Wednesday, 30 July 2025

Bills

Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed.

Paul MERCURIO (Hastings) (14:59): It is good to be back after lunch and to continue on with whatever it was I had begun to say. What I did start talking about was the irony that this bill is about post and boast. Obviously there are some tragic consequences and there is some real negativity about it. But we are leaders by example, and we post and boast ourselves every day. The irony of that is pretty interesting. I do not mind when I post and boast, because I use it to talk about community benefits. I use it to talk about how we can help people with power saving bonuses, discounts for veterans, school saving bonuses, school breakfast clubs and the like. When I post and boast it is talking to my community about where they can get the assistance they need, such as free pharmacy care, free dental for kids, free glasses for kids, free school breakfasts, discounted school uniforms, priority primary care centres and the like.

These are really important things, and using social media in all its forms in this way is absolutely fantastic, because people will not necessarily know what they can do. Unfortunately they do not tune into Hansard, for which I do not really blame them. But they can come on to my socials and indeed our socials and listen to us post and boast about free secondary school degrees, free nursing and midwifery degrees, free urgent care clinics, free rego for Victorian apprenticeships, free PT for under-18s, helping more people get into first homes, capping council rates and more security for renters. There is lots of great news out there, and I think that is a really good thing for us to remember.

I have boasted a little bit on a few things that the Labor government is doing for our community and the hard work that each of us – and I include everyone in the chamber – does for our community, which is really important. But there is the negative side of social media. I would certainly love to get off social media if I could. I get a sense of anxiety when I wake up in the morning and look at who is saying what on Facebook, and whilst 95 per cent of it is pretty positive, there is the other side of it. People choose to weaponise it and only say negative things.

I started talking before lunch about the relationship between humour and tragedy when we tell our stories, and I am looking at this slightly humorous side of how we post and boast. But the tragic side is having to bring in a law like this to stop people denigrating other people, to stop people harming other people. We need to bring in a law like this, but people should know better. I do not understand why generally young people, but not always young people, think posting and boasting on social media is a good idea. They obviously think it is fun. I cannot see how it is fun. It is tragic. The consequences are tragic. I think about a lot of people that I have met that were career criminals in their younger days, and they came to the realisation that they wanted to be part of a group. They wanted to run with a team. They wanted support; they wanted likes. They wanted to belong to some sort of family, and unfortunately that family had criminal history and implications. But as they got older they realised that it was not fun, that doing things just to get likes was pretty pointless. I wonder too if they realised how stupid they were, and I have got to say people posting and boasting is gloriously stupid, because at the end of the day they are just giving the police all the evidence they need. They do not have to do all that work and can just take them into the courts. They will get charged, go through the court system and hopefully be dealt with.

Do we actually need post-and-boast laws? I think it is a great idea because I love the idea that someone who is so stupid as to post and boast about their criminal activity will get caught, get charged and go to jail for it and then get another two years on top because they were so stupid as to post what they were doing. I just love the irony in that. Shakespeare would be rolling over in his grave and wanting to write a whole play about that. I do not know how it works. But the other side of it is: will post-and-boast laws stop crimes being committed? Sadly, no. That is another thing. We can talk about prevention, and that is one of the things that I think this Labor government is doing really well. The idea of this reform is just one part of a broader effort to keep Victorians safe, but it is also about trying to prevent these things. How can we do that? New bail laws to deal with repeat offenders – we can do that. But we can also help people get away from wanting to join these sorts of organisations.

We can do this, and we can do it hopefully through free TAFE; free public transport, so that people can get around so they are not stuck in bad areas; as well as affordable health care, so that if people need that help they can get it rather than act up and play up; assistance in school camps, sports and excursions; and help with rising household bills and groceries. All of these things are there to help people and prevent them, one would hope, from going down the path of getting into criminal activity, and I think that is a really important thing.

A lot of talk from the opposition has mentioned the young kid that pushed the old man off the pier in Mornington. I just went online at lunchtime, and that footage is still up on the news. It is horrific. It is terrible. I do not know how anyone can be so callous and cruel and basically not care about someone else’s health or wellbeing, whether it be their physical wellbeing or their mental health and wellbeing. I also want to point out that there has been a lot of uproar from the other side about that, but that kid was 14. He was charged, he went to court, he was dealt with. Do we want someone like that, doing a stupid act, going to jail for two years? No, because we are talking about trying to keep people out of that system, which is going to make them hardened. They are going to come out of that system, and they are going to have more friends who want to post and boast and talk about all this stuff. They are going to come out and go, ‘Well, I’m going to become more famous now and do more of that stuff.’ We do not want those kids in prison. This post and boast does not cover that situation, and I think it is fair enough that they get caught and they get treated and they are dealt with appropriately.

There is one thing I just want to talk about quickly as we run out of time. To those thinking about filming crime for likes, know this: you will face serious consequences. This is not just a matter of bad taste, it is a crime. I find it difficult that people are doing this for fame. I would like to think I know a little bit about fame. It is a pretty vacuous thing. People would ask me a lot of times how I felt about being famous, and I would say, ‘Well, you know, I would go to the film festival and I would be photographed and people would scream at me and I would do autographs,’ although this was quite a few years ago. I would then go to the event, I might present and then go to the party and hobnob with everyone. But then at the end I would go out the back entrance and catch the train home.

People see it as they want, but the fact is this: if you post and boast because you think you are going to get fame, you are a stupid person, because you have just posted your criminal activity and you will be sitting in jail for five, 10, 15 years, plus two years for posting, and no-one will remember you. There is no such thing as fame in that sense. So do not destroy your life by being stupid.

I think this is a good bill. It is not going to solve all the issues with crime, but I think hopefully it might get people to think a little bit more about what they are doing. I commend the bill to the house.

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (15:08): I am more than happy to make a contribution to the Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025, or as it has become known, the post and boast bill. This is something that I have worked on at length since it became a real issue in the electorate of Mildura. The Leader of the Opposition has visited Mildura a couple of times based on the issues that we have had in our electorate, where the posting of crimes, usually crimes committed by young people, have been circulated on different social media platforms, predominantly Snapchat. But we know once it is out there on the old internet it spreads very, very quickly and ends up everywhere. And I agree with the member for Hastings that if you are posting these videos for fame, it is incredibly stupid.

It used to be that you would worry where cameras are. Well, cameras are everywhere now and people film everything, so why would you post your own evidence against you? I will tell you why they do, and it is because these young people in particular know that not only are there no consequences for the crimes that they are committing – they might get a slap on the wrist, if that – but they can post it, they can get away with it and they get huge amounts of likes, they get shares and they get no consequences in the youth justice system.

That is why they do it. Will this bill stop that? No. Some of the videos that I have seen locally include numerous public places that children frequent. I saw one yesterday where the two children involved were eight and 11. I have a 10- and a 7-year old. I can tell you that if I saw one of my children having that sort of act committed upon them, it would be my wrath they would have to face because there are no consequences, especially when it gets posted on Snapchat for everyone to see and then ends up on Instagram and can sometimes end up on the nightly news.

About 18 months ago there was another incident where this happened. They were teenagers in this case, but the PTSD that was suffered by the victim in that crime is still there. There is still the fear of going into these public places now because those that committed the crime have faced absolutely zero consequences. Guess what the crimes committed were – assault. Guess what is not included in this bill – assault, which just makes the mind boggle. And we see this all the time. The news channels have featured this numerous times, and the videos that are most predominant in this area are kids beating up other kids – it is assault, so why on earth is that not covered in this bill? We support the Shadow Attorney-General in his amendments, which would add the following offences to the list of relevant offences: causing serious injury intentionally in circumstances of gross violence, causing serious injury recklessly in circumstances of gross violence, assault, destroying or damaging property and under the Road Safety Act 1986 dangerous driving. People hooning in their cars are not included in this bill when that conduct is in the videos that I have seen and that community members have presented to me. Assault and hoon driving is the content that gets the shares, and that is why they get posted, so why on earth they have not been included in this bill is beyond me.

I want to talk about again – I bring this up every chance I get in this chamber, and it seems like it is on a weekly basis recently – the police that work incredibly hard to arrest some of the offenders. They call it a rinse-and-repeat style of justice because they will arrest the offenders, because they know who they are, especially in small regional towns; often it is very, very small groups of repeat offenders that know that there are no consequences for their actions. But you have police members who are run off their feet doing this kind of stuff. It is a rinse and repeat: they come in through the station, out through justice and they are back out on the street in 24 hours. Those offenders, let me remind you, are then offered every support service that they can possibly be offered – mind you, I have had a couple of police members say that when you lift that veil there is nothing there. I have had contact in the last week that the western region health and wellbeing hub, which has had mental health clinicians embedded within Victoria Police stations – this has only been there for 12 months – has been defunded. Any of that mental health support that was supposed to help with WorkCover claims – these were the reasons that it was implemented in the first place: return to work, WorkCover claims, mental health support – there was a recognition initially that these health and wellbeing hubs would be able to support Victoria Police members, both sworn and unsworn, with the mental health support that they needed after having to deal with crimes such as these, like I said, sometimes with children as young as eight years old, sometimes younger than that.

That support has been ripped out over the winter break, and it is absolutely disgusting. How on earth can we offer all of the support services to these offenders that are causing the trauma and the PTSD and causing Victoria Police members to need that mental health support? It has been there for 12 months, and not only was it recommended in the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, it was also covered off in a Victoria Police review in 2018 and an IBAC and a Victorian Ombudsman report before that. So three different reports and reviews have recommended embedded mental health clinicians in Victoria Police stations, particularly in the regions. It gets implemented for 12 months so they can tick that box, and all of a sudden, with six weeks notice, the mental health clinicians and the injury management consultants that have been employed and embedded into those stations are now out of a job. There are 20-plus people now in the regions that offer support to Victoria Police that have lost their job in the last six weeks. How is that supporting Victoria Police to do their job?

We hear in this place from the other side how much is being invested into Victoria Police and how well they are supported. I can tell you that is utter rubbish, utter rot. Again, we see Victoria Police getting the raw end of the stick, with the health and wellbeing hubs, the mental health clinicians and injury management consultants being ripped out of stations after only 12 months. And within those 12 months in relation to the improvements and the support that these mental health clinicians have offered and the results they have seen, I have been presented with a proposal and some case studies and testimonials from Victoria Police members about why they should remain, but there is silence – complete utter silence – from this government, who just refuse to support Victoria Police members.

These post-and-boast laws that we are debating this afternoon do not go far enough. Once again, this is repeat behaviour by the Allan Labor government – it simply does not go far enough. Of course we support the Shadow Attorney-General in some pretty simple amendments to add those offences that are the most commonly seen published across digital platforms and across the mainstream media, such as assault, such as dangerous driving, such as destroying and damaging property and such as causing serious injury intentionally and recklessly in circumstances of gross violence. I will say it again: why on earth were they not included in this bill in the first place? I have a mantra which I am sure you have heard me say plenty of times before: if you are going to do something, do it right the first time.

Katie HALL (Footscray) (15:18): I am really pleased to make a contribution to the Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025, and I would like to take this opportunity at the commencement of my contribution to respond to some of the things raised by those opposite, including the Shadow Attorney-General’s hideous example of the young people who filmed themselves pushing an elderly man off the pier on the Mornington Peninsula and his claims that those offenders would not be captured by these reforms. They were charged with affray, not section 31 assault, therefore they would be covered by this amendment. I would also like to comment on the contribution of the Greens. It is extraordinarily hypocritical for the Greens political party to come into this place to simultaneously condemn –

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Katie HALL: Well, they turned up – it is not a Friday – to condemn the recent attacks against the LGBTI community that have been egregiously posted about and at the same time oppose a bill that would deliver consequences to those people.

The community that you seek to speak on behalf of have specifically asked for this reform, so it is disappointing but not unsurprising to see this sort of grandstanding from the Greens yet again.

Performance crime, or posting and boasting, as has been mentioned, refers to people posting, usually via social media, their involvement in serious and violent offences such as armed robbery, theft of a motor vehicle, home invasion or affray. I find this sort of thing sickening. I think about when I worked for Victoria Police in their media unit. This was early on, I suppose, in terms of the evolution of social media, and at that time it was police who used the footage that we had available to us from CCTV to try and find offenders, not offenders outing themselves for some sort of added sick validation that they get through the attention they get for committing these crimes. Performance crime can create an environment for aspirational crime. It can encourage others to offend, particularly amongst young people. It can invite competition and escalate dangerous offending behaviour. The use of social media to boast about crime of course – and this has been mentioned numerous times – can trivialise the harm caused to victims and the community and really does retraumatise victims. In recognising these harms, the Allan Labor government is seeking to outlaw this behaviour by introducing a new standalone offence into the Crimes Act 1958. The offence will carry a maximum penalty of two years in prison and will require that the offender be found guilty of the underlying serious offence before they can be found guilty of a performance crime. Criminal behaviour, particularly violent crimes, should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. There is never an excuse for inflicting harm on others.

I know during some challenging times locally that have been well documented in my community of Footscray – I want to reiterate my very strong support for Footscray police and the work of our police officers. Because everyone has a camera in their pocket now, I know that the filming of these incidents can often have a really adverse effect on the mental health and wellbeing of the police officers as well that are involved in these matters. Recording your crimes for social media shows an absolute lack of remorse. It humiliates victims and generates unnecessary fear in our community. It must be stated that this offence only applies to perpetrators or direct accomplices to the crime; bystanders, journalists or victims recording a crime taking place are not subject to this offence. This offence applies very specifically to offenders recording their crimes for the purpose of drawing attention to their involvement.

We know that crime is an issue that many Victorians and indeed many in my community are worried about. We want to send a clear message that this sort of unapologetic and brazen offending is not tolerated in Victoria. Victims should not have one of the most traumatic moments of their lives spread across social media. These laws have been introduced in response to a clear trend surrounding youth offending, particularly in relation to certain offences. This is a novel law responding to novel crimes. The Allan Labor government has sought to apply performance crime to specific offences rather than all offences to ensure that the new laws are proportionate, effective and enforceable. The crimes applicable are high-risk and high-impact crimes that are increasing in prevalence, particularly among young offenders, and are increasingly being boasted about on social media.

Posting and boasting about offences that are not relevant offences may be covered by existing Victorian and Commonwealth laws, including grossly offensive public conduct or using a carriage service like social media to menace, harass or cause offence. As is the case currently, this conduct may also be treated as an aggravating factor in sentencing for the substantive offending. Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory have also introduced performance crime offences. This reflects a worrying trend that young offenders are using social media across the country to glorify their crimes. Our government wants to be crystal clear: this is unacceptable and absolutely deserves punishment.

The impact that crime, particularly violent crime, can have on individuals, families and communities cannot be understated. Victims of crime also have the right to expect privacy. Having your trauma blasted over the internet is the furthest thing from that. Importantly, crime should never be seen as trendy or an opportunity to go viral. Carjacking, home invasion, aggravated robbery – these are all horrific offences. Offenders are imprisoned because their actions merit punishment, not likes or views. Behaviour that minimises or seeks to minimise the impact of that crime should absolutely be punished. A society that revels in the suffering of others is no society at all, and any person who thinks it is appropriate to inflict suffering or brag about it on social media undoubtedly belongs in a cell, for the protection of everyone else in the community. This is a pretty reasonable position and one that most Victorians would hold.

I would expect this bill to have an easy passage through this place into the other with those opposite, and particularly the Greens. I was appalled by the position of the Greens on this matter. In my community I have seen members of the Greens political party out protesting police. They like to pretend that they are on the side of victims of crime, but by opposing this bill they have shown their true colours. As usual, the Allan Labor government is sending a clear message that we are on the side of Victorians and victims of crime. Let us hope that everyone in this place practices what they preach and provides passage for a common-sense bill addressing crime in this state and a worrying trend of performance crime that we have all seen and we have all found to be abhorrent. I commend the bill to the house.

Jess WILSON (Kew) (15:28): I too rise to speak on the Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025. As has been discussed in the chamber today, this is a bill that seeks to deal with the alarming rise in what is known as performance crime, or posting and boasting, a type of crime that encourages others, and particularly young people, to undertake a crime and then put that on social media, in many instances, to share with others and encourage others to do similar acts and commit similar crimes, boasting about it amongst their cohort. The bill makes it a summary offence to:

publish or cause to be published material that depicts, describes or otherwise indicates the commission of a relevant offence by the person; and

undertake or cause that publication with the intention of attracting attention to the commission of that offence.

The bill includes an exhaustive list of relevant offences, which include theft of a motor vehicle, robbery, armed robbery, burglary, aggravated burglary, home invasion, aggravated home invasion, carjacking, aggravated carjacking, affray, violent disorder, incitement or attempt in relation to the above offences.

I should note from the outset that the Liberals and Nationals, the coalition, support the intent behind the bill before us today. This is, as I said, an area in which we are seeing an alarming rise in the number of incidents when it comes to posting and boasting about crime, particularly among youth offenders.

It is something that is very important when it comes to the broader crime issues that we are seeing rise in this state. I commend the member for Malvern for his extensive work in bringing forward to this chamber a number of important amendments that seek to actually strengthen the bill that the government has brought before us here today.

Victoria is in the midst of a crime crisis. Every single time we have the crime statistics released we see another rise in crime across this state. We are seeing there has been an alarming rise when it comes to the statewide 17 per cent rise in crime over the past 12 months and at the same time an 18 per cent increase in youth crime, with a 42 per cent increase over the past decade as we have had the Labor government here in Victoria. Can I just touch briefly on the impact this has on my own local community. Not a day goes by where I do not have someone contact me about a crime that has been committed against them, their family or their property. If I look at the statistics in my local community, in Boroondara total criminal incidents are up 29.6 per cent over the past 12 months. That is higher than the state average. If you look at residential aggravated burglary, it is up 66.8 per cent. Motor vehicle theft is up a staggering 152 per cent and retail theft is up 65.3 per cent.

It should be no surprise that crime has reached the highest level on record in Victoria since statistics began to be collected in this state. This is the consequence of not dealing with the surge in crime for years under the Allan Labor government. The Allan Labor government had to be dragged to the table to even admit there was a crime crisis in this state, for years refusing to acknowledge that so many Victorians were being impacted by crime and by the fact that in many cases youth offenders have a revolving door when it comes to bail in this state. Why is that the case? Because this government, the Labor government, weakened Victoria’s bail laws two years ago. And then what did they do? They realised the consequences of the weakening of those laws – they had ignored at the time the Liberals and Nationals amendments to that legislation to ensure that those laws would not be weakened and we would not see the consequences that we are seeing today – and then they brought in another raft of legislation to strengthen their own weakened bail laws, claiming that they are the toughest bail laws in the country. Yet they are weaker than the very laws that they changed two years ago. This week they bring in more laws to strengthen the so-called toughest bail laws in the country to once again make them the toughest bail laws in the country.

This is a government that has let the crime crisis in Victoria get out of control, and no further do we need to look than the bill before us here today. This is a bill that does not provide the important protections that Victorians would expect to see when it comes to this sort of crime, when it comes to posting and boasting. There are obvious loopholes under this bill where an offender could commit the relevant offence and, if they do not publish that material themselves, the offender could ask their friend to post material, which would have the exact same effect in glorifying criminal conduct without attracting the criminal liability that this bill is supposed to deal with. This is a bill that is weaker than laws that have come in in New South Wales or in Queensland. That is why the member for Malvern has moved a raft of amendments to this bill to ensure that it is strengthened and that it can actually achieve the purpose that it seeks to achieve. Those amendments will add the offences of assault, causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence, destroying or damaging property and dangerous driving as relevant offences for the purposes of the new law. Many of the instances that we see when it comes to posting and boasting are in relation to dangerous driving – in relation to hooning. Yet under the piece of legislation we are debating today that is not covered. It is the same when it comes to assault.

If we just look to the example of the teenage offender who pushed a man who was innocently going about fishing on a pier into the water, under this piece of legislation they are free to post and boast about that. How does this legislation deal with the very issue that it is meant to try and deal with? It has glaring loopholes, and that is why the member for Malvern moved the amendment to tighten the definition of publication to include where the offender publishes the material to even a single person. Further to that we see that under this piece of legislation it is essential that any imprisonment under the post-and-boast laws must be served cumulatively with any sentence for the offence which is being publicised, so the penalty will be an additional consequence. If an offender does not believe that posting about the offence that they have undertaken will be an additional offence, then where is the deterrent? What is the purpose of this piece of legislation? That is why the member for Malvern has moved the raft of amendments today, done the work and worked with stakeholders to ensure that the piece of legislation before us actually achieves the purpose that I think all of us in this place want to achieve.

But once again we are in a situation where this government will ignore the warnings from the Liberals and Nationals. They will not want to work constructively with us. They will not want to deal with the actual issue in this state. We saw it on the bail laws. We have seen it time and time again where we have warned the government about the consequences of certain pieces of legislation they have brought before us. We have moved amendments, and time and time again they have been ignored – the same when it comes to machetes in this state. We have moved legislation brought before this place, legislation that the government have then picked up and mirrored down the track when they realised it was a crisis, that it is impacting people, that Victorians do not feel safe, that they do not feel safe in their own homes and in their businesses. But it takes a rising crime rates year on year, month on month, day on day for this government to actually realise that this is an issue that Victorians want prioritised. This is an issue that the Allan Labor government has failed Victorians on; it has failed to keep them safe. It should be the number one duty of any government to keep people safe and to ensure that when they go home they feel safe in their homes, but under this government we have seen crime rates surge, and the legislation we have before us today is just one more example where they are failing to put in place strong laws – laws that will actually deter and prevent people from continuing to commit crime and crime again and actually ensure that Victorians are safe and are not put at risk – because this government, time and time again, fails to prioritise the safety of the Victorian people.

Kat THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (15:38): I am speaking in strong support of the Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025, and I thank the Attorney-General for her extensive work on this and for bringing it to the chamber. Keeping people safe is the first duty of a civil society and the first priority of us as legislators. One of the challenges that faces us in the modern world is that harm has become more complex, leveraging online platforms in a way and at a scale not seen before. So it is that a new kind of harm has crept into our streets and onto our screens: serious offending staged, filmed and shared for clicks; crime as content; pain as entertainment; fear as a sinister badge of honour. We are seeing this far too often now: cases where people are committing serious crimes and then sharing them online, posting and boasting. The performative nature of this is sickening, and it adds a whole new element to the trauma of offending. It glorifies it, it encourages others to emulate it and it prolongs the exposure of victims to the offence itself; in some cases it publicly identifies victims too, another compounding element that has an impact that we may never truly understand. This is serious behaviour with serious consequences.

Most of us as MPs have at least some experience of the sense of disempowerment and anguish that can occur when we are on the receiving end of some ridicule or other in the online world.

There is a particular awfulness associated with something that gets put online and exists out of your control and strips you of your sense of ownership, of your own identity. It is deeply dehumanising. As public figures, we weather this kind of thing. But imagine if it was not just online trolling; imagine it was a home invasion put up online for the anonymous, unforgiving gaze of the internet. That is something no-one should have to endure. That is why we have brought this performance crime amendment to the house. This bill says, clearly and calmly, that Victoria will not stand for it. As the Minister for Police put it, crime is not content, it is not entertainment, and it will not be tolerated.

The amendment creates a targeted standalone summary offence for posting and boasting about specific serious crimes. Acknowledging what I said before, it gives the courts the ability to recognise the additional harm and the additional culpability of offenders who publicise their crimes. A person who publishes material that is intended to attract attention to their involvement in a relevant offence, such as robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion, carjacking, theft of a motor vehicle, affray or violent disorder, can face up to two years imprisonment in addition to the penalty for the underlying crime. So, for example, if a person is found guilty of a home invasion and also the new performance crime offence, they may be sentenced to a maximum term of 25 years imprisonment in relation to the home invasion and up to two years imprisonment for the performance crime offence. To be liable, the person must first be found guilty of the underlying serious offence, which is important, because this is not about bystanders or journalists. The bill defines ‘publish’ broadly to capture the real ways content is shared online, making material available to the public or a section of the public, while excluding one-to-one private communications. It also captures situations where an offender causes someone else to publish on their behalf. There are, of course, important guardrails. It will not apply retrospectively, and it does not capture journalists, victims, concerned community members or witnesses who report or share material about crimes committed by others.

We know what is driving this abhorrent behaviour: a race for notoriety that normalises offending, invites copycat behaviour, trivialises harm and retraumatises victims. This targeted offence recognises that additional culpability and signals serious consequences. It is a clear deterrent message to would-be copycats, and it is a measure of respect to victims whose suffering should never be a backdrop for likes and clicks.

It is important to note that the rise of post-and-boost offending is not theoretical. In the past year gay and bisexual men around Australia have been lured via dating apps, assaulted, robbed and filmed, with footage then posted to social media. Police in multiple states have investigated these patterns. In Victoria the numbers are sobering. Media interviews with Victoria Police and community health leaders describe dozens of attacks, many perpetrated by teenagers, some involving weapons, with victims traumatised twice, first by the assault, then by the online humiliation. Equality Australia has also confirmed that attacks on the queer community have escalated in recent years, and harassment, discrimination and violence shockingly remain a lived experience for many. That goes to the heart of what we are debating – not just crime but the amplification of harm and repetition through publication. Let me be unequivocal: these homophobic attacks are vile, cowardly and unacceptable. To film and publish them is to compound the cruelty. This bill draws a clear line: if you weaponise the internet to glorify your offending there will be consequences.

I know some have argued that these hateful crimes would not be encapsulated by the new laws, and I dispute that. I invite those opposite to go back and take a look at the actual charges laid for many of these crimes, including for the 35 individuals that Victoria Police have arrested in recent months for luring men into violent attacks. They include armed robbery, they include violent disorder, they include affray. What we are capturing here, what we are targeting, is the kind of dangerous and violent public offending that is of growing community concern and increasing in prevalence, particularly among young offenders.

This bill does not stand alone; it sits within a wider community safety agenda. In the 2025–26 budget the government invested $176 million to address the drivers of crime, including $135 million for rehabilitation and reintegration programs for young people, early intervention, diversion, education, training and employment, because the best outcome is a crime that never happens in the first place.

We have also modernised youth justice law, trialled electronic monitoring for young people on bail, strengthened anti-vilification and social cohesion reforms and progressed improvements to stalking and family violence intervention order law. Importantly, we have acted to choke off weapons that turn dangerous ideas into deadly acts, with a ban on machete sales and strict possession frameworks. The message is consistent: smart prevention, fair accountability and community safety first.

For Northcote this is not abstract: our high streets buzz late; our artists, hospo workers and shift workers head home on foot, on bikes, on the last tram. Recently right on our doorstep at Northland in Preston, families and workers witnessed a machete-laden brawl that led to hospitalisation, arrests and a full centre lockdown. Those scenes and the footage that followed magnified fear well beyond the incident itself. Our government has since moved to choke off access to these weapons, including fast-tracking machete controls. And because community safety is not just policing – I want Northcote to hear this – we are pairing accountability with prevention, backing diversion, mentoring and education. We will keep working with Victoria Police, local schools, youth services and traders so that people feel safer on the street, safer at the shops, safer on the tram and safer online.

Some legal stakeholders have raised concerns. The Law Institute of Victoria cautions that evidence of deterrence is still emerging and notes that courts can already treat posting as an aggravating factor. They stress the importance of diversion. We hear that, and it is precisely why our approach is targeted, proportionate, non-retrospective and paired with investment in prevention. I do acknowledge the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service has voiced broader concerns about overcriminalisation and the risk of disproportionate impacts. We respect this advocacy too, and balance is key here. This bill is practical, proportionate reform that will help police and courts deal with a very contemporary harm. The offence is carefully drawn; it applies only where the offender has been found guilty of the other serious offence, it excludes one-to-one communication and it does not capture journalists, bystanders or victims.

Victims of these broadcast crimes, often women, queer Victorians and multicultural communities, deserve the dignity of knowing their suffering will not be used as social media currency. That is exactly what this bill is doing. I have to mention that it is very disappointing and frankly deeply hypocritical that the Greens political party have spoken against this bill today. In one breath they have cited the recent attacks on the gay community and in the next they have opposed this bill and the law changes that this very community have explicitly sought from us. I think it is woeful and they need to do better. The test for any law is simple: does it make people safer and is it fair? This bill is both, and I do commend it to the house.

Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (15:48): I am pleased to rise today to talk on the Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025. It has been an interesting debate today. I give the member for Malvern credit on his contribution and the work that he has done and the amendments he has actually put forward on this bill. I think it has been long overdue, around crimes around social media. I have spoken in this chamber before on this topic. We have seen changes federally. The federal government have now made changes to protect children, which I think are good changes. But I also firmly believe that all social media accounts should be verified, therefore if you have a troll or someone with pretty bad intentions you know who that person is. That has probably got to happen at a federal level, I imagine. I do not think it will happen at a state level. But I think every jurisdiction across this country should be looking at those things.

It is interesting that the government has put this forward. I will speak to a few topics that have been raised today. I am not going to talk too much about the Greens, but let us just say this: thank goodness that lot are not in charge, because the contribution from the Greens was amazingly stupid. I have never heard so much rubbish. Their solution is: do nothing and everything will be okay.

That is phenomenally stupid. I have never heard so much rubbish in all my life, and I have heard a bit of rubbish in this chamber. But that was right up there, and I actually agree with the comments from the member for Northcote in what she said about the Greens. I think it was fairly accurate. What we basically have here is a bill that is coming into play that is meant to punish people that post stuff online, especially around theft, robbery, burglary, home invasion, carjacking, affray, violent disorder, incitement or attempt.

The problem, though, is that the government is missing a few things, and this goes to the member for Malvern and his amendments. I think the government should actually take note of these because, again, quite often over this side of the chamber we will put forward amendments not through malice, not to belittle the government, but to help the legislation, and I think it is very important. We have heard quite a few things today, but I will just go to the amendments. Basically the member for Malvern’s amendments are about causing serious injury intentionally in circumstances of gross violence, causing serious injury recklessly in circumstances of gross violence, assaults, destroying and damaging property and dangerous driving, and I do not see why the government will not include these in the post-and-boast legislation. I really do not. Today quite a few people have spoken about members of the public that have lured the gay community somewhere and then assaulted them or done various pretty violent acts against them.

I just take up the point that the member for Northcote made – that there were various offences that do apply to this bill, and I accept that. But there are probably offences that do not apply to this bill, like assault. I think the government should actually take this on board, because we see these assaults all the time, and I think the government needs to really consider this and say that expanding it to these other offences is not a bad thing. It is going to make the bill a better bill, and I think that is really important. We have seen it time and time again in this chamber. We come into this chamber and we see bills come forward, and maybe we put bills forward and the government knocks them back. But there are times in this chamber where we need to work together and we need to make bills better, and this is one of those times. The member for Malvern is not doing this because he thinks he is the smartest person in the room or anything like that; he is doing this because it strengthens the bill and makes it a better bill, and there is nothing wrong with that. We do not want to have to come back. We have seen it in this chamber a few times now.

I will just mention the Denyer bill and machetes. We introduced machetes bills four times, we introduced the Denyer bill and the government knocked those back and had to come back. Why don’t we actually get on the front foot and work on the amendments that the member for Malvern has put forward? They are actually good commonsense amendments. I hate seeing things online where people are videoing people being assaulted. I think the person videoing should actually be charged as well.

Paul Edbrooke interjected.

Wayne FARNHAM: The member for Frankston, the member for superheroes over the other side there, flies out of a plane. But we are talking about a serious topic, and maybe if there were more superheroes, member for Frankston, they would not be videoing assaults; they would actually help people out, and I think that is the point I am trying to make. Even the person videoing the person that is committing the assault should be charged as far as I am concerned. I grew up in a different era. We did not video stuff, we helped people, and I think society is seriously lacking that today. We have a bill in front of us today that we can make better. This can be a better bill, and there is no doubt that the member for Malvern has actually put forward some very, very good amendments.

One problem with the bill that the member for Malvern spoke to and I will speak to as well is the fact that if you get charged it does not extend your sentence. That is nuts. Why would it not extend the sentence if it is an actual offence? I am not a lawyer – I am not going to pretend to be a lawyer – but common sense would tell me that if we are introducing a bill to punish people, then surely there has to be some extension of the term that they are given. To me it does not make sense. It has got to be a deterrent. If you get charged with one of these offences and you get two years for the offence but nothing for the post to boast, then why have the law? Why don’t we actually extend that? That is a really, really important point. To me it makes no sense. If you want to clean up crime and you want these things to stop, and we do want these things to stop online, then you have to have some repercussions for the actions. To have no repercussions for the actions, to me, seems a little bit silly.

This comes into some of the amendments – the dangerous driving offence – that the member for Malvern has put forward. We all saw the video of the guys driving down Beach Road and someone was on their bicycle and they just turned into him. That is dangerous driving. That was posted online. It was disgusting it was posted online. But that comes into these amendments, and that is what we should be focused on. That is what the government should work with the opposition on, and I hope they do. I would love to see on Thursday when we have divisions that this actually gets through. It would be a nice change, I think, if Victorians sat back and looked at a whole chamber and said, ‘Yep, they all agree.’ It would be a nice change for Victorians to see that. I mentioned earlier the old fellow that was pushed off the pier – there is no consequence for that action, and that was sickening. You just heard those kids laughing when the fellow got pushed off the pier. A lot of these things, a lot of the amendments that the member for Malvern has put forward, the government should seriously consider, because they are commonsense amendments. They are not here belittling the government. They are here to strengthen the bill and a bill that I believe is important for all Victorians. I think we need to get it right at the start. The government have had their side on it. The opposition have put through our side on it, through the amendments, and I think the government really needs to listen. It will strengthen the bill. It will make it a better bill. It will make it better for all Victorians. And goodness knows we need to really clamp down on online behaviour. The amount of things we see online today is frankly disgusting, and I think this is a step in the right direction. But the member for Malvern has put forward the amendments for good reason, because the bill does not go far enough.

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (15:58): It gives me great pleasure to rise this afternoon and make a contribution in favour of the Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025. It is always a pleasure to follow the contribution of the future leader of the Liberal Party, the member for Narracan. He is the only one of them that can string a sentence together, so I reckon he will not be far off. I do think it is important –

Matthew Guy interjected.

Dylan WIGHT: Sorry, Matty, yesterday’s news. I do think it is important, though, to pick the member for Narracan up on one point, and I know the member for Footscray picked up the member for Malvern on the same point. On the young offenders that have been spoken about down on the Mornington Peninsula, who filmed that absolutely horrendous act of pushing an old man off a pier, it has been said that those young offenders would not be captured by this legislation. I would never accuse the member for Malvern, nor the member for Narracan, of purposely misleading people. I will just assume that they got this one wrong. Those young offenders were charged with affray, so that means that they would absolutely be captured under this piece of legislation, as they should be, because that act was absolutely abhorrent and those young offenders deserved to be dealt with the full force of the law.

Getting to the contents of the bill, one of the uglier trends that we are now seeing with certain offenders here in Victoria committing serious crimes is them posting about it and boasting about it online, filming their despicable acts and posting them online. Whether it be their ridiculous fights, porn, assaults, break-ins, it is all turned into content.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.