial assistance scheme for victims of crime to assist in their recovery from acts of violence. In the minute or so I have before perhaps having an opportunity again tomorrow, I do want to reflect on the terrific service of Fiona McCormack in her role as the victims of crime commissioner, somebody many of us know from her extraordinary work in responding to the scourge of family violence, and the importance of making sure that we have victims at the centre of our response to family violence. It was terrific to hear the member for Frankston acknowledging that that is a really integral part of how we respond to victims of crime that are also victims of family violence, that being the greatest law and order challenge we face.

This bill amends the Victims of Crime Assistance Act 1996 to allow the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal to take measures to address backlogs. In seeing this bill passed, a new administrative financial assistance scheme will be established, and it will establish guiding principles that must be considered when the scheme makes decisions. This is a keystone of this legislation that is missing from the current scheme. This bill makes the principle that the victim should be protected from further trauma, intimidation and distress central to the legislation and makes the needs of victims’ safety and wellbeing paramount in the process of financial assistance. This bill presents a modern and efficient legislative framework and balances the need to address a high volume of cases with the need to handle each case with a sense of respect for the victims and for the lived experience of those who have become victims of crime.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.