Wednesday, 18 June 2025

Bills

Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Anthony Carbines:

That this bill be now read a second time.

David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (11:21): I rise to make a contribution on the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. This bill contains four separate elements. There is a component that deals with the Serious Offenders Act 2018, there is a component that deals with the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004, there is another component that deals with the Corrections Act 1986 and there is a miscellaneous piece that deals largely with some changes around the parole board. I am going to start my contribution today by focusing on the corrections component. This is all really important, particularly when we talk about serious offenders and sex offenders, and I will get to that shortly. But I do want to give the government every bit of opportunity in my 29-minute or thereabouts contribution today to really consider supporting the amendments that we are about to propose on this bill, because I think this is a line-in-the-sand moment for the government – a chance for the government to actually say they are going to back workers, particularly prison workers, and they are going to ensure that when a prisoner assaults a worker there are consequences, and those consequences mean that that prisoner will be handcuffed on movement, for three months. That is what the union is calling for, and that is what we are going to be calling for today. Under standing orders I advise the house of amendments to this bill and request that they be circulated.

Amendments circulated under standing orders.

David SOUTHWICK: Let us talk about this. Every worker, no matter where they work, should be able to be safe, and we know in our prisons that is not the case. We are seeing prison staff not coming to work and we are seeing staff leave the prison system altogether, and we know that this government has now resorted to $8000 sign-on bonuses to try and recruit prison staff to come and work in the system. When we end up with a prison system in Victoria where you actually have to lock down the prisons because you have a staff shortage, we then have a failure in our system, no question. Our system has failed, and every single prisoner is actually feeling that consequence.

The idea of prisons is to reform prisoners. We want them to come out better than they actually were. That is really, really important; I want to say that up-front. However, we are dealing with very serious individuals – individuals that take it on their own to say, ‘I’m going to seriously assault a staff member.’ I am going to give you some evidence to show this today, but we know many of these people are there for a number of years, not just for six or 12 months. These are serious offenders, often lifers ‍– 20 or 30 years in prison, multiple serious offences, killers. These people, according to the government’s proposed changes in this bill today, would face additional penalties to their sentence. If they punch and assault and hospitalise a staff member, they might get six months added on to their sentence. How will it do anything to keep that staff member safe if a person who is already doing life gets another six months? It will not do a single thing.

What we know is the CPSU have been advocating for these changes and many of the prison staff that I talk to who call me nearly every day say they do not feel safe, and ultimately they want these changes. That is what the CPSU has been calling for. The CPSU have clearly said that they want these changes, and so we are asking today for the government to take up these changes. It is very simple and very straightforward. I want to refer to a letter that I have got from the CPSU. The CPSU says:

CPSU has been calling for greater consequences for prisoners who assault prison staff. To that end we welcome the intent of the Bill.

CPSU understands the Bill covers “custodial workers” rather than “officers” defined in Corrections Act ‍…

This is the second part of the bill that we also want to amend today. We are not just talking about prison staff in terms of prison guards; we are talking about anyone that works in the prison system. That is why I am talking about this up-front today to all of the government especially. I want you to understand that if you do not support our recommendations, you are ultimately turning your back on not just the prison guards but anyone that works in the prison. Whether you work in education, whether you are a health worker or whether you are a cleaner, you should be protected equally. Our amendment is suggesting that, for everybody, if you are assaulted, there are consequences. That is why we want the change to include all prison staff, and that is what the CPSU are calling for.

The second part is that the CPSU has been calling for more consistency in the application of the policy about the loss of privileges for a prisoner who assaults a staff member. We are of the view that an assault on a staff member should result in the application of a stronger handcuff regime. This means that where a prisoner is found to have assaulted a staff member, they should have all movements subject to handcuffs for a minimum three-month period. At present there is no consistency between the prisons, so some prisons choose to do this and others do not. There need to be consequences and there needs to be safety when it comes to those working in the prisons. I think this is very reasonable. I will be very interested to listen to the contributions of those opposite if they actually talk against this, because they will be talking against the very union and against the very people that they are trying to protect. This is a very sensible set of amendments. It is something that we should be working together on, and it should send a very, very, very loud message that if you assault somebody that works in a prison, there are consequences.

It is also a basic safety mechanism, because when people are moving around the prison, that is when they are likely to assault a staff member. Having them handcuffed means they are less likely to assault somebody. We only have to look at the types of situations that we have had. Overall, the official Corrections Victoria data shows that 442 attacks have been recorded in the last 12 months, including 10 sexual assaults on staff and six that were so serious that the guards were hospitalised. Absolutely, something needs to be done here. As an example, on 16 March two prison officers were:

… bashed by an enraged bikie at a maximum security Melbourne prison.

… the pair were left unconscious when the outlaw motorcycle gang member launched his attack at the Metropolitan Remand Centre at Ravenhall on Saturday.

Both officers were knocked to the ground and stomped on during the onslaught, described by a source as horrific.

Knocked to the ground, unconscious, hospitalised – this is what we are dealing with. When you have got a bikie that is going in and actually assaulting a staff member, they need to be handcuffed upon movement – no ifs, no buts. You know what, the consequences that we need to have in terms of our justice system should apply not only to those in the community but also to those behind bars. We do not have consequences, and that is why we have got a crime crisis. To deal with it, the government needs to actually step up and do something here. But that is not all. There are many, many examples. On 19 March, only a few days later, in a related incident, a Comanchero, in a wave of violence across two jails, was enraged over a decision to deport his brother. The Herald Sun said the:

… anger was sparked by his brother being denied time with him before being banished back to New Zealand.

It culminated in the savage bashing of two officers by the bikie inside the Metropolitan Remand Centre …

So we have got two situations. This one was in Port Phillip, when the outlaw motorcycle gang member had been in Port Phillip with other members last month, which is believed to have been the start of these concerns. These are just two examples, but there are plenty, plenty more. This continues on. Let me get to ‘Officer attacked at Barwon Prison’:

Police are investigating another assault on a staff member at Barwon Prison.

The victim – believed to be a supervisor at the maximum security jail – was allegedly attacked and spat on during a violent incident on September 9 …

Then there is another one, ‘Killer admits to vicious prison officer bashing’:

A convicted killer who is serving decades in prison for murdering a woman at Hoppers Crossing, has admitted to brutally bashing two guards at Barwon prison.

Sigaragh Baea, 29, appeared in the County Court of Victoria on Monday over an unproved attack on the male and female officers in February of last year.

The female guard was knocked out and suffered serious injuries including a broken leg, while her colleague received cuts and bruises.

Another example – they are being knocked out. These are coward punches happening in prison, behind bars – knocked out. I appreciate the government is trying to do something in terms of adding further sentences on to these individuals. The changes that are proposed are important in terms of getting additional sentences, not to be served concurrently but consecutively, as the team for the minister said, and I thank the minister’s office for the briefing that they provided to me on this. They are certainly very well versed in terms of what changes are proposed, and they are to try and change things to add additional sentences on to these people. But as I said earlier, this is not just about somebody that committed a crime and got a few years who that six months might make a difference to. Outlaw motorcycle gangs, killers, do not worry about another six months to their sentence. They do not care. This will not deter them at all. The only way to deter a killer that is in prison for 10-plus years is loss of privilege: stick them in handcuffs, restrict their movement, keep staff safe – simple. That is what we are proposing in terms of our amendments.

I will go on to some other parts of this bill, because there are some other important parts of this bill that I think need to be covered. The first part is the Serious Offenders Act. This deals with serious offenders, many of whom are on the sex offenders register – that is the second part of the bill – and it ensures better protection post release. These offenders are still very much a danger to society, and we need to ensure that the community, victims and families of victims are protected. To do that we need to ensure where they live, who they live with and the surroundings are all certainly managed to ensure that these people do not commit more crimes. That is what this part of the bill covers: things like wearing ankle monitoring bracelets, which is something that the government is looking at proposing and rolling out. That is important in terms of the change, and that needs to be covered as well. Who are they are living with? Are they living with another sex offender? That should not be the case. Are they living with somebody on whom they have done violence before? That should not be the case.

There is a need to look at that register in terms of the information and restricting and limiting risk, because that is what this is all about, risk mitigation. Anything that does that is something that we do support. We think that is really, really important, so we are supporting that. We say to the government that we will work with them on whatever those cases are. The kinds of things included in the Serious Offenders Act include better support for victims participating in post-sentence decision-making submissions, clarifying the directions that the authority can give to supervision and electronic monitoring and expanding the membership of the authority. Again, at the briefing we were told that because there is so much work happening in this space there need to be more staff to be able to manage the Post Sentence Authority, so the membership of the authority is being increased from 10 to 13, with an Aboriginal person being included in that. So we appreciate the need to expand the membership of the authority.

Better information sharing for people that are working with a person on an order to be better eyes on the people that are being supervised: again, this is really important, because we know those people that are released on an order or that are released on a register will have potentially other agencies that will work with them – health agencies, police and other agencies as well. We need to ensure that that information is properly shared, so I like the intent in terms of what the government is trying to do here. I hope that actually we have got the technology and the means to do it and, the last bit about it, that we have the resourcing, because we know that has been a real problem with the government; a lot of the policy changes have not necessarily been the problem, the resourcing has been the problem, and I will come to that very shortly.

I will touch on it now. We did see a situation where the coroner released a recommendation that was particularly around Noeline Dalzell, who unfortunately was murdered by her partner. The system failed in that particular instance. Victoria Police rejected the coroner’s recommendation to notify women when violent partners are released from jail, citing a lack of resources, and this again is a failure of the system. So the recommendation is to ensure that information is shared, that you have got different agencies that are notified. But in this particular case you have got the tragic case of 49-year-old Noeline Dalzell, who was brutally murdered in front of her three children by an abusive ex-partner, James Fairhall, in 2020. The judge later stated that police should have warned Ms Dalzell of Fairhall’s release and that it could have saved her life. So here is a scenario of a lack of resourcing and policies obviously needing to change, but also you have got to have the resources to go with it.

It is a blight on society when we know just how many family violence issues we have in this state, it really is, and also we have got to remember we have a situation where one woman is killed every 11 ‍days. Police responded to over 104,000 family violence incidents in the year 2024, rising by 54 per cent since 2014, meaning that police are responding to a family violence incident every 5 minutes. We will have the police crime stats coming out tomorrow, and I am sure that record will unfortunately continue. We need to ensure victims are put first, and that is really, really important.

So the information sharing is important – better eyes on people. But I would say and plead to the government: do not cut budgets. Do not cut corrections budgets or police budgets in the middle of a crime crisis. Taking almost $50 million out of the police budget is not a good look when we are experiencing a crime crisis in Victoria.

Clarifying the actions that police can take to bring them in line with other police investigations processes, being able to release unconditionally is another change, an important change. What it means is police can do their job. If they want to investigate somebody on suspicion, they can do that. They can bring them in for questioning. They can charge and ultimately release unconditionally if the information is not there. It brings it in line with other work that Victoria Police does. It is a very important change.

Another part which is really important is dealing with the Sex Offenders Registration Act. This is determined by the court, the need to make a supervision act for the register of five years. Most people that are on the sex offenders register are on there for life. We were told in our briefing that 22 people or thereabouts are not covered. That figure could increase. So what the government is doing here is ensuring that those people that are released that do not have an ability to be on that register for life have an ability to be on that register for five years. I think that is really important. But I do want to just raise that back in 2021, when I was the shadow minister for this space, the Shadow Minister for Police and Shadow Minister for Crime Prevention, there was talk about operation of a Victorian sex offenders register. A recent County Court proposal had sought to increase judges’ discretion to keep convicted sex offenders off the register, meaning sex offenders could be employed in schools, religious organisations and transport services, leaving police – and victims, more importantly – blind as to people’s whereabouts. We raised this back in 2021, and it has been an issue since then. We certainly campaigned on it in 2018, including about more transparency and more people on the serious sex offenders list. It is very important.

All of these changes are important, and that is why I do want to just point out that quite often, particularly when it comes to law and order – we have got our Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs in here, who will tell you that – when it comes to tobacco licensing, again the government is playing catch-up; post and boast, catch up; bail laws, catch up; and machete laws, catch up. This is another one. But, you know what, if the government is copying our ideas, then great. Ultimately all we want is for victims to be safe, for Victorians to be safe and to ensure that there are consequences for those that break the law.

We have spoken about corrections and the assaults. I will touch on that in my wrap-up. The last part is the miscellaneous changes. There are two components to the miscellaneous changes dealing with parole. The first part is largely centred around the ‘no body, no parole’ element. We can all recognise that this has been an important change. It basically says you will not be put out on parole until you cooperate to ultimately determine where a body is. We know certainly one of the key cases is that of Samantha Murphy. I will not go into the details for obvious reasons, but that is an important example. We need to ensure that if you have an offender, somebody who is not willing to cooperate with Victoria Police, well, they just do not get parole; it is quite simple. What this particular change does is just clean up a technicality. It manages that system so that if people do not give that information once they are convicted, over a number of years they do not have to go through the whole process, if that information is not forthcoming, and clog up the parole board. It kind of smooths things out and makes it a lot easier in terms of that process. Again, we have no issue with that particular element.

The second part, dealing with the miscellaneous changes, provides the parole board with discretion to revoke automatic parole and cancellation for minor offences. This deals with a situation where somebody who might be in for a shorter timeframe is seeking early parole and by the time they actually go through the process of the parole hearing and the granting, the time exceeds the time that they are being locked up for. That is just silly, and what this is saying is that we want to be able to expedite that process so that we give fairness. And again, we have no issue with that. Overall we believe that we do not have issues at all with what the government is proposing here. What we are trying to do is make this bill better. That is why we are here; we are trying to improve the bill, and we are trying to do it particularly for the safety of all Victorians and the safety of workers, no matter who they are and no matter where they work. That is what we are doing here.

I do note for the government particularly that there was an almost 95 per cent no-confidence motion in the corrections commissioner only recently, and that was done on the basis of safety. That was done because staff do not feel safe in prisons, and ultimately they voted for a no-confidence motion in the corrections commissioner. I know that would be pretty hard to handle being the corrections commissioner, and this is not necessarily any attack on them, but I do note we have had a no-confidence motion on a police commissioner, a no-confidence motion on a corrections commissioner and only today a no-confidence motion on the fire rescue commissioner as well. That is three no-confidence motions in under 12 months – in about six months. The common thread in all of this is the Allan Labor government, and ultimately the buck does stop with the minister. They are the ones that have the lever. They are the ones that can have the policy change. They are the ones that have the resources and ability to be able to throw some more money, expertise and resources at this. Ultimately, when it comes to a vote of no confidence, it should not be just the commissioner, it should be the minister, who is responsible. I would say that and I would highlight that.

Here is – pardon the pun – a get-out-of-jail-free card for the government, and the get-out-of-jail-free card for the government is to back our changes. That will show many of the staff working in the prisons, who contact me almost every day and who do not feel supported, that the government is finally listening. That is what we are calling for. It is very, very simple: back the changes, ensure there are consequences for those that assault staff members and send a message that this government will finally keep workers safe and ensure there are consequences for people that do the wrong thing. Whether you are behind bars or you are on the streets, there should be consequences when you break the law and when you assault people. That is what we are asking for – nothing more, nothing less – and we ask the government to support our amendments.

Juliana ADDISON (Wendouree) (11:46): I am very pleased to rise today to speak in support of the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, which proposes a number of improvements to our justice system. Together these improvements will ensure processes within our justice system can function as intended and that safety is prioritised in our prisons and, importantly, in our communities. I would like to recognise and thank the Minister for Corrections in the other place, his ministerial office and the Department of Justice and Community Safety for developing this proposed legislation. As chair of the Women’s Correctional Services Advisory Committee, I work closely with the minister, and I want to thank him for his strong support of WCSAC and the work that we do as a committee. I would also like to acknowledge the work of Ross Porter and thank him for the support and advice that he provides. We have two women’s correctional facilities in Victoria, the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Deer Park and Tarrengower in Maldon. Through my role I have had the opportunity to visit these prisons on a number of occasions, meeting with staff and women in custody. I want to thank the corrections staff for the work they do, their professionalism and their dedication.

Just this week WCSAC visited the Werribee justice centre to learn more about supervised court orders, community correction orders and drug treatment orders. A special thankyou to Patti, who shared her lived experience with the committee as a woman who has served time in custody and is now doing great advocacy work on the outside, as well as senior parole officers, court practice workers and advanced practitioners, who provided insights into the work that they do, why these orders are important, how they are implemented and, most importantly, how they are keeping our community safe. It was a really worthwhile visit, and I do just want to thank the great members of WCSAC for the work that they do as important stakeholders in providing advice to the minister about women in the corrections system and in custody across Victoria.

In terms of the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill, which is before us today, there has been significant consultation, and I would like to recognise all the stakeholders who have contributed to the development of this bill, including Corrections Victoria, the Office of Public Prosecutions, Victoria Police, the Aboriginal Justice Caucus, the Department of Health and the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing. They are really important stakeholders, because when we are talking about corrections we really do need a whole-of-government approach.

The Department of Justice and Community Safety also briefed the Community and Public Sector Union on staff assault reform. I know from my firsthand experience of visiting prisons that prisons by their very nature are dynamic environments and corrections staff do an incredible job every day. We have heard the safety concerns, and we are ensuring that corrections staff have the option to use handcuffs and other strategies and tools to keep themselves safe.

Whether they work in corrections in Victoria or whether they work in any business, every worker in Victoria deserves a safe workplace and occupational health and safety rights. We know that this government is a champion of workers and a champion of occupational health and safety, and that is why it has supported workplace manslaughter laws and why it works every day with unions and respects unions. To be lectured about unions, as a former national official of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, is a little bit rich. We will continue to implement measures that support and protect our hardworking staff and our union members, and once again I thank them for the work they do.

The Victorian government is dedicated to making our community safer and making our justice system stronger, and in the most recent budget, this government committed $2 billion towards the criminal justice system, courts and emergency services. $727 million it has invested in improving capacity at prisons and youth justice centres, providing beds and more staff. But I would also like to highlight some of the funding in this year’s state budget that is targeting recidivism and integration. Examples of these include employment hubs at prisons as well as assessment and transition coordinators and Aboriginal wellbeing officers, who assist with the transition into and out of custody.

With regard to what is before us, the Serious Offenders Act 2018 was introduced in 2018 and addresses the management of offenders who still pose an unacceptable and serious risk upon the completion of their prison sentence. A five-year review was required under this legislation and was completed by the department in 2023, offering 13 recommendations. Several of these recommendations require legislative changes, which is what the bill before us provides. It also improves the function of our justice system through a number of related provisions. Altogether this bill proposes amendments primarily to the Serious Offenders Act 2018, the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 and the Corrections Act 1986, with additional consequential amendments made to three further acts.

I would like to really highlight some of the changes proposed to the Corrections Act. Firstly, this bill will better protect the thousands of corrections workers in our prisons by ensuring real consequences for any prisoners who cause injury to them. This bill does so by broadening the stated definition of ‘prison offence’ to include special offences against custodial workers on duty, which includes governors, prison officers, escort officers and others fulfilling the same functions. Prison offences come with jail time that is cumulative, not concurrent, and therefore all prisoners convicted of injuring a corrections worker will face real additional time added to their sentence – a real consequence for their behaviour and their actions.

Another amendment to the Corrections Act will make sure that ‘no body, no parole’ provisions can function as truly intended. ‘No body, no parole’ requires a person in prison for murder or manslaughter to cooperate with police in locating a victim’s remains in order to be considered for parole. We know this provides deep and emotional significance for victims’ families and loved ones and ongoing trauma. Families are often left in a painful limbo. The proposed amendments clarify this provision, relating specifically to situations where there is no body, and that is to say, only in situations when a victim’s remains are still missing. ‘No body, no parole’ is intended to address a narrow, agonising set of circumstances. This amendment better conveys that intent.

The final substantive change to the Corrections Act allows for a more responsive approach to the automatic cancellation of parole. This currently occurs if a person on parole is sentenced to a separate term of imprisonment, no matter how short. The proposed amendment makes it clear that the Adult Parole Board of Victoria, if they see fit, may revoke these automatic parole cancellations. Used judiciously, these revocations will help to avoid additional, unnecessary, lengthy and expensive parole reapplications. It also allows the board the discretion to reverse potentially unjust parole cancellations ‍– for example, when a very short sentence is imposed for a nonviolent offence. Reinstating parole, where appropriate, also allows for monitoring and support during the transition back into community. Together these improvements will work to ensure that the Corrections Act can function as intended, keeping our prisons and our communities safe.

This bill will also make amendments to the Serious Offenders Act to implement several recommendations from its recent review. In particular I would like to highlight the amendments designed specifically to better support the experience of victims. This bill clarifies that relevant persons on the victims register should be appropriately notified regarding an offender’s involvement in the post-sentence scheme. They may also make submissions regarding the offender’s management, but significantly these amendments will allow the Post Sentence Authority to use more discretion when deciding what matters require notifications so that victims can be kept sufficiently informed while not being inundated with unnecessary and potentially traumatic notifications.

Further improvements that are proposed in this bill include clarifying the role of the authority in the courts with regard to directions about living arrangements as well as electronic monitoring orders. They include specifying that police may remand in custody, release on bail or release unconditionally persons arrested for contravening supervision orders so that police can respond appropriately to specific situations, and they include allowing the court that places the suppression order to be the court that deals with any potential breaches.

There are a number of other improvements that we are making to the Post Sentence Authority too: increasing it from 10 to 13 and including at least one member identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. This is an important bill. I commend it to the house.

Martin CAMERON (Morwell) (11:56): I rise today to speak on the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. It was interesting listening to the member for Caulfield at the start talk about this legislation that is going through and also the member for Wendouree getting into the core of what we are trying to achieve here. I think everyone that stands in this chamber today realises that we do need to make safe working conditions for all Victorians. All of us, whether we are working on the Big Build here in Melbourne, we are on a worksite, like we used to be in regional Victoria, Acting Speaker Farnham, or we are here in Parliament, need to make sure that we have got regulations and procedures in place that protect everybody that goes to work. The amendment that the member for Caulfield circulated, giving more powers to these workers to make sure that they are safe, seems to me to be a good amendment right across the board. If we are changing stuff to make our corrections officers and people inside our prison system safer, who are probably working with the very worst of people in society, we need to make sure that they have got every lever available to them. We heard about how there have been incidents with correction officers being bashed and assaulted. We need to make sure that we give them the power so that that does not happen. With this bill and with these changes that I am going to talk about shortly, we are achieving most of that, but why not toughen it right up to make sure that we have given every single person inside our prisons the opportunity to stay safe?

The bill seeks to amend the Serious Offenders Act 2018, the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 and the Corrections Act 1986 and is for other purposes. The Serious Offenders Act 2018 relates to the legislative framework that is designed to provide enhanced protection to the community by requiring offenders who have served custodial sentences for certain serious and violent sex offences to be subject to ongoing detention. As I said, these are changes that we need to make to keep everybody safe. They are changes that we need to make to make sure that the officers that are doing their job inside our prison system have all their rights and protections around them as well. The Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 establishes a legal framework to monitor individuals convicted of certain sexual offences, aiming to enhance community safety and prevention of recidivism. We need to have these types of conditions in place. We need to be able to stand up in this chamber together and stop offenders who do this, and make sure that when they do get out, we have procedures around to keep the community safe.

The Corrections Act 1986 is the principal legislation governing the operation of correctional facilities in Victoria, including our prison system and the management of offenders. It outlines the establishment and administration of prisons, as well as the rights and responsibilities of both prisoners and prison staff. I know that the member for Caulfield was very much trying to outline that there is some great stuff we want to get through as quickly as we can here in this chamber to protect our prison staff. There is a concern that because we do not have these protections in place at the moment and we are not going as hard as we can to make sure we are protecting our prison officers, we have had a downturn in people wanting to go to work in our correctional facilities. We need to make sure that we can staff them properly and that we can staff them safely. At the end of the day, if you go to work, no matter where you are in Victoria, no matter what work site you are on – whether you are making coffees in a coffee shop or looking after our most hardened criminals in the criminal justice system – it should be as safe an environment as you can actually have. We need to make sure we are doing that.

In the past year alone, there have been 442 assaults on our prison staff, including 10 sexual assaults and six incidents requiring hospitalisation. It is a hard and harsh working environment that they encounter inside our correctional facilities, and I do not think most of us actually realise – except for the ones here who have worked in those facilities – just how hard and how tough it is. We need to make sure we are ticking every single box that we can as we stand here in the chamber and talk about change, to make sure that we have tough, tough laws. As I said, workers really do need our help to make sure they have a safe working environment.

I have continually had people come through the front door of my office, and I am sure every single member in here has experienced the same thing – constituents coming in for a chat, worried about safety on the streets in their local communities. We have people, especially on social media, posting all the time about undesirables at every time of night, walking up driveways, looking into their property and stealing cars. We do have a society at the moment where people do not want to play by the rules. Most do, but we have those people who do not want to play by the rules. They are committing crimes in our community, being caught by the police, put through the courts and ending up in jail. They just do not want to play by the rules. This is why we are here to toughen up the rules, so there is no grey area that people can work out and work around.

I know at the moment there is a court case going on in Morwell. We had a police procedure probably about seven or eight weeks ago on the streets of Morwell where we were continually having unruly behaviour from certain individuals, the criminal element. We were having people go into shops and just take what they wanted. There was a police operation before the court case happened where police actually had the powers to stop and search individuals on the street, and within an hour or so you could actually see the difference that that made. Being able to give police those powers just proves that what we do in here makes a difference at the coalface, on the streets.

I had elderly people coming in and saying they felt unsafe on the streets, and then, to their credit, they came back in after this particular operation went down and they visibly noticed the difference. While this court case has been running there has been a presence on the street – that visual presence that is a deterrent. If you can see someone in a uniform, whether it be an authorised officer or one of our wonderful Victoria Police people wandering around, it does make a difference: (1) it makes people, if they are going to be causing havoc down the street, stop and think and (2) if you are on the streets just going about your daily activities, it does make you feel a lot safer.

As we said, we are not opposing these amendments that are coming through to this legislation. We would like to see things toughen up just a fraction more, because I think I can speak for every person that stands in this chamber: if you walk out your front door at home and you go to work, no matter where you are working or what you are doing, you have the right for the government and this Parliament to protect you so you walk back through the door at night.

Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (12:06): Just to set the frame, this bill is one of a number of reforms that our Allan Labor government has brought before this Parliament to crack down on serious offending, including our recent tough new bail laws, a ban on the sale of machetes and this week’s announcement of new post-and-boast laws. Zoning in further on the corrections system and the frame for this particular legislation before us, I note that this year’s budget has invested $727 million in new funding for the corrections and youth justice systems to ramp up capacity. This will mean that our custodial facilities will continue to be safe and focus on supporting people to turn their lives around. That new funding package will increase the number of staff working right across our corrections and youth justice systems, with 700 new staff to be recruited. The new Western Plains Correctional Centre is opening within weeks, adding an extra capacity of over 1000 maximum-security beds into the corrections system. These are all part of a coordinated effort to make the community safer.

Zoning in on some of the specific Corrections Act 1986 amendments, we know that there are over 3000 people working as corrections workers in our public prisons right across the state, and it goes without saying that they are very much at the front line. Whilst their work is largely unseen to community, we know that they are working hard every single day and night to keep Victorians safe from crime, and we certainly thank them for that. It goes without saying also that it can be really dangerous work. I have visited both remand and prisons, and the sense that I got from that – apart from the incredible professionalism and humanity with which the corrections officers approached their work ‍– is that they literally are having to make decisions all day long. It is not a static space. It is one where they have to be monitoring every minute of every day, and I do not in any way wish to pretend that I understand the stress or the pressures that they are under; I am simply reflecting that it was very evident to me that this is a high-pressure space and a very difficult working environment which they handle professionally. We know that unfortunately sometimes they are subject to violence and aggression from people in custody, and we know that this is completely unacceptable, whether it be within a prison or in any workplace in the state. This is why the bill is making important changes to make sure that there are real penalties for people in custody who assault a corrections worker.

Before I proceed on the changes specific to the strengthening of penalties, I do want to note that staff do risk assessments every day, and these are key operational decisions that are inherent to their role. As a government we want to ensure they have flexibility with the use of the tools they have the option to use, such as handcuffs and other tools, as opposed to imposing an arbitrary and non-evidence-based solution or option. We respect the professionalism of their role, and that is why the amendments are as such in this particular bill. We most certainly have heard their safety concerns. They have asked for tougher penalties, and that is what we are seeking to deliver with this bill. I say ‘seeking’ because obviously the bill has to be passed before those tougher measures can be implemented. I just want to clarify what might otherwise be misinterpreted with regard to the discretion of the corrections officers and the respect we pay to them for the difficult operational decisions that they have to make.

The bill will define the assault of a corrections worker as a prison offence under the Corrections Act ‍1986. This will mean that once Victoria Police charge a prisoner with assault and they are found guilty of that offence by a court, the court must impose an additional sentence to be served on top of the sentence that the prisoner is already serving. Too often courts are directing the sentence to be served at the same time as the prisoner’s existing sentence and it has no impact on the prisoner’s release date. This means there is no real, practical consequence for the committing of the assault, so the bill will change that and ensure there are real punishments for assaulting a corrections officer at work. This change will also act as a disincentive for people in custody to be violent towards staff, and certainly the intention is to reduce the number of these assaults that occur in the future. That is absolutely the goal of this legislation.

There are other aspects to this bill, including the Serious Offenders Act 2018 amendments. We know that the post-sentence scheme has been in place. It was established in 2018. A statutory review of the scheme was completed in 2023 covering the first five years of the scheme’s operation. Whilst the review found that the overall scheme was working well, it made recommendations for improvements. The bill will implement the legislative aspects of those recommendations. It will make it easier for victims who are registered on the victims register to engage with the Post Sentence Authority, meaning victims of crime can be kept better informed of developments in the offender’s supervision, as well as enable the Post Sentence Authority to consider the views of registered victims in its decisions. It will also clarify the directions powers of the Post Sentence Authority as well as the powers of Victoria Police to allow for swifter action to implement conditions or respond to possible breaches. Finally, it will enable better information sharing between a range of organisations and the Post Sentence Authority. When we are looking from a holistic perspective at how we make the community safer and at keeping the Victorian community safe from crime, well, what is inherent in that? Of course there are many layers, and one of them is – I have said this in a back-to-front way – the post-sentence scheme. It is just one example of many layers of implementation of changes to help make the community safer.

The sex offenders register is another important tool in protecting the community from risks posed by known offenders in the community. So there is some crossover between this act and the Serious Offenders Act, both of which are aimed at ensuring we have an appropriate level of supervision of sex offenders. So the bill will make a small change to improve the interaction of the two schemes by requiring people who are subject to a supervision order to have reporting obligations under the sex offenders register for five years after their supervision order ends. Whilst this is only impacting a small number of people, it does ensure that we continue to appropriately monitor those people in the community who may be at risk of further sexual offending. The prioritisation of victims but also broader community interest is at the core of these very important changes, and they are certainly most welcome.

With regard to – and I know it has already been mentioned – miscellaneous amendments specifically pertaining to parole, the bill clarifies the application of the ‘no body, no parole’ provision for use only in homicide cases where the location of the deceased remains unknown at the time the perpetrator is being considered for parole. I think we can see inherently there are very pragmatic elements to this change, and I certainly noted there was no opposition from the opposition on this particular aspect of the bill either, which is welcome, because it is very much a pragmatic change. We can certainly see that if somebody is not forthcoming with the location of someone who is deceased, there have to be consequences for that. But at the same time, we do not want to protract the work of the Adult Parole Board of Victoria unnecessarily. So this makes a really pragmatic adjustment, which is certainly most welcome. I just want to close out by again thanking corrections officers for the incredible work that they do every day to keep playing a very important role in community safety in Victoria. Thank you.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (12:16): The Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 that we have before us touches on a number of really important elements for all of us, keeping the community safe but also keeping custodial officers safe. I am going to commence with the changes around the Serious Offenders Act 2018, and 2018 was not so long ago. In 2023 there was a statutory review of the act, and I think it was a very positive move that this was undertaken. It found that the act was mostly okay, but it made 13 recommendations to enhance the post-sentence scheme.

When I was looking at this bill and thinking about the Serious Offenders Act and who fits in it and who does not, I was taken to the act itself and had a look at schedule 1, which has a whole list of serious sex offences, and schedule 2, which has serious violent offences. These were around servitude, commercialisation, sexual assault and rape, dealing with adults and with children. It is particularly confronting even just reading a list in those schedules about what fits in it. Essentially they were offences against the Crimes Act 1958, the Sentencing Act 1991 or the sex work act.

What we have with serious offenders is that they complete their prison term and they are deemed still to be a risk to the community. This is where it is so important that the community be protected, so some of these changes around operational issues are really around how these operational issues enhance that post-sentencing scheme. One thing is that we need victims to be better informed. One of a couple of the areas that I will touch on that are notable here is clarifying the Post Sentence Authority directions. This means that there are directions about who a person on a supervision order can live with. This really is around playing a critical role in managing the individual’s risk regarding co-residents. There is antisocial behaviour; there are all sorts of things that fit in here, because you have drug use as well. There could also be somebody who is involved with a supervision order with a history of family violence. We had in 2020 Noeline Dalzell, who was fatally stabbed in Seaford in front of her kids. The offender, her former partner, was living with them. He came out of jail, had nowhere to go and within a very short period of time was living back in her home and tragically killed her in front of her children. It is just extraordinary that this could happen. The Law Institute of Victoria I note do oppose some of these changes based on human rights and privacy and things like that, but I am very firm that we need to keep community members safe in this space because we know the stats are not trending in the right direction.

The Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 has some crossover, because a lot of these people will also be known serious offenders. This also deals with a post-sentence scheme, which is linked to what I have just talked about. Currently, offenders provide personal details, details of their work and details of their travel so that we can keep an eye on the offenders and know where they are moving and how they are moving. And there is a change to the post-sentencing reporting obligation of five years.

I mentioned that the stats here are heading in the wrong direction, and I just want to mention some stats for the chamber, because I am not sure that everybody is aware. According to the Crime Statistics Agency, from December 2024 there were 5571 counts of rape recorded as offences, up from 2015, when there were 3924. That is a 1500 difference. For the better part of the last few years it has been around 4500, and I am a bit concerned now that it is up to 5500 rape cases. Crimes against children, which we would also find particularly horrendous: in 2015 there were 1540, and as of December 2024 there were 4439. That is a staggering increase. So the statistics are heading in the wrong direction, and if the government think that they are getting tough on crimes against children and crimes against women, they need to have a good look at the crime statistics, because what has been happening is not working and it is just simply not good enough.

I am going to turn now to the amendments to the Corrections Act 1986, and there is an issue here. The issue is that there have been attacks on prison officers. These are much further than just spitting and abuse, which happen almost day in, day out. Whilst the amendments may be minor, I think that they are important. We are talking about severe attacks on prison officers, and if we have a look at the stats, in the past year alone there have been 442 assaults on staff, including 10 sexual assaults and six incidents requiring hospitalisation. This is pretty severe. These endanger not only the lives of the custodial officers but also law and order within the prison itself. So we have got this problem. It should not happen but it does happen, and it happens in the men’s and women’s prisons as well as in the youth prisons. The second-reading speech said the custodial officers have a right to feel safe at work. I would go one further. They have a right to be safe at work, not just to feel touchy-feely, cosy – safe. They need to be kept safe all the time, and we can see that the problem has not been dealt with effectively from a number of points: from the officers, from the prisoners and certainly from the government, with the recruitment and retention of staff, because if you have got continual attacks, it is not good enough.

What this bill proposes is additional prison time so most perpetrators in prison will be required to serve additional time rather than concurrently, which can sometimes happen at the moment, if they cause injury to custodial officers. That is not far enough. ‘Custodial officers’ is not far enough. They could cause injury to any number of people working in those prisons, and that certainly should be considered. I want the chamber and the minister particularly to reflect on these assaults on prison officers and what they actually mean, because on one hand the person, the offender, is going to be penalised with making sure they do additional time, but we have still got the issue of what has happened to the prison officers, the custodial officers. People in this chamber note the dangers and the high-pressure situation, but I have a couple of quotes from the book Code Blue: Prison Officer in Danger, written by Bruce Perham, who is a social worker who has done a lot of work in prisons. This is from a young prison officer:

You know the prisoners hate us and would kill us if they could. They wouldn’t be killing us as a person, they would be killing us as a uniform.

These guys go on to say that they feel very disillusioned because they do not feel supported. This same prison officer went on:

Many a time a prisoner would verbally push me in the hope that I would lash out, knowing I would pay a high price for doing so. They can do whatever they like with no consequences.

Hopefully now there may be some consequences, because the prison officers feel at the minute that there are no consequences. They are left to deal with it. They are left to fill out forms, live with that trauma, get on with their day and keep moving. Here is another quote:

It was a horrendous assault on a prison officer and it upset a lot of us. The prisoners who witnessed it received counselling. But all we got was a debrief about what we did. Often these debriefs can end in, ‘if you hadn’t done that, the event with the prisoner would not have happened’. Half the time we come out of these debriefs as the cause of the problem. Our … reactions are never taken into account.

That was from a female officer. That quote absolutely highlights how prison systems struggle to manage the psychological impact of their staff being assaulted and lapse very quickly into defence management of the situation. This is just not good enough. Yes, it is good that those offenders are getting additional sentencing – time added on – but we need to be emotionally supporting the prison officers, the custodial officers, not hanging them out to dry and not making it look to them as though they are the cause of the issue. They need to be supported holistically, not just in the tearoom, where they can all have a quick chat after it and go, ‘Gee, it was pretty horrible what happened. Let’s go home. We’ll have a couple of drinks at the end of the day. Hope it doesn’t turn into full-blown alcoholism or something bad happens at home.’ They need to have proper debriefing sessions continually so that they are looked after and kept safe. This is part of the reason why retention and attraction are so difficult in this area. It is not just that the offenders do not get punished; the prison officers themselves do not get supported enough.

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (12:26): I too rise to speak on the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025. Before my contribution, I do want to say a very big thankyou and give a very big shout-out to corrections staff. It is not an easy job, and I do not think it takes anyone to have worked there to know that it is not an easy job to do. Thinking about corrections staff, it is interesting because I know that one of the best friends of my sister-in-law up in Sydney is actually a staff member at one of the women’s prisons in Sydney. She is a particularly tough lady but very fair. She has a beautiful nature. I know that she absolutely loves her job.

Turning back to the bill, the bill does aim to build upon our government’s efforts to ensure our communities are, importantly, safe and that our prisons are safe, with a focus on greater protections for custodial officers and improved management of serious offenders once their sentences are finished. It should be clear that our government is absolutely committed to ensuring not only that our corrections system is operating effectively but also that the folks who work in our prisons, keeping our community and inmates safe, are also safe at work. We on this side of the house know that everyone deserves to be safe at work and return safely home to the people that they love each and every single day.

I note that last month’s state budget invested an additional $727 million into boosting the capacity of Victoria’s prison system. As the chair of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, I heard about that $727 million in detail during the budget estimates hearings over the past couple of weeks. That $727 million includes hiring additional staff and bringing more prison beds on line. We know that we need this extra capacity. We need it because we can already see that our new bail laws are starting to have an effect. Last month there were 465 more people on remand in Victorian prisons compared to April last year, which is an increase of 22 per cent. Also, there were 39 more young people on remand in youth justice compared to April last year, which is an increase of 71 per cent. That is a remarkable jump. Whilst these numbers are not inherently fabulous – nearly 500 people, too many – what they do is they tell us that these changes are working and that more offenders are not being bailed. That is thanks to a successful recruitment drive. I love hearing the Minister for Police and the Minister for Corrections talk about recruitment drives for police here in Victoria and the different methods and things that they are doing to recruit more police officers and also to recruit more prison officers. We have been able to bring on an additional 640 prison officers and more than 170 youth justice officers in just the past year.

It should be clear that we do not want to go back to a corrections system and a remand system where folks languish on remand for months for a simple case of shoplifting. That is not what we on this side of the chamber want to see. Our system should not be about repeating the mistakes that led to the tragic death of Veronica Nelson. But we must be very clear that our corrections system exists for a reason, and that is to protect our community from violent offenders. It is about protection, it is about deterrence and, most importantly – and I think our community gets this – it is about rehabilitation. If you ever go ahead and speak to a victim of crime, yes, they want that perpetrator of the crime to be punished, but actually most of all they wish that it had not happened in the first place. That is why rehabilitation and prevention and diversion away from criminal activity are just so very important, and that is why there are substantial increases in investment into those particular services and organisations that are doing that very important work.

I note just last week my community in Brimbank held a community police forum, which my great friend and colleague the amazing member for St Albans, who is here at the table today, attended. I heard that it was a great conversation, with a lot of questions raised, and the police were able to provide a lot of information and reassurance for the local community. We also had, surprisingly – I think it was the first time they had turned up – the local Liberals in attendance as well as the member for Caulfield, who from what I have heard might have been a bit embarrassed when a particular local Liberal volunteer started promoting the adult crime, adult time policy that the Crisafulli LNP government in Queensland have adopted. I certainly hope, after the member for Caulfield appeared so embarrassed by that, that those opposite do not adopt this as their policy going into the next election. Our local police –

Members interjecting.

Sarah CONNOLLY: No, get this, you will like this bit. You will like this, because it sparked some interest from those opposite in talking about how potentially that could be their policy. The local police in Brimbank completely shot down that idea. Do you know what else? They said it would not work.

There is more reform to come for our corrections system than just bail reform. This portfolio is also about the ongoing management of offenders when they enter the prison system and, more importantly, when they eventually leave the prison system. That is what this bill is all about. One of the biggest changes in this bill is an increase in penalties for inmates who assault custodial officers – and so there should be. Currently there is a presumption in the Sentencing Act 1991 that requires sentences for prison offences to be served cumulatively. What that means is that offenders will spend more time for crimes committed in custody. However, we are not always seeing this, and it is clear that the legislation requires greater clarity on this point so that we do not have offenders not serving that additional time.

This is not just about punishing criminal behaviour. Folks who work in our prisons deserve to be safe at work, just like any other worker, and these incidents are often, sadly and tragically, quite significant. They cause ongoing health impacts and trauma and often require specialised support and treatment. Like I said at the outset of my contribution today, this is not an easy job; it is a tough job, and I do not think you have to work in it to know it is a tough job. For those that work in it, they live and breathe it and they know it is tough, but I would also say they know it is rewarding work. If we want to hire more staff to work in our prisons, which we need to do, they need to know that if their safety is put at risk – and it is a risk to work with violent offenders – there are punishments and there are deterrents in place so that their safety is not compromised. This is really important, and this is what this bill does so well. The bill is going to remove the ambiguity and it is going to clarify that offences that cause injury to custodial officers are prison offences, which in turn ensures that those sentences are cumulative. The message we are sending to inmates is absolutely crystal clear: if you commit a crime, you will – make no mistake – serve more time.

Of course the bill does more than just this. It is also going to implement recommendations made by a statutory review of the Serious Offenders Act 2018. This legislation is the major framework for the post-sentence management of serious offenders, and we are talking here about not just your normal offender. These are violent, serious offenders and they are sex offenders who continue to pose an unacceptable risk of reoffending, but their sentences have expired. As part of the act there is also a statutory requirement to review the post-sentencing scheme to ensure that it remains effective. The previous review was completed in 2023 and it made 13 recommendations, and this bill before us today delivers on those that require legislative action. This includes changes like clarifying what actions police can take should they arrest a person who is suspected of having broken a condition of their supervision order, as well as things like information sharing and ensuring that the Post Sentence Authority importantly has Indigenous representation to address the needs of our First Nations Victorians who may fall within the scheme.

The bill makes a number of small but really important changes to ensure that our corrections system is operating efficiently and effectively. We have committed to expanding our prison capacity and hiring more prison staff. These changes in this bill today should give them the confidence they need that if they want to work in our prisons we will prioritise their safety at work. That is why I wholeheartedly commend this really fantastic bill to the house today.

Jess WILSON (Kew) (12:36): I too rise to speak on the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill ‍2025, and I might just start with a couple of comments that the member for Laverton made around the Crisafulli government. The Crisafulli government are seeing some very promising trends when it comes to the reduction of crime in Queensland since they came to government, and maybe it is time the Allan Labor government actually focused on the needs of Victorians, the priorities of Victorians, when it comes to community safety. There is a crime crisis in the state of Victoria under the Premier’s watch; in fact there has been a 19 per cent increase in crime since the Premier took over. Victoria has now reached the highest level of criminal incidents on record under the Allan Labor government. So instead of focusing on what other governments are doing around the country – governments that are actually taking a crime crisis seriously, putting community safety first and seeing green shoots when it comes to crime reduction in the state of Queensland – maybe the Allan Labor government could actually focus on community safety rather than trying to tear down other governments in this country which are doing the hard work and actually ensuring that community safety comes first.

The bill today establishes more severe penalties for prisoners who attack prison workers. We have heard today some very concerning statistics around the fact that in the past year alone there have been 442 assaults on staff, including 10 sexual assaults and six incidents requiring hospitalisation. These incidents not only endanger the lives of staff but also disrupt the security of the entire prison. The bill before us today seeks to amend the Serious Offenders Act 2018, the Sex Offenders Registration Act ‍2004 and the Corrections Act 1986, with the aim of ensuring that safety risks from serious offenders are appropriately managed, appropriately denouncing and deterring assaults on custodial workers and making minor amendments to parole and other provisions that are not operating as originally intended. I think the key point here is this is a bill that makes some moves towards protecting prison officers and ensuring that their safety is put first, but it really does only make minor amendments and does not go as far as those officers and those workers in our prisons would like to see.

The Serious Offenders Act is the legislative framework providing enhanced protection to the community by requiring offenders who have served custodial sentences for certain serious or violent sex offences to be subject to ongoing detention, while the Sex Offenders Registration Act establishes a legal framework to monitor individuals convicted of certain sexual offences, aiming to enhance community safety and prevent recidivism. The Corrections Act is the principal legislation governing the operation of correctional facilities in Victoria, including prisons and the management of offences.

There are many parts of this bill that the opposition believes are worthy of support, but of course, as with every piece of legislation that comes before this Parliament, there are many elements of concern, some of which I will come back to shortly. Most importantly, people have the right to feel safe in their workplace, and that is especially the case for those very hardworking Victorians who take on the tough job of working in the corrections space. These men and women, as we have heard from the data and as we have heard from the seriousness of the offences against these men and women, are suffering in our corrections system under the Allan Labor government’s watch. As I said, over the past year alone there have been 442 assaults on staff in our correctional system, including 10 sexual assaults and six incidents actually requiring hospitalisations. It is simply not good enough. That some of the measures in this bill will help to deter and prevent these types of incidents is worthy of support, but it does not go far enough.

In particular, there is great importance on strengthening the sentencing outcomes for individuals who cause injury to a custodial officer, ensuring that this act will be considered a prison offence and will attract the presumption of a cumulative sentence. It is very important, as a cumulative sentence will act as a deterrent to prisoners. Strengthening the operation of certain elements of the post-sentence scheme for serious sex offenders is also a sensible measure to ensure safety risks posed by these convicted offenders can be appropriately managed. However, it is concerning that the scope of this bill does not cover all staff working in a correctional facility, which seems a pretty significant oversight by the government, given the staffing requirements in these facilities. We have heard a lot today about the importance of retention and of attracting new staff into correctional facilities, but when the bill does not go far enough to protect the wide amount of roles within correctional facilities, you have to ask: is the Allan Labor government actually serious about protecting workers regardless of their role in the corrections system?

We know that the staff within our corrections system are very, very disappointed in the Allan Labor government. We saw that in a vote last month. There was a resounding 94 per cent no-confidence vote against the Corrections Victoria commissioner Larissa Strong. And these changes come as we know we are going to have a greater need for corrections workers. We know that we are going to see an influx. We dragged the government to the table when it came to somewhat strengthening Victoria’s bail laws – still not as strong as what they were when they changed them over a year ago – and we know that we are going to see an influx in prisoners. We know that the government has a plan to shut down Port Phillip Prison, and we know that there are not enough workers to manage this in the system. Yet we have the government today putting forward a half-hearted bill that does not actually deal with that fact and does not expand the definition of ‘worker’ within our corrections system. That is why I commend the work of the member for Caulfield in bringing forward an amendment that would expand that definition to ‘a custodial worker on duty or another person employed or engaged to work in a prison while working in the prison’.

I note that the union has been very, very clear in its support of this amendment, saying that it was told that the bill was okay but there needs to be more immediate consequences for assaulting an officer and that it does not go far enough in the definition of what a worker is in our corrections system. So we have a situation where the union is asking for the government to do more to protect the workers in this space – the very workers that they claim they are trying to keep in the system – and to attract new workers into the system.

As always, this is just another example of the Allan Labor government bringing forward a bill that relates to our criminal justice system but does not actually make the reform needed to not only keep our community safe but keep those hardworking corrections officers – those hardworking people who work within our corrections system – safe. We have seen time and time again that this is a government that is not serious about prioritising the need for community safety in this state. This government has overseen a crime crisis growing and growing, as I said earlier, to a record number of criminal incidents in Victoria. We have seen aggravated burglary and home invasion climb by over 160 per cent under the Allan Labor government. We have seen, under the Premier’s watch, crime increase by 19 per cent. Yet while all those statistics are readily available – and we hear day in, day out from those in our community telling us that they do not feel safe – what does the Allan Labor government do? They weaken Victoria’s bail laws. They have in place machete laws that do not actually ban the holding of a machete, despite the fact we have crime after crime in this state with people wielding machetes. People do not feel safe in their homes, and this is a government that is refusing to deal with the crisis.

Unlike the Allan Labor government, we will actually reform Victoria’s weakened bail laws, and I commend the member for Malvern for his immense amount of work. We will reinstate the offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail. We will require offenders to show a compelling reason to be granted bail again. We will remove the current exemption for youth offenders who breach bail again, and we will put in place tougher bail tests for robbery and burglary. That is the difference between the Allan Labor government and their weak bail laws, and a new, fresh government – a coalition government – that will actually prioritise community safety in this state.

Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (12:46): I rise to give my contribution on the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, which seeks to make changes to the Serious Offenders Act 2018 and the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 and addresses provisions of the Corrections Act 1986 that are not operating as originally intended. I think this is a good bill, unlike the member for Kew, who thinks that it does not address the issues that we currently are facing, or that present custodial officers are facing. It absolutely does. This bill is about their safety, their health, their wellbeing and also their mental health and wellbeing. Therefore it stretches out to their families, because if a prison officer is coming home from work stressed and anxious, et cetera, it is not good for their relationships at home. Going to work stressed, anxious, concerned, worried or frightened is not what we want people to be doing when they are doing such an amazing and important job. I believe this bill does exactly what the community would expect from a responsible government. It strengthens the way we manage serious offenders once they have served their time, it ensures our laws are doing what they were always meant to do and it sends a clear message that violence against custodial officers is never acceptable.

Through these reforms the bill delivers on several key recommendations from the review of the Serious Offenders Act 2018, reinforcing our post-sentence scheme to make sure it is working properly and protecting the public. These laws are about managing the ongoing risk posed by a small number of serious offenders, people who have committed some of the most serious crimes, and ensuring we continue to keep a close eye on them after they have left the prison system. I think handcuffing anyone for three months is not really focusing on the rehabilitation and the humanity that we should be focusing on with people in prison.

When it comes to public safety, we cannot afford to take chances. This legislation makes sure our monitoring systems are strong, our laws are clear and the community remains protected. One of the most important parts of this bill is the tougher response to assaults on custodial prison officers. These are people doing incredibly hard and often unseen work, managing some of the most complex and dangerous individuals in our prison system. I do not know how they do it, and I am very, very glad and grateful for their commitment and the work that they do each and every day and each and every night. Unfortunately, the data shows that too many times assaults on these workers have not resulted in further time being added to the offender’s sentence. That is not good enough. It sends the wrong message and does not reflect the seriousness of the work our prison officers do every single day. This bill changes that. It strengthens sentencing outcomes for people in prison who cause injury to custodial staff, making it clear that violence in our prison system is unacceptable and there will be consequences.

The bill also updates reporting requirements under the Sex Offenders Registration Act, making sure serious sex offenders in the post-sentence scheme continue to be subject to the appropriate levels of oversight. On top of all that, it makes a series of smaller but important technical amendments to ensure the Corrections Act is working as it should be – things like clarifying parole provisions and fixing unintended issues with the original legislation.

What gives me confidence in this bill is the extensive consultation that has taken place to get it right. The Department of Justice and Community Safety has worked closely with stakeholders right across the justice system, from Corrections Victoria and Victoria Police to the Adult Parole Board of Victoria, courts, health services and the Aboriginal Justice Caucus. That broad support reflects the real need for these reforms and the thoughtful work that has gone into them. I thank those that have done this crucial work to ensure that all the relevant bodies understand what is being changed.

Just delving a little bit deeper into some of the changes that I mentioned earlier, the Sex Offenders Registration Act is a really important tool to help keep the community safe. It means people who have committed sexual offences have to report certain details to Victoria Police, like where they live, where they work, if they wish to travel and where they are going to travel. This helps police keep track of them and step in early if needed, reducing the risk of further harm to the community. This bill also strengthens those rules, especially for people who are also under a post-sentence order under the Serious Offenders Act. These are people who have already served their time but who a court has decided still pose a risk to the community. Under the changes people on a post-sentence order for a serious sex offence will need to report their details for the entire time under the order and then continue to report their details for a further period of five years. That is a big improvement. It closes a gap that could appear once a post-sentence order finishes and ensures Victoria Police can keep monitoring high-risk individuals for longer. It also gives more peace of mind to the community knowing that the people who pose the highest risks are still being monitored and watched and the community is being kept safe. These changes are all about keeping people safe and making sure the system keeps working even after someone finishes their prison time and supervision. It is a smart move that shows we are serious about protecting the community from further harm.

When it comes to protecting our hardworking prison officers and custodial staff, this bill sets out to do just that, as I mentioned earlier. Between the start of 2024 and March 2025 there were around 330 ‍assaults on prison staff across Victoria. While the majority of these incidents, about 62 per cent, did not result in physical injury, they still involved troubling behaviour like shoving, throwing food or water or spitting – behaviour that is still unacceptable and causes stress and emotional harm to our workers. Unfortunately, there were also five cases where prison officers were hurt badly enough to have to go to hospital and required treatment. These attacks have serious consequences beyond the immediate harm. Prison officers often face ongoing physical and mental health challenges after such incidents. The costs involved with medical treatment and rehabilitation can also be significant. On top of this, repeated assaults make it harder for staff to feel safe and secure whilst doing such an important job.

Feeling safe at work is a basic right for everyone. That is why we are putting this bill forward to toughen up the penalties for people in prison who cause injury to custodial officers. The goal is clear: to protect the hardworking officers who keep our correctional facilities running safely and to deter violent behaviour within prisons. Currently the legal system around sentencing for these offences is a little bit unclear. The Sentencing Act 1991 says that sentences for prison offences, which are offences committed by someone already in prison, should generally be added on top of their existing sentence. However, there has been some uncertainty about whether offences causing injury to prison officers fall into this category, and because of this ambiguity courts have sometimes handed down concurrent sentences, which means the new offence is served at the same time as the original.

This bill fixes that loophole by making it clear that offences causing injury to prison staff are indeed prison offences and as a result these offences should lead to extra time being added to their original prison term, unless of course there are exceptional circumstances. This change will make sure that prisoners who assault custodial officers and cause injury face tougher and more appropriate consequences. And that is really the key word there: ‘consequences’. Knowing that they will serve extra time really should be a deterrent to causing any harm. One would like that they did not cause any injury at all to custodial officers, but knowing that there are severe, hard, real consequences should deter people from making the wrong decisions. These reforms send a strong and important message: assaulting prison officers is completely unacceptable and will be met with serious punishment. Protecting the safety and wellbeing of our corrections workforce is essential, and this bill is a step forward in ensuring that those who harm prison staff are held fully accountable for their actions and appropriately dealt with. By making the legal framework clearer and more consistent, this legislation also gives custodial staff more confidence that if something happens to them the justice system will take it seriously.

In the very short time that I have left, I just want to quickly outline that there is $727 million in new funding for the corrections and youth justice system to ramp up capacity. Some of that funding will go to getting 700 new staff. We have also got extra capacity of 1000 maximum security beds in the corrections system. Quite frankly, the Allan Labor government is doing what is needed to keep the community safe. I commend the bill to the house.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (12:56): As members before me have said, the intent of this bill is noble and it is one that stakeholders support. But it does fall short, which is why the member for Caulfield has done a huge amount of work in preparing the amendments that he has presented, which I will get to perhaps in the 3 minutes that I have – maybe I will, maybe I will not. The Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025 does not go far enough, and we have seen this as a bit of a habit and a pattern of behaviour with the Allan Labor government. It is much like the bail laws that are supposedly the toughest in Australia but still fall chronically short of where we were.

We have also heard members talk about the scale of violence in Victorian prisons. That additional investment that the member for Hastings was talking about, I would suggest, is going to go towards fixing a lot of infrastructure and mould issues in the likes of Barwon Prison. Staff are definitely going to be needed. If Port Phillip Prison is going to be closed, Western Plains is going to be populated. But who is going to want to work in an environment where 442 assaults on staff occurred last year, including 10 sexual assaults and six that led to hospitalisations? It does not sound like a safe workplace to me. At the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre alone there were 69 assaults, and that occurred amid severe staff shortages. There was a no-confidence vote as well, and that was just because of unsafe conditions. These are things we are seeing more and more often. It is actually quite alarming. I did see the news today about the firefighters and their no-confidence vote, but that is another matter.

Why the member for Caulfield has moved these amendments is because he argues the bill must go further to protect all workers within the prison system, not just prison guards, which is ultimately what the bill is doing. They could be health professionals, cleaners, teachers or administration staff. There are a plethora of additional staff that work throughout prisons, and they also face those risks, the same as the prison guards do. The amendment to clause 30 will expand the coverage to cover all of that off. Obviously there are the new handcuff clauses as well for practical in-prison safety.

Just quickly in the very short time that I have left, this is something that we feel in Mildura. Going through the crime stats – and no doubt it is not going to be a pretty picture tomorrow when the latest round of crime statistics is released – in Mildura we have the third-lowest safety ranking among Victorian –

The ACTING SPEAKER (Iwan Walters): Order! In accordance with standing orders, I interrupt debate. The house will resume at the ringing of the bells.

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

Business interrupted under standing orders.