Thursday, 7 March 2024

Bills

Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Anthony Carbines:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (10:42): I rise to speak on the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024. I will go through what this bill is about and some of the conditions that we will be considering and having a look at through this. I will start off by saying the opposition will not be opposing this bill. We will raise some concerns, but they are minor concerns with some of the elements of the bill and how it is structured.

The purpose of the bill is to amend the Private Security Act 2004 to provide for a new licensing system for the private security industry and to amend the County Court Act 1958 and the Sentencing Act 1991 to extend to the operation of the Drug Court division of the County Court and for other purposes.

I was going to put some examples in here talking about private security. Obviously, we went through our consultation. I did not think speaking to Wadda and Dazza at the Bezza pub was probably the best consultation – they asked me to leave when I was 18, 19, 20 and 21. I can tell you the work that they do is fantastic. They quite regularly would escort me out of the Berwick hotel, which may have given me a good reputation in Berwick, so it was not a problem back at the time.

We do understand how important our security is – our security officers around Victoria and the work they do. But because they do on most occasions wear a uniform, we have to ensure that the people in those industries are the right people, that they are people of good character, because when people are in trouble, when they are having issues in the street, no matter where they are, if they see someone in uniform, generally we want them to have the security and feel safe to be able to walk up to them and ask them for assistance. This also extends to the private security inside licensed clubs. We need to make sure, again, that they are of good character and that they have the training and understanding so they will not incite or increase violence whilst in those venues, and I will go through some of those examples later on.

The main purposes of this bill are to amend the Private Security Act 2004 to provide for a new licensing system for the private security industry in relation to applications for and the renewal of a private security licence and in relation to complaints about the conduct of a holder of a private security licence; to provide for offences in relation to subcontracting; to provide for a code of conduct for holders of private security licences; to require a risk management plan to be prepared before a security activity is carried out; in relation to the appointment of special counsel under part 7 of that act; to amend the County Court Act 1958 and the Sentencing Act 1991 to extend the operation of the Drug Court division of the County Court; and to consequently amend other acts.

I am going to speak mostly on the private security section of this bill, and I know the member for Malvern will be directing more of his comments towards what has been happening in the Drug Court. But I can say from experience of seeing the Drug Court operations as a whole I think most people in this house would support the Drug Courts, what they are doing and some of the actions they have taken, particularly around the different style of sentencing that they are giving people who are entering the justice system due to habits of drugs and trying to work out ways that we can identify the issue, not the crime that happened after, because if you can solve the drug issue, as a rule of thumb you generally solve the crime a lot more easily. So the Drug Court division and the Drug Courts generally have the support of the Liberal and National parties here in Victoria, and opportunities to expand that or extend it I think would be on the whole mostly supported.

As background, a well-trained and regulated private security workforce is crucial to protecting and promoting community safety across a wide range of activities. The following quote, which can be attributed to a security industry group, aptly illustrates this point:

Private security industry performs an important frontline role in safeguarding the interests of Victorian businesses, government and the broader community. There is a growing reliance by the Victorian community on the services provided by the security industry, whether protecting crowded places, providing security at sporting events and concerts, hospitals, critical infrastructure, utilities, military bases, licensed premises, shopping centres, ports, airports, courts, cash management and transportation, installing alarms, access control and video surveillance systems, monitoring alarms in accordance with Australian Standards or physical security measures.

Just by that alone you can see that the broad range of the security industry is and always has been something for the whole of the community. But it is expanding, and we are seeing it expand in many different communities. A lot more people would have an alarm at home now. More and more people in our community are having those alarms monitored. More and more people are having cameras installed at home, whether that is external or internal, and that is why it is really important that when we do have people coming into our homes, installing cameras and monitoring our systems, we have a system in place or a licensing system that ensures that those people are of good character.

Sad but true at the moment too is that a lot of our communities are seeing an increase in crime, and I can speak specifically on one down in my electorate, Alira estate. Alira estate has seen an increase in crime. Whilst a lot of it has been burglaries, there has been an increase in home invasions or aggravated burglaries – so burglaries whilst people are home and cars being stolen. We have had stories where a young group of guys have gone into a house. A grandmother with her two grandchildren were at one end of the house. They have come in with absolutely zero care for obviously who is home, with the sole intention of stealing cars.

This is becoming a bit of a habit, an increase in crime across our state, where we have seen these figures jump to over 5000 annually. They are scary numbers when we have got home invasions above that number of 5000, approaching 6000 very fast, and I have no doubt this year it will probably reach that 6000, on the current trend. If you go back only a few years, that was as low as 1900, so it is a big change in what we are seeing in crime. What does it do? When you have a burglary and you come home and your house has been broken into, generally that unsafe feeling or feeling of insecurity is just within that household. You might mention it to your neighbours, but when it is becoming home invasions, that fear is generated through the whole street.

Alira estate got to a stage where they were very concerned about these crimes, and they understood that they were not getting the police service where they were, not because of the Victoria Police members, who work very, very hard in trying to respond out there. But there are a lot of vacancies at Narre Warren station, and we do not have the Clyde North police station that was promised by the Labor government in 2018 and 2022 and is yet to be delivered. Members of this community want to take matters into their own hands – well, they do not want to, but they are – and they do not want to be vigilante-style people in that community where they go out themselves, so they have actually employed their own security to monitor what is going on in the streets in the evening. Sad but true, they are not alone; we are hearing more and more across different parts of the state that people are hiring their own private security people to drive around the street.

We know in this house and many in the community understand that a security guard is never going to have the same powers as a Victoria Police officer. They do not carry the same weapons and they do not have the same self-defence skills, as a rule of thumb, and we want to make sure that those going out there understand what the restrictions are on what they can and cannot do. That is not just for the community, that is also for the person who is going out into that position, because we do not want them getting into a position where they think that they can act like a police officer and have the same powers, because they just will not be protected. I think we have got to be very, very cautious if we are going to end up with private security in these areas. That has happened in the past in different areas. We want to make sure that they have got the training and the understanding, and part of that training is, believe it or not, self-preservation. If you see a specific offence happening, it is not your responsibility as a security guard to get out and try and arrest five people coming out of a house. That is not your responsibility – your responsibility is to call the police – but you can sit, watch, monitor et ‍cetera.

Part of the training and understanding for our security guards who are going out and protecting communities – and doing a great job – is they need to also understand what their restrictions are and what laws will and will not protect them. I think our system at the moment does not quite allow for that training – sorry, it does allow for the training, but that does not mean you have to do that training to be a licensed security guard at the moment. The training is quite narrow, and the industry itself has attracted people who, when they come into the role, do not need a set of skills to come in. They can come in on a lower set of skills than probably, I would say, would be required. I think this bill will address many parts of that.

The industry can be divided up: we have got the protective security sector and the technical sector. The protective security sector encompasses persons engaging in a range of work, including crowd controllers, investigators, cash in transit et cetera. One of the things I do state is that they also do security at sporting events. We all see it. We go to the MCG to the Boxing Day test or the grand final ‍– probably more the Boxing Day test than the grand final – where everybody loves to boo the security guard who grabs the beachball when it is going around the top of the crowd and the crowd are having a good old time. Whilst those security guards will probably be booed a little bit, most people at the MCG would understand they are there for a very good reason.

The one thing I will say from previous experience of working at the MCG as a police officer is that communication between the security and Victoria Police at venues like that is paramount to making sure people are safe. It is for a range of reasons. Number one is that if anything does happen you want to make sure that everybody is on the same page, particularly if there is an emergency where you have to evacuate or move people out of an area. You want to make sure that the staff in those roles in security have the training, the ability and the understanding of what they have to do to ensure a safe way to get people out of the venue or onto the ground, whatever the case may be.

But it can also turn around. I worked at a North Melbourne and St Kilda game where a gentleman had a heart attack when he was just walking through the crowd. Who was the first to respond? It was actually the security. The security are all around there. We want to make sure security are trained, that they have got their first-aid certificates and that they know who to call and what the communication channel is in a venue like that. Doing that means that they can work with not just the police but with St John Ambulance or other organisations who are delivering first aid and that they are prepared for all of those things.

The next section that this goes to is in relation to subcontracting. Subcontracting is a problem at two levels. The first one is it appears in a form known as ‘sham contracting’, where people go out and effectively create a sham contract. This sees the employer trying to hide the employment relationship as an independent contract to avoid liability for employee entitlements. That is just simply not fair, and I understand this is one of the reasons it has come forward. Secondly, subcontracting by larger companies of smaller companies dilutes the control and responsibility at the time and how that could be operating. We need to make sure that we are not diluting who is responsible for delivering services. If you are an organisation that has signed a contract indicating that you will take on responsibility for a community, an area, a venue or a shopping centre – that you are going to deliver services that guarantee certain aspects of safety and that you have confidence your workforce are aware of their obligations – then you cannot just dilute that down and give it to somebody else who may not be in a position to do that. I think it is really important – probably one of the more important parts of the bill. Hopefully it will address this, when you are going down through all the subcontracts, and make sure that everything is completed on time and that the people at the coalface of what is happening understand the training material that is being delivered to them.

Obviously, there were some reports around why we needed to address the private security system, and one of the ones that did come up was the COVID-19 hotel quarantine inquiry final report. This noted the casualised nature of the industry and the associated lack of job security, lack of appropriate training and knowledge in safety and workplace rights, and susceptibility to imbalance of power resulting in the need of subcontractors to source and maintain work. While the inquiry concluded that the overwhelming majority of security guards who worked on the hotel program themselves did so honestly and with goodwill, the inquiry found a number of complaints about the behaviour of some guards in relation to being – I think the term used was – ‘overfriendly’, bullying and consuming alcohol while at work. Obviously, these three things happened specifically around this COVID-19 hotel quarantine but are reflective of what could happen in any organisation or any major event when you need that much security, particularly in a short period of time.

The other thing it did actually highlight at the time was responsibility, and I know this government celebrates shared responsibility. The problem with shared responsibility is there was no accountability, and I think it is really important that – and I hope this legislation addresses it from within the company organisations, but I hope the government takes it on board as well – when you actually go through a shared responsibility program you still have to have someone that is ultimately responsible. We saw the failings of the hotel security. We saw the failings of the contract, but we never saw who actually signed off on it. To be honest, we do not even know who agreed or looked over these contracts at all, and there were a whole world of issues that we saw happen in Victoria directly related back to that. And that is not us saying it; that is report after report saying COVID came back out of the hotels and the failures of what was happening in there. Again I say it was not a failure of the security guards as a whole on the job. They were called in at short notice – ‘Here’s what we’ve got to do’ – and we understand it was a difficult time. But it was a failing of the contracting and then the subcontracting, and then no-one was responsible for who was doing what in there and the lack of supervision of what was happening within that system.

If it was happening in the COVID-19 hotel system at the time, it was happening in the security industry at the time, and we have seen over time some of the issues that have happened with that. We have been into liquor licensing venues, and we have seen where you have a security guard and they have to wear their security numbers. There are a whole range of conditions within legislation for what they have to do: sign on for their shift, sign off for their shift et cetera, et cetera. But there have been circumstances where a security guard will be signed on at more than one venue at one time. Obviously, we know some of us are good, but we are not that good that we can be in two different spots at one time. The problem with that is you will have a venue where they have got a liquor licence which will state, ‘For the first hundred patrons you have to have two security guards; for every 50 patrons thereafter you have to have another security guard who’s on duty.’ If it is a licensed venue with music, there are all the conditions around the liquor licensing. So to get around that and cost-save and shave off the cost, there were illegal operations happening where they were encouraged by employers to sign on at more than one location. As a rule they generally did that down in Prahran in Chapel Street or over here in King Street, where venues were owned by the same owner or multiple owners who had a pretty good relationship. What they would do is say, ‘If an incident happens at my bar, just make sure you get them over here before the coppers arrive so we can make sure that we’re all covered.’ Cameras these days have made that more difficult, but they have had those issues in the past.

I feel for the person who is the security guard at the front door, because a lot of them are just doing their job to earn their money to make sure they can put food on the table at home and pay their bills. But the pressure from above is actually where those concerns happen, and if the training is better for all of them, they may be able to pick that up and have a bit more confidence to speak up. But it ends up in the position that we saw at Salt nightclub, if you go back in the past, which was understaffed. We have had stabbings, fights and brawls in pubs and clubs where it has been proved that the lack of security was the biggest issue.

We have seen overcrowding in venues. That overcrowding is a huge safety risk – a massive safety risk ‍– to everyone in our community. When you go into a pub and the pub says it is licensed for 300 ‍people, there is a reason it is licensed for only 300 people. It is not just because there are only five toilets or four staff at the bar, it is because in the event of an emergency it is very difficult to get out. We have been pretty lucky here in Australia overall, but every single one of us has seen some video footage at some time of a venue where there has been a fire or something and the fire does not kill people but the crushing of them getting out the door does. And that is why we have these rules in place. I think it is really important that education for the staff is where we are heading to make sure that they are aware of the consequences of their actions and they can go back and have the confidence, again, to speak up, because their training has improved.

The report released just before Christmas in 2020, after the review of more than 70,000 documents and six weeks of hearings, identified flaws with almost every aspect of the Victorian government’s set-up on that hotel quarantine scheme for international arrivals. The findings, including that the majority of security guards, again, acted honestly, contradicted claims made by the Premier of the day at the start of Victoria’s second wave that infection-control mistakes made by security guards sharing cigarette lighters may have been to blame for the transmission of the virus. Justice Coates ruled that none of these workers went to work to get infected with COVID-19; however, systematic governmental failures led to problems. She concluded that a series of factors contributed to the program’s inadequacy, including confused governance structures; the failure of ministers, including Mr Andrews, to consider the health risks of a hotel quarantine program; and the Department of Health and Human Services’ refusal to accept responsibility despite being the lead agency. I have already gone around the path on that; that is that shared responsibility. When we talk about shared responsibility, we have got to have actual accountability.

We still say it is unthinkable that the government, so concerned about the ability of the private security industry to perform the work required to that standard that it launched a full-scale review, then engaged private security to handle the quarantine work. So not only had they already launched a review, they then went out there and incorrectly blamed the workers rather than the process or the governance of what set that up. The media reported at the time who was engaged with the formal tender process and selected with just 24 hours notice and that the third company used for the hotel program, Unified, was not even part of a preapproved panel of service providers at the time. That is government failure. That is the governance of it. That is not just directed to these organisations. Of course they were going to put their hand up; there was a lot of money up for grabs, and these were organisations that were trying to be out there and make money and create jobs. They were trying to make sure their staff had the employment they needed.

We have been asked to vote on this bill, but we know that the regulations have not been done as yet, so we actually asked when they will be drafted, the regulations for this, and we did not get any response other than ‘In the next couple of years.’ We think there have been a few years of ability to get this legislation done. At the same time, the draft, even a very informal draft, of the regulations could have come forward to give confidence in what is going to be delivered by the government. It is another example of this government kind of putting some legislation up and going, ‘Here’s some legislation, and how it’s going to operate we’ll work out later on – just trust us.’ And I have no doubt it generally ends up coming back in here because there is a mistake because it was not well thought out and not a greatly conceived idea. Effectively they are putting the cart before the horse. We need to be putting this in place so we can get the knowledge and understanding of what it is. It is difficult in briefings – and I do not say this to departmental staff; this is a government responsibility. The government should be directing that we start to get those things in place.

We also say that these changes are still two years away. So there are still two years in this time where Victoria Police, the regulator for private security firearms licences as well as controlled weapons, is working on an outdated database that the parent company will no longer support in 2029, and the level of support provided by that company is very limited. The required system changes to implement amendments, particularly to licensing, including accommodation of transitional arrangements, will be costly and time consuming, and the government have not come and let us know how much this will cost. Then the third part of that is: who pays? I think it is a pretty genuine question.

If you are going to change these systems, let us just look at Victoria Police in the past under this government when they have tried to have ICT changes. The LEAP system is so out of date it makes you cringe about what Victoria Police are working with, with their current ICT systems and IT systems. But when this government tried to change them over, they spent $120 million to try and change the LEAP system and update it, only to in the end go back to what the LEAP system was, and the only way that the company said they could do anything else was with another $120 million. What was originally around a $30 million contract ended up costing $120 million – to go back to square one. Let us say we modernise to become Windows 11 and you ended up back on DOS for $120 million. It just makes me cringe. It is $120 million we could have been spending elsewhere.

I do not have any confidence that this government can deliver an IT program for this by the regulated date of 2029, and if they do manage to, we will guarantee, you can mark my word, it is going to be five to ten times whatever they are estimating at the moment. Then they will go, ‘Oh, we’re upping the fees for security licences in Victoria, we’re upping the fees for training and we’re upping the fees for organisations. We’re going to tax you more, we’re going to take all that tax in and we’re not making any money off it. It’s not a profit organisation; it’s actually just to cover the cost.’ But if we went out and got the industry to do it then they could probably, for a third of the price or a 10th of the price, come up with something that is really worthwhile and works, which the government could then effectively just use from there. I think we need to look at the private sector and engage them better for what they are going to do with the ICT systems and the IT systems here in Victoria and then get the police involved after. At the moment we have no faith that the government can deliver an ICT system on time, on budget, and there is every chance that we are back in this chamber to extend the clause and the dates on this because of the fact that they will not have it ready at the time that they have promised.

The new fee structure, as I have said, is another issue not just because of the fact that we do not trust them with the delivering of the system but because they do not have in place at the moment how much it is going to cost, and the new fee structure for companies and individuals is not known. According to the explanatory memorandum:

The Regulations will need to be substantially re-drafted or re-made, requiring detailed analysis through a Regulatory Impact Statement to ascertain what fees are required on a cost recovery model … It will take time to accurately assess what proportion of their time, on average, is spent on each private security licensing task before fees can be managed.

I do not want to be a sceptic, but I just do not trust this government when it comes to money. We are racking up a massive debt here in our state, as we know. We believe from the Parliamentary Budget Office it is going to be reaching out to $247 billion, I think it was from memory. It just rolls off the tongue: a quarter of a trillion dollars. The government will be finding any way possible to recoup those costs. We have already seen it. We are seeing it right now. There is not a person in this house – if you have not had this call from someone in your electorate, you are not a member of Parliament. Someone in your electorate has contacted you and said, ‘My land tax bill is horrendous. It has gone up by three, five, ten times.’ Everyone must be getting it, and when they are getting that, they must understand the cost impact of that. The government is saying it is on the wealthy. They love saying that – ‘It’s on the wealthy.’ But when it goes onto a bill and you get a bill for $5000 for land tax, that means rent is going up by $100 every week. So who pays it? The renter. The impact is that those that can least afford it end up paying the most. Landlords in Victoria, whether industrial or residential, are already paying the highest taxes. Interest rates have gone up. They have already absorbed a lot of cost, and now this government wants them to get it out of debt.

That will transfer over to places like this. That is why these pieces of legislation are coming in, partly. They know saying ‘Trust us, we’ll do our fees to make sure we can put good governance in place and have a no-cost return’ is absolutely and utterly misleading Victoria. They will, I assure you, put in place fees that go back into general revenue, and that general revenue will if this government remains either be wasted on the project blowouts we already know they do across this state or be funnelled away to make their budget bottom line look better as they approach the next election. That is what it is all about for them when it comes to that. It is about putting those funds in the right spot to suit the Labor Party, not suit Victorians.

We need to make sure that we are doing these changes, which as I said as a whole we are supporting. I think I have put enough on record our support for the things that we do see to be changed. We do support the fact that these will put protections in place for staff. As I have said before, I think one of the highlights of this is the opportunity to make sure the training and education for security guards across Victoria is improved to give them the confidence, hopefully, to stand up against some of these rogue dealers who are the bigger organisations and even some of the smaller organisations out there.

In that contribution, as I said, we will not be opposing this bill, but we have raised some concerns. I assure you that we will be back here either to change the date or to have an argument about where that money is going in the future. We want to make sure that it is there to protect our security guards, to protect Victorians with security who are on the street, to improve education and not to pay off a wasteful debt from this government.

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (11:10): I am very pleased to rise to speak on this bill, and the bill is the product of a 2018 pre-election commitment to review and overhaul the private security industry ‍– with good reason, I should say. Already today it has been discussed, the issue of sham contracting – I will go into that in a little further detail shortly – and the exploitation of workers. We know that the private security industry does help to support community safety and certainly has an important role in our community, but we need those workers to know that their rights will be protected and that we are looking out for them, and that is exactly why we are delivering these reforms here today on the back of the final report Review of the Private Security Industry in Victoria back in 2021. I should say the final report was subject to public consultation via discussion paper during a six-week period and provided 21 recommendations, all of which were accepted by the government. In terms of implementation, work has been underway since the final report was released to fulfil these recommendations, and around half are addressed by this bill. Importantly, and I will go further on that point, the other half did not require legislative amendment and have been implemented or are being implemented in an ongoing way through communication and education. I do want to emphasise that element. I note that Victoria Police and the Police Association Victoria do support this bill. That is very important as well.

Coming back to that issue of education, Victoria Police now sends out a fact sheet with every licence about workers rights and obligations, including where to find out what they should be paid and what their entitlements to leave, superannuation and other matters are. An underlying premise of these reforms is to elevate the professionalism of the industry as a whole but also to ensure that the workers who are providing this support for community safety can know and take pride in the work that they are doing because it will – and that is certainly an underlying premise here – furthermore elevate the way they are perceived in the community as well. By streamlining the licensing system and ensuring appropriate controls around the industry, certainly it is a goal to ensure that these workers get the respect and the conditions they deserve. There is also a further element to do with the Drug Court division within the County Court of Victoria to continue operating for two more years to help address offenders and drug and alcohol dependency. I will speak to that further in a moment, as well noting that it is another significant element of the reforms being put forward through this bill.

In terms of sham contracting, what we were seeing or have been seeing to date is would-be employers asking licence-holders to obtain an ABN so they can be classified as independent contractors rather than taking them on as employees. By doing this, dodgy employers have been able to skirt around the requirements of a genuine agreement. They do not have to pay an award wage, provide for superannuation or WorkCover insurance, and they do not have to provide for leave. I do not have to explain further the rather serious ramifications that have unfolded as a result. Whilst sham contracting is unlawful under Commonwealth and state industrial relations laws, the problem persists in some parts of the industry. That is why the bill will demand that any person listed as an independent contractor must also hold a private security business licence. The requirements will be prohibitively difficult unless a person genuinely runs a business and will create a vital barrier against employers forcing workers to enter into these unfair arrangements.

These reforms will protect workers, increase transparency and ensure providers and contractors are being held accountable, because we know that the nature of these roles is difficult, inherently difficult. You are dealing with sensitive circumstances, on the one hand protecting human beings and also having to – and I say this very broadly – de-escalate circumstances which can pose a significant level of risk, hence the impetus to ensure that this industry has a good licensing system in place and the education elements that are necessary.

On that note, there will be a new code of conduct with enforceable disciplinary action. This will benefit not only the community but workers, providing clear, consistent professional standards and positively impacting – and I think this is really important as well when we are talking about how these workers are perceived – public perception of security workers. This will be developed by the Chief Commissioner of Police in close consultation with industry stakeholders. So here you can see inherent the goal of elevating the professionalism of the security industry.

Furthermore – and I think this is also a really important element – frontline workers will now be required to take refresher training prior to licence renewal, which occurs every three years, in skills, as has been mentioned in the chamber, such as first aid, safe physical restraint practices and verbal de-escalation tactics, which are critical for workers in these high-risk roles such as crowd control and static guarding. Compulsory refresher training will improve the safety of workers and the public, updating workers on developments in the application of skills and ensuring more effective interactions on the job.

I just want to note that obviously streamlining this licensing system is a large undertaking and one we absolutely must get right, and that is why we have ensured this bill has a substantial lead time before the provisions commence operation. Why – they will ensure we are being fair to those who will need to transition from a registration to a licence, giving them the time to pay the new fees and get ready for the new system, including any necessary top-up training.

In the time I have left I do just want to also touch on the extension of the pilot of the County Court Drug Court. The Drug Court model seeks to address the underlying causes of offending by providing intensive drug treatment services to offenders, and what I think is most important when we are in this context obviously of curbing recidivism and the like or when it comes to people going to jail, being incarcerated essentially for a drug addiction that is not under control and not being appropriately supported, is that addressing these underlying causes enhances the wellbeing and community connectedness of participants by improving their relationships, housing stability and life skills and reducing reoffending. Surely in the very progressive state of Victoria this would have to be in line with our core values in terms of driving better outcomes not only for the community but also for the person in question who has an addiction which is obviously severely impacting their life and life choices, as the case may be.

I should say that extending the pilot of the County Court Drug Court will preserve the benefits that have been derived from the Drug Court’s operation for as many eligible people as possible. These benefits include reduced reoffending rates and reduced substance use. I am sure all those in the chamber and broader community can see the wisdom in driving those kinds of outcomes for our community. It will also ensure that the lessons learned from evaluations of Victoria’s Drug Courts can be implemented to enhance the operation of the Drug Courts themselves.

A 2014 evaluation of Drug Courts is available on the Magistrates’ Court website, and other evaluations have been commissioned by Court Services Victoria. It is really important, obviously, that we are monitoring the benefits. I mean, that is the purpose of a pilot to a certain extent of course, trialling different ways of managing significant issues in communities such as drug addiction in a more progressive and productive way in terms of driving much better outcomes and reducing reoffending, so it makes good sense to implement these reforms as part of this bill. On that note I commend the bill to the house.

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (11:20): I rise to make a contribution on the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024. As we have heard, this bill provides a new licensing system for the private security industry and extends the operation of the Drug Court division of the County Court, which has presently been under a trial for three years.

While we are not opposing this bill, there are concerns in reading the second-reading speech that we have yet another bill coming before Parliament that does not provide the level of detail that we should have as members of Parliament voting on legislation before us. Again we have got what is primarily an overarching framework, and on face value it looks fine; that is why we are not opposing the bill. But there is a lot of detail here to be sorted out down the track under regulation, and unfortunately we are seeing a lot of these bills coming before Parliament where we have the overarching idea but we do not have that level of detail that we need to vote. I note that the previous speaker mentioned that one of the reasons for that is the government is providing a big lead time for those who want to switch over or need to switch over to this new licensing of our security systems. Those time frames can be built into the legislation. They can be part of the bill. That is not a reason for not providing the level of detail up-front that we should have. I just want to put that point on the record. When we have legislation that comes into this place, let us have all the detail with it. Build time frames into the legislation if we need them, but as members of Parliament on either side, we should be fully understanding the detail that is going to sit under this broader legislation.

In relation to private security, the changes include strengthening the requirements of private security companies when employing staff to ensure they are properly licensed, and companies will now be obligated to provide full details to the customer of all staff consigned to a job. There will be harsher penalties. We need to see the detail on this around noncompliance or assigning unlicensed staff to jobs. Perhaps we might have had a better outcome on the hotel quarantine saga if we had had this system in place back then. We would not have seen the problems that occurred there if we had had this level of oversight in place. I mean, that was a staggering decision when we had the defence services available and putting up their hand to do that job, and we saw the outcome of that.

The security industry indeed is becoming more important, and the hotel quarantine saga is probably one of those examples, but I think when we see the level of what is going on in our communities and societies, with particular crimes showing a significant increase in occurrence, people are relying on the security industry more and more these days, certainly far more than we were a decade or two decades ago. So I guess the goal of this bill to provide a greater level of oversight and strengthen up those requirements is something that we certainly do not oppose.

In relation to the courts, the bill extends by two years the current three-year trial to the operation of the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court. This will make it a five-year pilot. We are not opposed to this, and I am sure the member for Malvern will have more to say on that when he takes to his feet. But what would be good – while we do not oppose the extension, what I would have liked to see in this bill, or the second-reading speech would be more suitable – is an update on how the trial is progressing and the detail of where we are at and what it is shaping up to and looking like. That would have been great detail. Then we would have the basis for seeking the additional extension to the trial.

As stated, the issues that we have with this bill are the time lines and the lack of detail. The shadow minister mentioned in his lead speech that these changes might be up to two years away. It was even conceded by the previous speaker from the other side that there has been a big time lag in introducing this bill.

Victoria Police, the regulator for private security and firearms licences, have even raised a few concerns. They have said that they are working with an outdated database that the parent company will no longer support beyond 2029. The shadow minister advised us that during the bill briefing on this the department said that Victoria Police have not yet determined the full scope and the cost required to make the database fit for purpose. Gee whiz – that is a bit of work to be done. That is an issue that really does need to be sorted. The comment was made that they remain confident in delivering this by June 2025. But, taking nothing away from those people who will be doing that job, the time lines that we have seen from this government and its meeting of deadlines have been quite appalling in a whole range of areas. I cite the bushfire recovery in my patch. It is three years overdue, and we have got projects not even started yet. Admittedly that is not an IT upgrade, but nevertheless it is a deadline. And this government has a horrible, horrible record in meeting deadlines and meeting budgets. I hope we will not be back in the chamber in 2025 debating this because the government needs more time to be ready.

It also would have been good to have the new fee structure included in this bill or at least in the second-reading speech so that we know what we are dealing with. While we support the overall direction of where this bill wants to go and where it wants to take us, the lack of detail just leaves so many unanswered questions. One of those questions, which I think might have been raised by the lead speaker on our side, is whether these changes are going to be for not only private security companies in licensing themselves. What will be the cost of licensing the staff and where will that fall to? Will there be cost recovery for the workers? Will the companies have to pay for that? We are assuming this is all going to be done by regulation in due course, but those sorts of things, that level of very specific detail rather than the overarching, broader commentary, is what we should have as MPs to be able to debate the detail in the chamber. But we do not have the level of detail in a whole range of areas in the chamber. As MPs we do deserve that. We need to have some level of oversight that is going to ensure ‍– and you do that through debate – that this amended legislation is going to work on the ground. We achieve that by debating the detail of it. If done right, this bill will deliver improved outcomes for the security sector, and that is why we support it in general principle, hence our not-opposed position. However, it is ‘not-opposed’ with a question mark – for those reasons. All the cards should be on the table, and we have too many unknowns.

Feeling vulnerable in our community is a horrible feeling. One of the previous speakers, I am not sure which one, spoke about how the feeling of vulnerability in the community is not great. A little while ago I was coming home from the footy – I had actually injured my ankle, so I got home early from a football match to find someone in my home ransacking it. As the adrenaline took over, I forgot my injury for a short amount of time and tried to chase this person down the street. They probably would have got away from me anyway, but that did not help. With young kids and a wife –

A member interjected.

Tim BULL: Yes, I certainly have slowed up a bit since then. The vulnerability that puts on your family when you have to explain to your wife and your young kids that you have had someone in your home – it is a very, very vulnerable feeling that you have.

Unfortunately, we are seeing more crimes of a certain nature occurring in our community, so security companies will continue to play an increasingly important role in making us feel safe and removing those feelings of vulnerability. That is why we support the general philosophy of where this bill is wanting to head, but in closing I would just make the point that we should be in here as MPs on either side scrutinising the detail of all legislation, not having overarching frameworks put in place and things to be sorted out by regulation down the track. I just make that point on this bill.

Anthony CIANFLONE (Pascoe Vale) (11:30): I too rise to support the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024, and in doing so I would like to commend the Minister for Police, his office and the department for bringing this bill to the house. I would particularly like to acknowledge the minister’s long-time chief of staff Kieran Barns-Jenkins for his years of service and effort to the Victorian government. He has recently announced he will be moving on to be a full-time dad.

All Victorians deserve to have the right to feel safe in their communities, and as a government and indeed as a Parliament we should be working every day towards helping make Victoria a safer place, including across my community of Pascoe Vale, Coburg and Brunswick West. Whilst we are all aware and appreciative of the tremendous role Victoria Police play in maintaining our community’s safety, it is also about a number of other factors, including the way in which our community members are kept safe in places where Victoria Police members just cannot physically be expected to be patrolling and monitoring around the clock, including at late-night entertainment or licensed venues, and the role of early intervention and diversionary programs in our criminal justice and court systems and how they can be leveraged to support crime prevention, offender rehabilitation and community safety outcomes for all.

Essentially this bill is about these two things: (1) it is about enhanced standards and conditions across the private security industry, which has a large presence in maintaining safety across thousands of locations, including pubs, clubs, venues and events across our state on a weekly and daily basis; and (2) the bill is about extending the operations of the County Court Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court, the DATC, which has been operating to promote recovery through rehabilitation of its participants and to protect communities from further substance-driven offending.

Turning first to the amendments in this bill relating to the security industry, almost 20 years ago to the day the Private Security Bill of 2004 was introduced to the Victorian Parliament by then minister for police Andre Haermeyer. The bill replaced the Private Agents Act of 1966 and was the first formal recognition in this jurisdiction of the importance of a robustly regulated private security industry. One of the main drivers of the establishment of the Private Security Act 2004 was the tragic death of cricketer, coach and broadcaster David Hookes during an altercation with a crowd controller outside a nightclub, in St Kilda, I believe. The tragedy brought to the fore the importance of seeking to ensure that those entering the private security industry are properly trained and vetted by police to engage in these important high-risk roles. While the crowd controller in that matter was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing, the events of that night highlighted the serious risks and potential consequences inherent in private security work and the need for better training and regulation.

Together with a decision from the Council of Australian Governments to require people applying for private security licences to undergo probity checks, the Private Security Act 2004 was a robust and progressive piece of legislation. Over the last 20 years we have seen a much better regulated industry emerge, together with vast improvements in matters such as infiltration of organised crime into the security industry, which has been a huge step forward. However, a great deal has changed over those 20 years, and the private security industry is no exception. Over time the industry has grown and diversified. This, along with social and technological developments, has required increasingly complex skills. Over that time issues have also emerged with the way some members of the industry are prioritising profit over fair pay and work conditions, leaving a highly casual, mobile and vulnerable workforce in its wake.

Key industry advocates have identified serious concerns about the rights of workers, the barriers to healthy business competition and the behaviour of some trainers and workers that brings down the reputation of the entire industry. That is not to say that there are not many highly skilled security guards operating in our jurisdiction who make a significant contribution to keeping our community safe. This bill is not aimed at those types of individuals that I have just been referring to. It is actually aimed at the employers who do not pay fair wages and do not afford workers genuine flexibility and access to legal entitlements such as superannuation, leave and insurance; it is aimed at those training organisations that do not deliver the required training and who sign off on untrained and wholly unprepared workers; and it is aimed at the workers who do not understand the importance of their role and do not have the skills needed to de-escalate and address emerging threats.

The reforms contained in this bill are informed by the recommendations of the Victorian government’s Review of the Private Security Industry, which was released in December 2021 and conducted by the Department of Justice and Community Safety. By way of context, the review identified that the number of licence and registration holders in Victoria across the industry is significant. As of December 2020 there were a total of 32,700 private individual licences and 815 private security business licences across the state. There were also a further 3745 applications for private security, and the licensing and regulation division of Victoria Police, the LRD, cancelled 72 licences and suspended 67. The review received 52 submissions from a wide range of stakeholders – namely, workers and businesses, followed by peak bodies, unions and others involved in the industry. The review identified that one of the key purposes of the act is to regulate the private security industry for the purposes of ensuring public safety and peace. This purpose carries weighty responsibility and envisages high standards of professionalism across the sector. I refer the chamber to page 8 of the review, which found:

… there are many private security employers and employees who are well-trained, experienced and contribute to positive public safety outcomes by conducting themselves with professionalism, integrity and skill. However, there are also those who do not fully understand their role, the importance of their role, or the risks that the role entails.

It is this sector at whom the recommendations are aimed. Some of the key examples highlighted during the review that these recommendations go to include, for example, that in 2011 a man died after having a heart attack while he was being held and restrained by security guards in a prone position on the floor at Crown Casino – he suffered from positional asphyxia. Some industry workers have suffered detrimental impacts to their health and wellbeing as a result of workplace incidents, such as physical and verbal abuse. Workers have reportedly been afraid to speak up in many instances about unsafe working environments – for example, where alcohol is served without regard to responsible service of alcohol laws and where crowd controllers are left to deal with the consequences of the aggressive behaviour of patrons. There was an account of a control centre operator at a Victorian university, for example, who used security cameras for improper purposes, such as seeking out views of female students in university residences. Crowd controllers have been observed taking no action to try to verbally de-escalate potentially violent situations, stepping in only when physical violence erupts, despite clearly being aware of the building risk. Numerous examples were conveyed in the report of unsafe working environments and very bad outcomes around enterprise bargaining agreements not being adequately supported and enforced. Of course the report was subsequently superseded by the COVID-19 hotel inquiry final report, which did note the impact of the casualised nature of the industry and opportunities for ongoing reform, which are reflected to a large degree in the reforms contained in this bill. Ultimately the report put forward 21 recommendations, and this bill addresses 11 of those recommendations, which require legislative amendment.

In this respect the bill makes the following three amendments: (1) it replaces the current two-tier system, which requires most sectors of the industry to obtain a licence and others to obtain registration with a single-tier licensing system; (2) it introduces enforceable requirements for transparency and accountability when subcontracting security services; and (3) it requires workers in high-risk roles, such as crowd controllers, to undertake refresher training prior to licence renewals.

Of course the state government is one of the largest procurers of security services in the state, so this bill will help provide for better standards across the industry and subsequently the services through which security services have a presence on Victorian precincts and faculties. Some of those include at our major events precincts. The sector is so important. It contributes around $3.3 billion to the state’s economy, providing over 15,500 full-time jobs. In many ways it is the standard of our security services at those precincts that plays such an important role to maintain the vibrancy of those events. Again, having that vibrancy protected and secured is critical for economic and employment outcomes. The grand prix, for example, last year delivered a $268 million economic charge to our economy and supported over 1100 jobs.

Paul Edbrooke: How much?

Anthony CIANFLONE: $268 million. The Australian Open in 2023 generated $387 million, member for Frankston, and supported over 1700 jobs.

I would now like to turn briefly, with the time I have, towards the amendments on the County Court Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court, the DATC. In relation to drug court amendments, drug courts are specialised courts that provide a therapeutic approach to addressing the complex needs of offenders with drug and alcohol dependency. Traditional sentencing options can fail to adequately address the needs of drug offenders, and by contrast a drug court model seeks to address the underlying causes of offending by providing intensive drug treatment services to offenders. Addressing these underlying causes will ultimately enhance the wellbeing and community connectedness of participants by improving their relationship to housing stability and life skills and reducing reoffending. The County Court drug diversion program was established here for a three-year pilot in 2021, and this bill seeks to extend the operation of the Drug Court division for a further two years.

I would just like to highlight some of the outcomes thus far that are contained in the annual report of the County Court. These include having been funded to deliver and support 70 participants. The DATC in 2022–23 received 57 referrals and imposed 42 drug and alcohol treatment orders; in June 2023 there were 65 total active clients and the DATC is actually building a waiting list, such is the growing demand on capacity. Of the referrals, 93 per cent are for males and 7 per cent are for women; 87 per cent of referrals are for non-Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and 4 per cent are for First Nations people; and many partnerships have been developed, including with St Vincent’s Hospital, with Centrelink, with Narcotics Anonymous and with employment and vocational pathways.

Michael O’BRIEN (Malvern) (11:40): I rise to speak on the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024. I could do 10 minutes about private security guards and rehash the issues of COVID-19, but I will leave that for others. As Shadow Attorney-General, I will instead focus on those aspects of the bill relating to the County Court Act 1958 and the Sentencing Act 1991, which effectively provide for an extension of the trial of the County Court Drug Court. This has been operating for three years. Practitioner feedback that I have received would indicate that it has been somewhat successful – not without concerns but somewhat successful. I refer to the minister’s second-reading speech, where he said in relation to this bill:

It will also ensure that the lessons learned from recent evaluations of Victoria’s Drug Courts can be implemented to enhance the operation of the Drug Court.

Well, that obviously put me on notice as to what those recent evaluations of Victoria’s Drug Courts were, so the request was made through the bill briefing to obtain a copy of those recent evaluations so that this side of the house might be better informed, given that the purpose of the bill is to extend the trial of the Drug Courts to let the recommendations coming out of those evaluations take effect. All I was provided with was an evaluation from 2014. Now, even in the Orwellian world of the Allan Labor government I think it would be a little bit of a stretch for any member opposite to say that a 2014 evaluation, one from a decade ago, counts as a recent evaluation of Victoria’s Drug Courts.

We have flagged we are not going to be opposing the bill, but we do say the government has an obligation to be up-front with the opposition and up-front with the people of Victoria. What is the point of referring to recent evaluations in the second-reading speech if the government is not prepared to come clean and actually share those evaluations? We all want to know. We have all got an investment in this. We have all got a stake in trying to make it work better. So if the government wants to extend the trial for two years, that is something we do not have an in-principle opposition to. That is why we are not going to oppose the bill on that point. But why the secrecy? What has the government got to hide? Why won’t the government share these recent evaluations? They are public enough that the minister can refer to them in the second-reading speech, but apparently they are too secretive for anybody else to see. It makes no sense, and we do not cop it.

This seems to be an example of just needless secrecy on the part of this government. I do not think there is anything earth shattering here. I suspect there are no national security issues involved in these recent evaluations, and if there are, then redact those parts. But for goodness sake, why can’t this government just be up-front for once with people and say, ‘Yep, these are the recent evaluations we referred to in the second-reading speech. Here they are. Here are the bits that are working. Here are the bits that aren’t working so well. Here are the changes we want to make over the next two years to see if we can make it work better.’ That is not unreasonable. It is good policy and it is good governance, but it seems to be beyond members opposite. So it is very disappointing. We went through the right process; we sought the recent evaluation, and I was sent something from 2014. What was the point? Why bother sending me rubbish like that?

One of the other questions I asked in the bill briefing was, ‘Well, why is this going to be a two-year extension of the trial? If it’s been positive, why not move to put it on a permanent footing?’ And I did not get an answer, at least not a substantive one. I suspect this comes down to money. I think it comes down to money and that the government just is not prepared to make the investment to allow all Victorians to access the Drug Courts.

Why is it important? Well, it is important for a practical reason, and that is that drug and alcohol treatment orders are things which can be very useful in certain circumstances to help tackle the root causes of people’s offending. There is a whole list of qualifying criteria and disqualifying criteria that apply for somebody to be able to access a drug and alcohol treatment order, but the feedback I have had from practitioners is that it can be a very effective way to deal with root causes of offending. So if part of the idea of the justice system is to provide for rehabilitation, then DATOs are quite useful in that regard. But at the moment not everybody in Victoria can access them because the trial only applies in certain postcodes. From a practical point of view, why should somebody in one postcode get access to this form of justice and the person in the postcode next door cannot? That does not seem to make much sense from a public policy point of view. But there is also a more principled issue, and that is equality before the law. If we are all Victorians and we are all entitled to the principle of equality before the law, why should a person in one postcode be eligible for a different form of punishment to a person in a different postcode? It is very hard to justify when you put it like that.

I am prepared to put before the house a really practical example of how that plays out, because I have in my hands the Victoria Government Gazette of 19 May 2021. It is a proclamation under the County Court Act 1958, and it is a notice of Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court postcode areas. It says:

I, Jaclyn Symes MP, Attorney General and Minister responsible for the County Court Act 1958, pursuant to section 4AAB(1)(b) of that Act, specify the following postcode areas as postcode areas in relation to the Melbourne venue of the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court of the County Court of Victoria …

So if you reside within these postcodes, you are eligible to participate in the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court of the County Court. If you do not, then you cannot.

I looked this up because I just wanted to check how this applied to my own electorate of Malvern. My electorate of Malvern spans the postcodes of 3142 through to 3146 inclusive. Here are the postcodes in my electorate which are eligible for participation in the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court: 3142, Hawksburn, Heyington, Toorak. Then it jumps to 3144, Malvern North; 3145, Malvern East; 3146, Gardiner, Glen Iris and Tooronga. There is a gap there: 3143. Why is it that the people who live in 3142, 3144, 3145 and 3146 can access the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court but people in Armadale, who live in postcode 3143, cannot? I would be genuinely interested as to what brilliant piece of public policy the government was thinking of when it decided to exclude one particular postcode in my electorate of Malvern from access to the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court. Was this just some sort of oversight? Did somebody have a bad meal in High Street one day and decide they were going to pay them back by excluding Armadale? For goodness sake.

Kathleen Matthews-Ward interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: Well, the member for Broadmeadows says it is a trial. If it is a trial, then wouldn’t you apply it to whole areas? Why would you say Toorak gets access but Armadale does not, Malvern gets access but Armadale does not, Glen Iris gets access but Armadale does not? It makes no sense, and it makes a mockery of the principle of equality before the law. It makes an absolute mockery of the principle that every Victorian should be equal before the law because of that absolute exclusion of 3143. I am sure if members opposite had the wit or the will to look up their own electorates, they would find that people in their electorates are missing out as well. Do members opposite really want to defend people in their own patches missing out on access to drug and alcohol treatment orders purely because of a postcode? But that is where we are at the moment.

As I say, it makes a mockery of the principle of equality before the law. If this government is serious about extending the Drug Court for another two years, why isn’t it also looking at expanding the operation of it across Victoria? I suspect it is simply a case of ‘They can’t afford to’. They do not want to spend the money. They can waste money on cancelling the Commonwealth Games, but they cannot spend money on the justice system and they will not spend money on ensuring that more Victorians get access to therapeutic forms of justice.

We do not oppose the bill, but this government has fallen short when it comes to dealing with Victorians who have got drug and alcohol issues, and everyone should have access to drug and alcohol treatment orders.

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (11:50): It gives me great pleasure to rise this morning in this place to contribute on the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024. Private security is crucial in our state of Victoria, and as was spoken about just previously by the member for Pascoe Vale, it is an incredibly important part of Victoria’s major events program. Victoria’s visitor economy contributes $31.5 billion to Victoria’s economy as a whole, driven significantly by our major events program, whether that be the Australian Open, the Melbourne grand prix or the AFL Grand Final, and private security plays such an important role in that; in fact without private security those events would not be possible. But more than contributing to what is a significant economic driver for this state, private security also helps to keep our communities safe.

I know for my constituents in Tarneit, Hoppers Crossing and Mount Cottrell community safety is something that is incredibly important. Whether that be private security keeping you safe at a local venue out there in the electorate of Tarneit or indeed private security keeping you safe when you travel into the city to attend one of our major events, it is incredibly important.

That is why it is so important that we, through this legislation, raise the industry’s professional standards. That is why it is so important we continue to regulate the private security industry, building on the Private Security Act passed by the then Bracks government in 2004. We will do this in many ways, which I will go through during my contribution. We will do it by using a simpler licensing system. We will also have a set of behaviour guidelines and have ongoing staff training to make sure that we have, as much as possible, a well-regulated industry full of staff that have gainful employment and that have the right training, because we know how important that is.

The legislation also ensures that employees get fair pay and benefits, that we do not have a system where everybody is employed under subcontractor arrangements and not getting paid properly and also that they are not employed under subcontractor arrangements where they do not get fair access to things like being covered by the Fair Work Act et cetera. It also protects the right to vacation time, which is incredibly important, and to superannuation to make sure that these workers in this incredibly important industry are employed under a set of arrangements which are fair. We are reforming licensing and adding key updates. These changes will give security professionals the resources they need to excel. They will also help the professionals to contribute to public safety, as I said.

Additionally, as the member for Malvern spoke about at length, this bill extends the Drug Court division in the County Court of Victoria, a trial that is currently being undertaken and one that has been incredibly successful to this point. It will run for another two years, helping to rehabilitate individuals with substance abuse problems. Through the Drug Court we tackle the root causes of crime, and we do this by offering extensive drug rehabilitation programs. These programs improve the lives of those offenders, and they also help the offenders connect to their community, build better relationships, find stable housing and improve their life skills. In the end the program reduces reoffending, which is exactly what we should be doing through our criminal justice system.

I spoke about the fact that this bill further builds on the Private Security Act 2004, which was passed by the then Bracks government. It was done so on the back of the tragic death of cricketer, coach and broadcaster David Hookes during an altercation with a crowd controller outside a nightclub in St Kilda. I was 14 at the time, but I vividly remember that incident. I vividly remember that tragedy, and the Bracks government at the time decided that this industry was too important to Victoria not to be regulated. Those reforms and that regulation at the time were incredibly important. The tragedy brought to the fore the importance of seeking to ensure that those people charged with the job to protect us, private security, are properly trained and vetted by police to engage in these important high-risk roles. While the crowd controller in that matter was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing, the events of the night highlighted the serious risks and potential consequences inherent in private security work and the need for better training and regulation. It was an incredibly important reform at the time.

As you know, from time to time we have to update these reforms as we go, and that is exactly what this bill seeks to do. Together at the time with a decision of the Council of Australian Governments to require people applying for private security licences to undergo probity checks, the Private Security Act 2004 was a robust and progressive piece of legislation. Over the past 20 years we have seen a much better and more highly regulated industry emerge together with a vast improvement in matters such as the infiltration of organised crime into the security industry, which has been a significant step forward. However, a great deal has changed over those 20 years, as I said, and the private security industry is no exception. Over time the industry has significantly grown, and it has diversified as well. This, along with social and technological developments, has required increasingly complex skills.

Over that time, issues have emerged with the way some members of the industry are prioritising profit over fair pay and work conditions, leaving a highly casual, mobile and vulnerable workforce in its wake. As we all know, whether it is in the private security industry or any other industry, insecure work causes significant issues. Insecure work and a race to the bottom are not the way that we like to do anything in this state, but it can cause significant issues as well. It can lead to a workforce that is not adequately trained, and within private security that can lead to all sorts of issues and even disasters.

Key industry advocates have identified serious concerns about the rights of workers, the barriers to healthy business competition and the behaviour of some trainers and workers that brings down the reputation of the entire industry. As I said, the progressive reforms brought in by the Bracks government at the time on the back of what was an absolute tragedy in the death of David Hookes, with the Private Security Act 2004, were absolutely fantastic. It was an industry that needed to be regulated at the time, and that is exactly what we did. Unfortunately, what we have seen in recent times is employers and contractors creating a really insecure workforce, which is never good for anyone. These reforms will go to fixing that, and I commend them to the house.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (12:00): Acting Speaker Farnham, it is lovely to see you in the chair. I rise to make a contribution on the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024, and this bill has two key components. One is about the Private Security Act 2004, and the other is amendments to the County Court Act 1958 and the Sentencing Act 1991. I am going to start my comments with regard to the private security industry. It was about 20 years ago that it was decided through different incidents that had happened that we needed to have greater regulation and scrutiny of the private security industry. It needed some tightening around the training and the regulations, so the new act was introduced at that time. Things continued to change. As years progressed we had different incidents, changes in technology, growth in population and a number of things that meant the act needed to be looked at again and improved on.

In 2018 the Premier announced a review of the private security industry, and it was in October of that year. There were a couple of issues that the Premier talked about wanting to tackle: the raising of the industry standards, improving the safety of employees and community – and I think everybody would think it is very reasonable that you do improve the safety of employees and community through this; making sure that workers are paid fairly and properly; and having a look at the current licensing and regulatory framework of that act and the regulations. The regulations are something that we do not really get to have a good look at through this place. Hopefully, these reforms really will make a difference. It is important to look at whether or not there are prerequisites to participation in the industry and then how this is all monitored and enforced, and also tied in here are the employment practices.

In late 2021, several years later, the report got handed down. There were 21 recommendations, and 11 required legislative change, which is what we are doing here at the moment. One of the things that does bother me and continues to bother me about this government and the way that they manage things is that a lot of the detail is in the regulation. Do we get to see the regulation? No, we do not. I just in my heart of hearts cannot trust a government that says, ‘Trust us. We’re the government. We know what we’re doing.’ That is really difficult to do. They have had so many stuff-ups and failures over the time that it is very hard to trust them with this, so I am disappointed that we do not get to see that level of detail around the regulations and we actually must vote on that before we get to see these things. That is something that does concern me.

The main provisions that we have before us now for the amendments are to provide a new licensing system for the private security industry in relation to applications for and renewal of licences. There are provisions in relation to complaints about the conduct of a holder of a private security licence. We can imagine how that might happen. There are complaints that happen in a particular area, and it comes back to the security licence holder. There is a provision for offences in relation to subcontracting and a provision for a code of conduct for holders of security licences – and I think it is particularly important that we know what the code of conduct is and we know the expectations. The requirement for a risk management plan to be prepared before a security activity is carried out I think is pretty important. I have certainly been involved in a number of different briefings on security and understand the different types of risks that are before us, particularly terrorism related but also other elements, where we have had people driving their cars, for example, up footpaths and things like that or in areas that they should not, which is really dangerous for participants. If you have got a large event where there are a lot of participants and you need to be able to protect them, that plan needs to be in place. And there is reference to the appointment of a special counsel under part 7 of the act.

We see private security guards in many places. We have PSOs here, but we go around the traps. You are sometimes going to a private party. Sometimes it might be a nightclub or a hospital even. It really saddens me that we need to have private security in hospitals, but we have had a number of dreadful incidents that we know of – and I know there are a lot of incidents that we do not know of – where the security guards, because of the training that has taken place, know what to do and how to defuse a situation. We have instances in emergency departments where people are there and they are drug-affected or alcohol-affected. People are carrying weapons much more: knives, machetes or even guns. These are things that the private security guards need to be mindful of in how to defuse situations, because we have had some situations that have been pretty horrendous and scary.

Like in most things, most people do the right thing, most employers do the right thing and most workers do the right thing. But we get those that do not, and I think if this can provide some greater rigour around that, that is not necessarily a bad thing. As I said, there are things that we are concerned about. One of the things, as I mentioned, was not seeing the regulations. This also relies on a new database, and the government’s track record on IT system upgrades and databases is appalling – they are never on time, they are never on budget. Have a look at Myki and how that has been a debacle. There are a lot of issues. We are not opposing this bill, but there are certainly issues.

I want to touch on the other amendments with regard to the County Court and the extension of the trial that is underway of the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Court from three years to five years. I have been at a bit of a loss to understand why it is being extended from three years to five years, because you would think in three years you would have a fairly good understanding whether a trial is working or not, and to extend it for two more years – there were no answers at the bill briefing. I note in the second-reading speech right at the very end the minister says:

It will also ensure that the lessons learned from recent evaluations of Victoria’s Drug Courts can be implemented to enhance the operation of the Drug Court.

Again, we do not know what is in those evaluations. The Shadow Attorney-General has been very keen to try and find out and understand why those evaluations are not public. If there are good things in them, great. Let us make sure that it does get rolled up into the final product, not just having a trial. This trial is postcode-based, so only some people have access to the drug and alcohol treatment orders, not all of them, and these are part of the qualifiers there.

Practitioners in the field think that the drug and alcohol treatment orders have value to the individual and to their rehabilitation prospects. It was not so long ago that I was speaking to a psychiatrist who is at the Alfred Hospital working in this area. I talked to him about the types of issues that they see, and it was said that with all of the typical psychiatric illnesses that you know – paranoia, schizophrenia, psychosis et cetera – the people that end up in the hospital units are those with substance abuse, with drug and alcohol use, overlaying their mental illness. That is a pretty awful combination, and I think for anyone who has a mental illness and then becomes drug-affected, if they have access to a drug and alcohol treatment order as part of the court outcome, that is a good thing, because we really do need to treat this. But at the moment it is limited to certain postcodes, not all postcodes. I have not actually checked to see how many postcodes in my electorate are subject to that, but I am actually keen to go away and do that.

I am still at a loss to understand why the government would extend a three-year trial, which is a pretty lengthy trial period, for another two years. If it is going well, make it happen. The reason I think it is probably not happening is that story we all know – that this government is broke, absolutely dead broke. The debt is escalating. Spending is escalating. They have not got a plan to get in control – they do not know how to get in control of this spending. When you have got good programs that could possibly work, they need to be embedded properly rather than just floating along as a trial. I would like to see these things, if they are working, become permanent – not a trial.

Steve McGHIE (Melton) (12:10): Today I rise to contribute to the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024. I am pleased that the opposition is not opposing this bill. I would pick up on something that was raised by the member for Malvern. He raised the issue that the government is not up-front with Victorians. I have to remind the member for Malvern that we went to three elections – 2014, 2018 and 2022 – and, guess what, we got elected and re-elected for three terms. So I think the proof of being up-front with Victorians is in the pudding with three outcomes. The other thing is we had a greater majority in all three of them, so thanks for that. I just remind the member for Malvern of that.

There is a lot in this bill. I do not want to go over some of the things that have already been raised by previous speakers, so I will just touch on the focus largely around subcontracting and the improvements that this bill is making in that area. Subcontracting plays obviously a crucial role in the private security industry, allowing it to effectively manage surge demands. We have seen that at many different events and issues private contractors and security contractors have been utilised. As I say, during major events we need that surge capacity. Again, with major events, the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events and his team have provided fantastic events for us in this state, even though some people thought the sky was going to fall in after the pandemic. Of course that was not proven to be right either – we have seen people flock to this state. Again, the private security firms were involved only this week with the ASEAN conference being here in Melbourne. I send my thanks out to the private security workers, who do a hard job and a very good job under sometimes trying circumstances and very much under pressure at times.

This bill allows for proper oversight. People hiring security services have no insight into who is performing the work or whether subcontracting has occurred at all. This lack of transparency can lead to providers prioritising profit over quality. That results in the hiring of underqualified workers, sometimes at very low wages and without adequate vetting of their qualifications or experience, which unfortunately we have seen around the country. It is clear that sometimes there is exploitation of some of these workers and the lowering of some of the standards. That is something that we want to improve. Many, many of these private security workers are very professional in their job, but there are some that are put under enormous pressure by some very ordinary companies. I am not suggesting that about all of them, but there are some poor operators in this particular part of the industry. Of course any absence of proper vetting and oversight in subcontracting arrangements can lead to accountability gaps when the inevitable issues arise.

Many of these workers are casually employed. In a lot of cases they are too scared to raise issues about working conditions and health and safety in fear of losing some hours of work, hence that is how some of these operators get away with what they get away with. So this bill provides more stringent and stronger measures to avoid these sorts of circumstances. Certainly it mandates written agreements between clients and head contractors before any subcontracting arrangements are finalised. Additionally, it requires the provision of licence details for all workers involved, ensuring transparency and accountability across the whole process. The provisions aim to safeguard against exploitation, as I raised earlier, ensuring that industry standards are upheld and of course that we enhance accountability in the private security sector.

As we heard earlier, the Private Security Act 2004 stemmed from the tragic death of cricketer, coach and broadcaster David Hookes during an altercation with a crowd controller outside a pub down at St Kilda; I think it was the Beaconsfield Hotel. I know it well. I do remember that circumstance where Hooksie unfortunately was punched and fell to the ground, striking his head and rendering him unconscious. Subsequently, he was resuscitated by paramedics and taken to the Alfred hospital. I am not sure how old he was at the time – not 21; he was older than that. But unfortunately a few days later the life support was turned off and he passed away. I will say about David Hookes that he was a rare talent. At 21 he made an impressive debut in cricket. In particular for South Australian cricket, he made many, many centuries in state cricket, Shield cricket. He probably put Tony Greig on the map by smashing him all over the MCG. It is a shame to see someone with so much talent have his life end in the way that it did. To think that it was 20 years ago. As I say, his head hit the ground, he was revived and taken to the Alfred hospital and unfortunately the family had to decide to turn the life support off.

One other positive thing that came out of that – it is not only this bill – is that he was an organ donor and he donated 10 of his organs to recipients. All 10 of those people are probably still alive today because of what he did. I am an organ donor, and I am sure there are many, many others in this chamber that are organ donors. I would encourage people to get on the organ donation site and sign up, because it just goes to show how out of one tragedy in David Hookes being killed, 10 people survived. Without his death, even though it was unfortunate, probably those 10 people would have died. So I do encourage people to become organ donors.

While I am talking about cricket, I have just got to give a shout-out to the mighty St Anthony’s Saints cricket club, who play their grand final this Saturday. Of course they are one of our little junior clubs out at Melton, and they are playing against Aintree. I do not think the member for Kororoit is here at the moment. Then of course the Jensen Firsts are against Woodend at Macedon in the club south competition. So in the next sitting week, depending on who –

Members interjecting.

Steve McGHIE: That is all right, I’m coming back, don’t worry. Depending on who wins that, I might have to avoid the member for Kororoit and the member for Macedon when I come back, depending on who wins the grand final this weekend.

Again, this bill stems out of that tragic incident 20 years ago, the Hooksie incident, and this bill is about making sure we are tightening up the parameters and making sure that our security industry is accountable and is of an appropriate professional standard. These security workers should be trained to an appropriate level to defuse situations, avoid some situations and in some cases not provoke some situations. That is probably one of the key issues with some of the security officers that are involved in the private industry. I will come back to the fact that there are some very highly skilled security personnel operating within our jurisdiction who do the best that they possibly can under trying circumstances. It has already been referred to here that in situations like in hospitals or in private places ‍– again I refer to ASEAN – they may have to deal with issues of drugs, alcohol and substance abuse, as in people being quite erratic under the effects of multiple substances, and it can be quite difficult for them at times.

I do appreciate the work that they do. In the technical side of the industry there is a lot of work that employers have to do in regard to bringing the standards up in the industry. Again, this bill and the outcome of this bill will assist with that. I have known many private security guards because the union that I was involved in covered them, and I know the difficulty that they have had over many years in regard to lifting the standards of their working conditions. That is important, because we want to attract the right people to the industry. They need to be paid well also. This is an important bill, and I commend it to the house.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (12:20): Acting Speaker Farnham, how lovely it is to see you in the chair this afternoon as I deliver my contribution to this debate on the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024. I have been listening, since the member for Berwick opened this debate, to those speaking about security guards. It is actually something I have got some intimate knowledge of, possibly like you, Acting Speaker – private security guards, who have perhaps not only escorted me from a venue every now and then but maybe asked me politely to vacate a venue.

Actually, while I speak on that, it reminds me that I should pay my respects to one of those bouncers, who later became a friend, Gary ‘Barrel’ Lowe, who was actually a part-owner of a nightclub where I grew up but also a bouncer and may or may not have asked me to leave the venue a couple of times. He passed away really suddenly in January, which was quite a shock. He was also a school friend of my mum. So vale, Gary Lowe.

I have worked with security guards at different organisations many, many years ago – many decades ago perhaps. I would help out the private security guards at the grand prix, actually, here in Albert Park with catering and all sorts of things. I have always got a story to tell about every topic, I know.

There are some very highly skilled, very good people working in the industry. However, this bill for an act to amend the Private Security Act 2004 to provide for a new licensing system for the private security industry is well overdue, I would suggest. There are a few issues that we can talk about, like those security guards. I have to stop myself from saying ‘bouncers’, because back in my day they were bouncers. In fact I have been a – I will not use that term – I will say, security guard, on the odd occasion back in the day at private venues, not an official one. Again, I have intimate knowledge of the subject. But there are some issues. As I said, there are some very highly skilled people that work in this sector ‍– like, for example, at sporting venues, the grand prix, licensed venues and the cricket. Obviously they need to be highly skilled at times to be able to chase after those who may enter the pitch. But there have been, as we well know – and it has been spoken about in this place as well – some issues surrounding the industry.

I suppose the workforce is characterised by the highly casualised, relatively low paid and transient nature of the industry. Back in my day – and I know this ages me a lot – you had to actually go and attend a course. The course then I think was for two days and for about 4 hours each, and at the end of that you got your licence – probably not ideal for some of the situations for private security guards. But now on-the-job training seldom occurs. Sometimes you could walk in and become a security guard first and then the venue or the pub would train you, but now with most employers, because of the highly casualised nature of it, the low pay and the subcontractors, all of that, it is usually: ‘Go and do the training yourself’ – and most employers are not willing to invest in their staff. It is a real shame, because it is a massive industry with – I saw some notes here before – 11,000 security businesses in Australia; that is a lot of security businesses. And there are 147,000 individual licence-holders. It is a big, big industry. An overhaul to the industry is well overdue. Obviously – and this has been spoken about as well, the COVID quarantine debacle that was – the COVID-19 hotel quarantine inquiry final report noted, as I said, that casualised nature of the industry and the associated lack of job security, appropriate training and knowledge in safety and workplace rights and responsibilities too.

I was listening very carefully to the member for Berwick talk about how sometimes there is a lack of knowledge as to what the responsibilities are for a security guard. We all would have seen footage of the Michael Hill burglary that happened in a shopping centre a few weeks ago. You can see the security guard standing back. It is interesting to learn that it is not their job to jump in front of armed bandits, I suppose. But having that knowledge of what the responsibilities are, what your rights are, is really, really important.

On the industry and the associated lack of knowledge sometimes and appropriate training, the inquiry concluded that the overwhelming majority of security guards who worked in the hotel quarantine program did so honestly and with goodwill. But the inquiry heard a number of complaints about the behaviour of guards. I think one of the quotes that was made was some of them were ‘overly friendly’ ‍– I mean, that could be subjective perhaps – and there was bullying and consuming of alcohol while working.

Again, this leads me to another story. Back in my day, when I was working at a pub, on the odd occasion we would get called in to help security, particularly if it was females causing issues. I know you are very surprised by this, Acting Speaker Farnham, but sometimes females can cause some issues in nightclubs. I have just completely lost my train of thought.

Members interjecting.

Jade BENHAM: I know. Clearly everyone is really involved. That is where I was going. Back in my day when I used to actually DJ and help out the security guards –

Members interjecting.

Jade BENHAM: Not really DJ’ing; it was more like spinning the wheels of steel rather than using actual records – and nowhere near as good as DJ Southey, I can assure you. And I have not got moves like that either, so do not even ask.

Members interjecting.

Jade BENHAM: No, different venue. I would have actually really needed security if I had played Taylor Swift in those days. Back in those days it was one of those venues. It started a similar colour to this but was quite sticky, because it was the 1990s. It was sticky and it had a pungent odour – I digress. There were a number of occasions when, getting back to the highly skilled, very capable people working in the security industry, I did have to call on the actual security guards in the venue to actually come and help me out a little bit while I was behind the decks spinning the wheels of steel – that is twice now I have got that in. Again, it is an industry I have knowledge of and I have the utmost respect for because we do need them, both the private security and the technical security.

It has been an absolute pleasure to contribute to this debate whilst you have been sitting in the chair, Acting Speaker Farnham. It really has. As has been said by every member on this side, we are not opposing this bill. Yes, there are a few issues, a few concerns around it, but it is well and truly overdue. I am going to keep it brief, because let us face it, we are all hungry.

Lauren KATHAGE (Yan Yean) (12:30): I rise to speak on the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024, and I would like to give this bill the dignity it deserves, because it is fundamentally about Labor supporting workers who are underpaid, who are taken advantage of and who do not get all that they are entitled to. While some may be hungry or wanting to go down memory lane, I would like to talk about workers, whose rights should be protected.

What this bill is doing is looking at the way that some companies are taking advantage of workers through different ways of subcontracting and sham contracting. I want to give an example of why this bill is so important. I want to give the example of Waleed, a security guard and a proud member of the United Workers Union. Upon investigation from his union, it was found that Waleed had been underpaid nearly $8000 of the wages that he was entitled to. He was not being paid overtime rates, he was not being paid night shift rates and he was not being paid public holiday rates. How was this done? Through the sham use of subcontracting. In this case and in many cases like it, workers like Waleed are not afforded the same rights as others working with standard employment conditions. That is why this bill is so important and why I would be happy to speak to it with the dignity and the respect that it deserves – because it is about workers.

When people are taking part in sham contracting, they are finding a way to not pay people the award wages, people are not receiving the superannuation that they deserve and there is a lack of WorkCover insurance and a lack of leave. Now, it was this government who brought in a fabulous initiative which has benefited security workers, which is the portable long service leave. People in industries like cleaning and security who worked, through the nature of those industries, across different employers missed out on long service leave, but through this government’s actions we fixed that so that these valuable, important workers in our community could have access to that. This bill is further work that this government is undertaking to make sure that people who are in industries where there may be more vulnerable workers, where there is less oversight and less protection, can receive the same protections as other workers. It is fundamentally a Labor bill, and I am really proud to speak to it.

As well as the sham contracting that I have been speaking about, subcontracting produces its own difficulties around a lack of transparency and oversight, and it means that workers can be exploited to have profits maximised. I believe there is a large Victorian company which is currently in discussion with its security relating to the way that subcontracting is used there. I watch that case with interest, and I thank the union for their work on that. Making sure that there is a written agreement before subcontracting takes place is really good to increase transparency, because there might be people that do not even know that that is what is going on.

I think of a security guard I met recently. Often as politicians we stand outside shopping centres and always have a chat to the trolley workers and the security to make sure they know about the sick leave pay guarantee and other things that we can do to support them, and this particular worker, a security guard, was there because there had been threats around Australia Day, with people upset that Woolworths was not selling Australian flags or whatnot. For somebody to be in a suburb that they were not familiar with, with a community and population that they were not familiar with, dealing with such a topical issue means that they are especially vulnerable, and I really felt for that worker being put in that situation. I am sure that large companies would want to ensure that the workers that are working their jobs have all the appropriate supports and training that they need to manage those sorts of situations. Increased transparency around subcontracting will support that.

A new code of conduct is being established through this bill, and I think that is really great for both the community and for the workers because it will set clear standards for workers – everyone likes to have clear benchmarks of where they should be aiming and how they should be performing – and it is also good for the community that they know there is recourse if the code of contact is not met. It is also good just for improving the reputation of workers in the industry, because most of the companies and the vast majority of the workers are fabulous people just trying to earn a living for their family, just like the rest of us, and they deserve the support and respect that all workers do.

It is good that there will be refresher training required when three-year licences are renewed, because we know that there are changes in techniques and technologies. We have heard a lot in the news internationally and in Australia around inappropriate restraints leading to people’s permanent injury and death, so it is really good that people will have the ability to have updated training, and it improves the confidence of community members as well.

In summary, in relation to this part of the bill, this is a Labor bill. This is what Labor does. It works to protect workers rights while improving outcomes for the community, and so I am very proud to speak in support of this bill.

The second part of the bill includes the extension of the Drug Court trial, and this form of therapeutic justice is just so important. We know that the current trial is based on three decades of international research and operations and that it is really looking at the root causes of crime, promoting recovery, promoting rehabilitation and really wrapping around each of the people to make sure that they have the supports they need to overcome the barriers they are facing in life.

There are a lot of supports that are provided. There is housing support. There is vocational education support through Skills First Reconnect. There is access to specialist mental health, family violence, disability and neuropsychological services and access to health services. There are partnerships with key agencies, like Victoria Legal Aid. And there is a specialised in-house team of case managers to help the people get through those four years of their drug and alcohol treatment orders. We have heard recently from the department that only three or four participants have not been able to complete the orders up to that two-year period because of that integrated wraparound support that they are receiving.

At the end of the day, I am really pleased about the improved outcomes for these people, who deserve to live a happy life, and hopefully through this support they can. But I am also pleased for the court system more broadly because the decreased recidivism means that there is less of a backlog in the court system, there are less costs involved for the courts in managing cases and returns to court and there are less people in prisons, which also reduces costs.

I will point out that to be eligible for this program the crimes that are committed in association with your drug or alcohol addiction need to be non-sexual in nature and need to not have incurred actual bodily harm. They are crimes that you could imagine relating to fraud or people who steal for their addictions. We certainly have heard a lot about that through the recent gambling inquiry, people who steal, and we always read stories about the bookkeeper who stole a million dollars in the paper. So I am glad that people who commit crimes of addiction will get the support that they need to turn their life around and make our community safer. It is actually a really effective program, and so I am very happy to commend this bill to the house.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (12:40): Acting Speaker Farnham, it is lovely to see you in the chair this afternoon, mate. I also rise to talk about the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024, and I do thank the member for Berwick for his lead today. I note that we do not oppose the bill. The amendment bill will provide a single licensing system for all private security workers and businesses by removing the requirements that some activities require registration and others a licence. So it cleans that bit up.

I have been listening to other people in the chamber talk about the value of our security people, and we see it every day. Even down in the Latrobe Valley we see our security workers, as people have been saying, in pubs and clubs and nightclubs and on the streets. We even have them at the gates of our power stations, and they also stand at the gates of our Maryvale paper mill. I am thinking today that maybe the private security firms that are standing at the gates of the Maryvale paper mill may be torn a little bit, as we learned yesterday through the announcement that 200 jobs will actually be removed from Opal across New Zealand and Australia, and there are 40 to 45 of these workers at the Maryvale mill at the moment who are in a quandary, waiting to see if their jobs are actually going to be lost. It has a devastating effect for my community down in the Latrobe Valley. My heart and thoughts go out to the families that turn up every single day and go through the gates where the security officers are and go to do a good day’s work to be able to provide food on the table for their families and also a roof over their heads. To learn that their jobs are on the line and up to 45 of them may lose their jobs because of the timber industry shutting down and the high cost of energy to run the mill is very, very devastating. I do want to let them know that we will be standing beside them and helping them through this very, very tough time. I thank them and I thank the security officers that are on these gates and around the place that will also be doing it tough today.

In my time – and I am sure in yours, Acting Speaker – back in the day when we were frequenting pubs and clubs and nightclubs, the level of education for the people that were supposed to be security was not as good as what it is now. These rules actually bring in a requirement that the people who are standing on the front doors and protecting me – not that I go to many nightclubs anymore, but my family; I know my children and their friends go to nightclubs – are educated in the way that they are now to defuse situations if anything happens on the street. This gives our children and people that go to these particular venues the security of knowing that if something goes wrong they can walk up to our wonderful security people and seek protection. This amendment actually makes sure that they are getting paid the correct amount and they are being educated properly. So it is a wonderful path and avenue for these people in private security to have the opportunity to be working properly and to be looking after anyone that is on the street or who is going into these venues. You only have to look at when we walk into Parliament here – our security officers here make us feel safe. We are sort of in a little bit of an insular bubble here. When we do walk through those gates we know 100 per cent we are protected, and that is a really good feeling as we walk through.

Down on the streets in Traralgon, Morwell and the Latrobe Valley in general, there is a little bit of unrest with some activities by people that are being unsociable in the streets but, more to the point, are actually breaking into houses and making our residents feel unsafe. I am sure if every single member here stood up in the chamber today to speak on this, they would all be in the same boat where this is going on. Whether they are running in and grabbing your computer out – or now the hot topic down in the valley is that they are actually stealing the car keys. They walk in about a metre or 2 metres, see the car keys and are off and out. To combat this the police are doing as much as they can, but we are finding that a lot of private security firms are being engaged by residents to actually do drive-bys and set up security systems in the houses. So we need to make sure that it is the case now that the people that are leading these security officers as such, who come into houses and put up the cameras and install the alarms, are there with the right intentions – which I really think they all are. But we need to make sure, in passing these amendments, that they are ticking every box and making sure that everything is done to the letter of the law.

The training and the rules that our security officers are put under to come through, as I said before, are leaps and bounds in front of where we were 20 or 25 years ago. It is a good career for anyone to get into. You have the structure set up so that they are educated, and their number one weapon these days is their voice and being able to talk down people that are being unsocial and unruly, whether it be on the streets or whether it be at venues. As I have heard many members in here talk about today, being at the Australian Open or being at the football or being at the cricket, these people are our number one point of call when we first walk in. They are the ones that meet and greet us, and they are the ones that protect us and make sure that everything is fine if something goes wrong. That is also great.

We need to streamline and simplify the application process for the private security licences, impose new requirements for refresher training prior to renewal of licences for some private security activities and allow any person aware of concerns about a holder of a private security licence to be able to make a complaint, because as we have heard from several members on both sides of the chamber, unfortunately there are complaints that are raised against all people, and they may be our security officers. We need to have a process in place so that if there is an incident, it can be directed to someone and it can be fully investigated by the police. That is why we need to be able to do that.

It sets out requirements for obtaining consent and providing written notice in relation to subcontracting arrangements, with attached offences for failure to comply. One thing I was listening to before was about subcontractors that are employed by a major security firm not being paid and not being educated properly. It is great that we have got those checks and balances coming through, that there is no grey area and that if they are being employed by – it does not have to be a major security firm – any security firm, everything is aboveboard and being done properly. It also provides for the development of a code of conduct for private security workers enforceable by a disciplinary action. It requires a risk management plan, which is great to see, to be prepared by a person or business prior to private security works starting up, which is great also.

I know down in my patch of the woods that the families that are now having 18th birthdays and 21st ‍birthdays, if it is in their house, are also engaging with private security firms to make sure, with under-age drinking, that all checks and balances are being done. That is one of the things that you actually do not think of if you are a security officer at a party, but you are also checking the age of participants that are there. In our day they were called crowd controllers, but now they are doing great work, whether it be in private business, whether it be in our community, whether it be on the gates of Loy Yang or whether it be at the Maryvale Private build. As I said, we will not be opposing this bill, and I do thank you, Acting Speaker, for your time today.

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (12:50): I too rise to speak on the Private Security and County Court Amendment Bill 2024. This bill contains a lot of changes, some really important changes in fact, and I think the member for Yan Yean – who is now not here in the chamber, but hopefully she will hear me when I say this – made a really great contribution about the importance of talking to this bill with the dignity that it deserves.

Our private security guards are a cohort of workers here in Victoria and indeed Australia who provide an incredible service to our community, including as private security at some of the largest events here in Melbourne. Throughout the week we have heard the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events talk about, I think, the top 10 incredible events that Victoria holds. Those workers are there at those events while people like you and me, Acting Speaker Farnham, are having a great time with our families. They are there to keep us safe. This bill is all about protecting those workers and ensuring that they are paid what they are entitled to. From listening to stories about sham contracts and workers not being paid their entitlements, it is an absolutely abhorrent blight that happens all too often here in our community, and I am very proud to stand here with the government and with the Victorian Labor Party, which will hold those employers to account – and in part this bill is also about that.

The bill is looking to modernise the way that private security operates in modern Victoria and also tackle some of the key issues facing the industry today. We know that industries change over time, and legislation and legislative reform need to keep up with those changes. Indeed over the past five years I have seen many bills come before this house which do just that – they are trying to keep pace, whether it is with technology or with the expectations of the community, or indeed make sure that industries like the one that we are talking about today do afford and are afforded better protections.

I do want to acknowledge those in the private security industry – those incredible men and women, mums and dads, sometimes grandparents – who do the right thing. Indeed every single day when they go to work they perform their job to the highest standard. Thank you. The minister referred to several positive examples of private security guards who have done just that – gone to work and done an incredible job, including I think a pair of guards at a medical organisation who successfully de-escalated a situation with a person intoxicated with methamphetamines. The day-to-day job of a private security guard, depending on what they are doing, has many different facets to it. Sometimes they see the best of society, and sometimes they see the worst of it.

I think we have talked here about whether we say ‘security guards’ or ‘bouncers’– it probably depends on your age – but we have talked about the type of work and where they are placed, whether they are outside a nightclub doing their work or indeed whether they were the private security guards at the Taylor Swift concerts. I know that many people in the house are extroverted Taylor Swift fans or Swifties, or perhaps introverted, in-the-closet Swifties; we have found out about many of them here in this place as well over the past couple of weeks. I am sure those security guards could probably say which venue they would have preferred to be standing on guard at those nights as Taylor Swift indeed performed outstanding concerts here in Melbourne, in Victoria, and made us very proud. The private security industry plays such an important role in keeping all Victorians safe in very specific and diverse circumstances.

This legislation was introduced many moons ago to this Parliament – 20 years ago in fact – and at the time it was introduced there were major issues about how those working in the industry were being trained and really importantly being vetted by police so that they could do their job effectively in what would often be high-risk situations. This led to the death of the Australian cricketer David Hookes. The member for Melton talked really eloquently about David Hookes, what an incredible man he was and the deep and profound sadness the community felt when he was king hit by a bouncer outside a pub.

All the way back in 2018 our government made a really important commitment to review private security and overhaul it based on the recommendations of the review. In 2021 the review was released, and it was endorsed by cabinet. It included a number of recommendations that seek to address better conditions for those working in the industry along with better industry standards. Of the 21 ‍recommendations that came out of that review about half of them did not require legislative change, which is always a good thing because it has got to come through this place to do that, and they have been implemented. They are things like requiring Victoria Police to send out a fact sheet with each licence about workers rights and obligations – what a great thing to do, something that is now set in place.

The focus of this bill today that we are talking about is to act on the remaining recommendations, those that require legislative change, and to tackle some of the biggest issues facing the industry right now. It goes without saying that security workers, just like any other worker for that matter, deserve a safe industry where their pay and their conditions are protected and their rights, most importantly, are respected. Indeed the Victorian Labor government is committed to creating a better regulated and more professional and, importantly, well-regarded private security industry. To do this the bill makes a number of changes in three main areas. They are subcontracting, sham contracts and, really importantly, stronger enforcement mechanisms.

We know that in this industry it is sometimes necessary to subcontract and hire more security, and that is not always a bad thing. A good example of that could be in fact the Taylor Swift concerts I was just talking about. Major events like that one have a degree of surge demand for security services, purely because it turns out there are so many Swiftie fans here in Victoria and across the country, because remember many of them flew down to Melbourne to go to those concerts. The issue is that when you have this practice happen and it is unregulated it can always be easily exploited. We have unfortunately heard of instances where providers subcontract solely for maximising their profits and exploiting subcontracted workers with low pay and poor workplace standards. I know that there are many, many people in my community in Melbourne’s outer west that are private security guards, and I have no doubt that they have indeed been exploited through becoming subcontracted workers with low pay and poor workplace standards. The bill is going to address this by requiring that head contractors now need the written agreement of a client to hire subcontractors. In addition they will need to supply the names and licence numbers of each worker they have subcontracted. What this is going to do is provide greater oversight, and it lets the client know who exactly is performing the security service they have paid for and, most importantly, whether or not they are qualified. Because what we do know is when things go wrong with private security and there is a need to respond to something, if that private security guard is not properly trained or not aware of what is going on or does not know what to do, it can lead to tragic circumstances and outcomes.

There is a lot I could go on to say about this bill in the last 40 seconds before we go to lunch today. It is a really important bill. I think there have been some great contributions here in the house that go to the importance of protecting workers rights and ensuring that they have a safe industry to go ahead and work in, because what we know is that every worker deserves to go work and they deserve to go home to the family that loves them each and every single day. They also deserve to be paid the right wage and what they are entitled to. Time and time again we get so sick of hearing about the employers who are not quite sure – (Time expired)

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

Business interrupted under standing orders.