Tuesday, 2 December 2025

 James NEWBURY (Brighton) (15:03): I rise to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Community Safety) Bill 2025. I want to say at the outset that the coalition will not be opposing this legislation. We will not be opposing this legislation because we believe that this government has got it wrong for too long in addressing the community crime crisis that is gripping our state. But you see this bill that has come to the chamber today, a bill that has only come about, frankly, because of front pages of newspapers, and you have to ask yourself: how did we get here? How did we get to a place where a government who has done everything they humanly can to avoid acting on crime and getting tough on crime can immediately do an about face, in contrast to every supposed ideological principle they have, to bring about a bill that – in theory, if you listen to the Premier – gets tough, but secretly we know that what this bill does is not very much, not enough. It is not tough enough. It is weak and it is full of loopholes, partly because it is rushed, but also partly because this government does not really want to get tough on crime.

Every time I stand to speak on a government-proposed amendment on community safety I say very early on that it does not matter what the government tells you they are doing on crime, it does not matter what the government tells you they are doing to act on the crime crisis that is gripping our state, it will not be fixed by what the government and this Premier is proposing to do today, because at the end of the day we know that this government does not want to fix it and ideologically will not be able to fix it.

When you look at the bill that is before the Parliament today, it is a gross betrayal of Victorians’ trust, even in the two weeks since the government announced the bill. I will go into some detail why that is the case, though I do note that the government is so embarrassed by the substance of this bill that they will push it through this chamber in under 2 hours. In less than 2 hours the government will be guillotining – forcibly stopping – debate on this bill. Not at the end of today, but in 2 hours, because they are so embarrassed to debate this bill that they will guillotine it, force a vote and push it out of this chamber. It will not be debated today in the Council by the way, because if it was urgent, it would be in the Council half an hour afterwards. It is going to sit and collect dust until Thursday. It is going to sit there until Thursday. Can it be debated in half an hour in the Council, at 5:30 today? It could be, but it will not be because the government is so embarrassed they want to get this bill through the chamber as quickly as possible, without anywhere near the attention and scrutiny that it deserves.

I will say one small, tiny, nice thing, so let it not be said that I cannot say something nice. The Attorney briefed me on this bill, and it is the first time the Attorney has briefed me on something, so I do pay her regard for briefing me on the bill. Sadly, I will now tell the truth about the briefing in terms of the substance of the briefing. I did not find, unfortunately, there were many answers to important questions that were asked, and I will go through that.

When I asked about consultation, I was not provided with a single instance where the substance of the bill – that is, the bill itself – was shown to anybody to be consulted. When I got the bill I sent it to important stakeholders in the broader community, and any who had time to come back to me, and I thank them, did note that no-one consulted them. I am not talking about organisations that you would not expect to be consulted. I am talking about organisations that frankly should, as a matter of course, be consulted. I will note that the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) and the Federation of Community Legal Centres were both very kind providing their insights into the bill in the very short space of a few hours. It is very important to note on the record that the law institute and the Federation of Community Legal Centres were both very kind in providing their assessment, and I will speak to some of the specifics that they went to.

We have seen a bill introduced in this chamber that, in my view, breaches the promise that the government and the Premier more specifically gave to Victorians only two weeks ago. Victorians will remember two weeks ago the Premier holding an emergency press conference and mustering all the strength that she had never found to show how strong she was: ‘I am going to be tough on community safety and we are going to introduce adult time for adult crime in Victoria. Everyone look at Queensland, because we are going to introduce it in Victoria.’ I think Victorians were expecting a regime of adult time similar to Queensland’s –

Danny O’Brien interjected.

James NEWBURY: You would think, Leader of the Nationals, when you are introducing a regime and ripping the name off the Queensland model, that is what you would see in Victoria.

Danny O’Brien interjected.

James NEWBURY: Maybe, Leader of the Nationals, but what we have seen is a regime that has nothing much more of the Queensland model than the name. Frankly, the government has simply tried to pass off a product in Victoria that is tough like Queensland but is as weak as water. That is the problem with this legislation – it is as weak as water. But when the Premier made her announcement, she announced that eight crimes were going to be identified and fall under her policy for adult time – eight crimes. When you look at the press release – eight big bullet points in bold – you think, ‘Right. What they’ve done is they’ve modelled the Victorian system off Queensland.’ What they did in Queensland, for background, is they took 33 crimes and they said, ‘We are going to identify these crimes as serious because we have a crime crisis in Queensland. We will identify 33 crimes as serious, and when we do it we won’t just identify them as serious, we will also significantly increase the penalties – because they are serious.’ So for many of the offences they doubled the maximum sentences – massively increased the sentencing regime for those crimes.

When the Premier went out to announce her policy, the first point I made was: hang on, there are eight of the 33 in Queensland. You can understand why a couple may not transfer. Our laws are different, and certain offences in Victoria are dealt with separately, so it is not a straight translation of 33 – but eight? We are at a quarter of what Queensland is doing by way of the regime. Victorians could be forgiven for thinking the bill that is before the house designates those eight crimes as serious. That is a fair and reasonable assumption. Yet it designates five. We have lost three, and one of the five has not got an increased penalty. Of the eight the Premier identified herself in her press release with her big, bold writing and dot points, only five are designated as serious, to use the Queensland terminology, but only four of them have had an increased sentence – so only half of what the Premier passed off as being the core of her policy actually have an increased sentence. It is astonishing to think that the Premier can have so tricked Victorians with her policy announcement.

Steve Dimopoulos: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, impugning a member and saying the Premier tricked anybody – she has just worked hard every single day –

James NEWBURY: That is a point of debate.

Steve Dimopoulos: No, it is not. That language is not a point of debate. She has worked hard every single day to protect this community, and that is what we are doing.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Meng Heang Tak): There is no point of order.

James NEWBURY: There is no point of order, because it is true. As I said, the Premier tricked Victorians, passed off getting tough on crime with those eight crimes, but has only designated five of the eight as serious and only four have increased sentences. I will get to the recruitment promise separately, but to go through the Crimes Act 1958 reforms – and I have specifically referred to the eight originally promised – there are five designated offences, four with increased sentences. Now we will get to the other three, because it is worth mentioning what happened to the other three. I know I have just said one of them – one of them has not had an increased sentence – but ‘What happened to the other three?’ you ask. Two of them are only increased in terms of jurisdictional hearing if they are serious and repeated. That means that if you commit those crimes once it is not serious necessarily or repeated, and therefore that has gone from the list. It has dropped off from what a normal Victorian would have read and heard from the Premier’s initial announcement. The final one is carjacking, which the government says also has got an increased jurisdiction. This is where it gets very, very interesting, because only in crooked Victoria could –

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: I do not hate Victoria, Minister. But I will tell you what, this government is crooked to the core, Minister. And only in Victoria could this crooked little government propose a policy reform called ‘adult time for adult crime’ and allow the offender the right to opt out of being treated as an adult. The chamber has gone silent. I cannot hear a Labor member defending that. So a carjacker –

Members interjecting.

Paul Mercurio: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member for Brighton is being particularly nasty, and I would ask you to ask him to stop being nasty.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Meng Heang Tak): It is not a point of order, but I do ask members to speak to the bill.

James NEWBURY: Exactly, Acting Speaker. So what this legislation says at new section 157B is that a carjacker can decide to ask that they not be treated as an adult. So we are introducing and dealing with a proposed piece of legislation –

Steve Dimopoulos: I think you’ve misrepresented it.

James NEWBURY: No, not true. We have a piece of legislation before this place where an offender can make a request. And of course it is not a simple tick and flick – there will have to be reasons around that request being approved – but nevertheless it exists. Nevertheless, it exists that offenders will have effectively a right of request. But that says everything about Victoria, and you can understand why Victorians would be looking at this bill now and saying, ‘Well, we can see why this bill is being rushed through the Parliament.’

I mentioned earlier the government’s commitment on recruitment of people into crime. When the government made that announcement they committed to life for recruiters of criminals – serious, serious penalties for the recruitment of criminals – and from memory, the announcement was made the day after the adult crime policy was announced. This bill includes a new sentence for recruiters, lifting the maximum from 10 to 15 years. Now, I did ask the Attorney-General about that, because clearly 15 years is not life, as promised by the Premier only two weeks ago. And she said, ‘We’re going to create another offence next year. We’re doing this now. It’s something – it’s an uplift – and then we’re going to create another offence next year for aggravated recruiting. So we’re going to do a little something now and a little something later. We can’t tell you when, but at some stage.’ I will tell you what, when it comes to community safety there is a lot of ‘We’re going to do something later at some stage.’ So the bill also does that.

The bill also deems theft of a vehicle where a child under 10 is inside the car to be a carjacking. We have seen horrific crimes where, as the Attorney said to me, in many instances the carjacker did not even know the child was in the car; that may well be true, but they are horrific crimes. I would make the point that I made to the Attorney, which she accepted as legitimate but could not explain why it was the case: what will now occur in Victoria, because kidnapping was not included under this policy as it was in Queensland, is that if a youth offender kidnaps a child from anywhere other than a car, they will be dealt with in the Children’s Court and the sentence will be dished out at a lower level in the Children’s Court. So if there is a kidnapping from a pram on a street, it will go to the Children’s Court and the Children’s Court will mete out the penalty at a lower level. But if that same youth offender kidnaps the child in a car through carjacking – by definition, kidnapping in a car – their case will be heard in an adult court and they will face a very, very serious penalty.

In no way am I suggesting they should not, because they absolutely should. But are we now at the stage where legislation is so ill thought through that mistakes of that nature can occur, where kidnapping in a car is dealt with in an adult court at a much higher rate of maximum sentence than kidnapping anywhere else, where it would be dealt with in a children’s court with a lower level sentence? I put that to the Attorney and she said, to be fair to her, that the bill responded to high-profile crimes effectively, and the data had shown there had been high-profile crimes. I made the point that sentencing is much broader, so therefore you need to think of the implications of what you are doing, which clearly was not the case here. Further, the bill creates a new offence for the use of knives in the commission of certain indictable offences and lists specifically what those are.

I do want to, though, before going further, move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this bill be withdrawn and redrafted to provide an “adult crime, adult time” regime in Victoria that will deliver consequences for a range of serious offences and a meaningful impact upon the crime crisis gripping the state.’

We want this bill to be strong, and we are happy to work with the Attorney for the rest of the day to make sure that this bill is tough enough and is passed this week in a tough way, to make sure that it is a regime that actually does something to fix the serious crime crisis we face in Victoria. As I have said, we will not be opposing the bill, but we are seeking to toughen it. We are attempting to make sure that we have a bill that goes through this chamber this week, as the government has indicated, that is tough. We have put that commitment and offer onto the table and said we will work with the Attorney for the rest of the day and into the night to make sure that it is tough, and that is what we are asking for by way of amendment.

The bill does a number of other things. I do note I promised to give my colleagues as much time as possible. I have raised a number of concerns in relation to the initial commitment and what has been delivered; the bill being narrower and incomplete by comparison to Queensland; the issues around sentencing on various crimes, because there are clearly things that have been overlooked; and the opt-out request in certain circumstances, which a court would need to approve. But it is there, and I imagine that it will be the most used request in Victorian legal history. On those matters I should also finally just point out the analysis of some of the organisations that have taken the time. I do want to refer to the Law Institute of Victoria, which:

… acknowledges current community concern around –

youth –

crime and the importance of preventative measures and providing justice for victims. However, amendments that seek to criminalise conduct that is already criminalised do not address the root causes, and only creates complications and increasing confusion in legislative interpretation.

They say:

More broadly, the LIV would observe that there is a concerning trend where the Crimes Act is amended needlessly to address specific conduct that is already addressed through other offences.

That does not go to their more broad concerns. They have raised more broad concerns with not just the bill but the announcements that were made by the government in that week. More broadly, I should put on record, they consider that exposing children to early incarceration will only serve to exacerbate their disadvantage and reduce availability for positive rehabilitation –

Steve Dimopoulos interjected.

James NEWBURY: I am putting it on the record – increases the risk of recidivism. It is important in this debate to put that on record. That does not mean that I do not think we need tough laws, but it is absolutely the right of an opposition – and in fact an obligation of an opposition – to put the concerns of those organisations on the record. The Federation of Community Legal Centres noted three concerns:

The proposed Bill has not undergone any meaningful consultation with the Victorian community …

The proposed Bill will not make Victoria safer …

The proposed Bill will perpetrate significant lifelong harm to children and undermines the integrity of our youth justice system.

I conclude where I started, by saying that the government have attempted to do a full spin on their long-held position that frankly they side with offenders over victims. You can see it in everything they have done. You can see it in every legislative reform where they have watered down the law and, frankly, been a central cause of the crime crisis in Victoria. I know that when I started raising home invasions the Premier at the time said that I was making it up. What a pig of a man he was. He said I was making it up. Well, it turns out now this government is amending the legislation on the crimes that I raised. Pig of a man. This legislation –

Members interjecting.

James NEWBURY: Well, he is.

Steve Dimopoulos: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I question whether calling someone a pig is impugning a former member. I seek advice. Just because someone is no longer here, can you call them a pig?

James NEWBURY: Just because he is not here does not mean that he is not. He is. Whether he is here or he is not, he is still a pig of a man.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Meng Heang Tak): I will rule on the point of order. On the point of order, there is no point of order. I do ask the member to come back.

James NEWBURY: Thank you. I appreciate your shielding, Acting Speaker. To conclude my remarks on this bill, the coalition will not be opposing it. We have put out the offer to the government that we want to work for the rest of the day to toughen these laws. We have put that offer to the government, and I am putting on record again the need to work, hopefully by the end of today, to toughen those laws. I would very much hope that the government today can work with us to toughen them. It is a genuine offer, because we do not want to frustrate this bill from being passed before the end of today, and neither will we. We just want to make sure that it is tough and it is fit for purpose, and we can do it by the end of today.

Tim Richardson interjected.

James NEWBURY: I can tell you, member for Mordialloc, where there is a will there is a way. We can toughen it very, very quickly, I am sure. I am sure where there is a will, there is a way. We want to make sure by the end of the day this passes, but we want to make sure that it is tough and it does something about crime in Victoria.

 Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (15:29): It is really important to rise and speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Community Safety) Bill 2025. Before I go to some of the points that were raised by the member for Brighton, I want to join with the Premier and Attorney-General in putting on the record our recognition of the impact high-harm crimes have had on communities and those that are victims of crime and that will live with the trauma and impact that this has had on them into the future. We must always remember that there is a human impact behind the stories of offences that happen and that people will live with those impacts through time. The many victims of crime that the Premier has had the opportunity to meet with, in her compassionate and kind way of approaching leadership in this state, demonstrates the importance that we place on having victims and victim-survivors at the forefront of everything we do. These reforms today are a recognition of listening to the impact that it has had on them and a recognition that we must do more, and we are doing more with our adult time for violent crime. It comes directly on the back of those conversations. It is important to place that on the record.

It is not since Tim Smith was Shadow Attorney-General that we have had the legal fraternity in Victoria so shudder at a lack of understanding of law reform and law in our state. Not since Tim Smith ‍–

Bridget Vallence: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, former members of this side of the house have got nothing to do with this bill. I would ask you to ask the member to come back to the contents of the bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Meng Heang Tak): I will rule on the point of order.

Tim RICHARDSON: I am literally talking about the Shadow Attorney-General in the role that he has undertaken in understanding the legislation. If that is not relevant, I do not know if the member for Evelyn was listening to my point; I was literally contrasting a point of debate.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Meng Heang Tak): I rule on the point of order that there is no point of order, but I do ask the member to come to the point.

Tim RICHARDSON: Down at Flagstaff right now and down at Queen Street there is a shudder going through the legal fraternity like never before, because we have one of the most fundamental lacks of understanding of requests on a legal process that we have ever had. At least the member for Brighton made the effort to get admitted and got it done, did the juris doctor at Leo Cussen or whatever to get it done in here. The former Shadow Attorney-General was not a learned friend. We have got here a complete lack of understanding of what a request made in a court process to a judge is as opposed to an opt-out. The nuance might be lost on the wider Victorian population. The nuance is not lost on legislators and the nuance is not lost on judges, on barristers, on solicitors or on anyone who has done six months of a law degree – which you have done, Acting Speaker Tak. You have done a few rounds, quite a few – five years I think the Acting Speaker might have just signalled. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the legislation works and operates, it is a mischaracterisation of the bill and it is a serious and egregious misunderstanding for someone who wants to be the alternative first law officer of this state. There is not an opt-out. It does not exist. It then places a jurisdictional choice, and the suggestion of that is quite troubling. There is a request made to a judicial official, the judge, to then make that consideration. The notion of an opt-out is a choice to either go to Children’s Court or County Court, and that is placed in the hands of the offender. The lack of understanding of this legislation probably goes to the node of how this reasoned amendment, which delays adult time for violent crime, is a direct attack on passing this bill through. We just had a big 26-minute routine –

James Newbury interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: A request – that is right, member for Brighton. The member for Brighton’s word was ‘opt-out’. It might be lost –

James Newbury interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: The fact that the member for Brighton does not know that and does not realise the legislative difference between the two is very, very concerning. If you were before a judge and tried to play that argument out, you would be laughed out of Queen Street. You would be at Flagstaff station heading back to Brighton. And, guess what, you would be up on ethical standards if you came in with a legal argument like that. If the member for Brighton was representing me, I would want my money back, and then I would want him to do it pro bono. The lack of understanding of this legislation is extraordinary.

On government consultation, the member for Brighton made the allegation that there was none from anyone that the member for Brighton spoke to. The fact that the member for Brighton did not know opt-out and the request being made is extraordinary. I still cannot get my head around it, because there were a few blunders from the member for Kew, but I think this one is kicking it out on the full in an extreme fashion. Let us go through it: the government consulted the courts, the Office of Public Prosecutions, Victoria Police, Victoria Legal Aid, the Aboriginal Justice Caucus, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the First Peoples’ Assembly and people who have been impacted by crime on how they want to see the legislation change. We know that a maximum sentence in the Children’s Court is three years, and any matter uplifted to the County Court will automatically see an increase – not the opt-out language. I know that this might make you shudder, Acting Speaker. I know you have got to keep a straight face here, but as someone who has practised before, you would be horrified by that language and the lack of understanding of that.

We know then the bill deals with these eight offences because of the uplift provisions put forward here. I was listening to the member for Brighton intently and I thought, ‘There has not been a reasoned amendment yet. There won’t be. Surely not.’ Surely with the urgency of this bill and the need to protect Victorians, they will understand that this serious high-harm crime needs to be responded to in this way. Then I see a reasoned amendment that I do not think cracks 28 words – I am not sure if it gets there – that is to basically kick it out into the never-never and put it out over the fence beyond reasonable doubt. There it goes. I do not think this makes any sense whatsoever, this reasoned amendment that has been put forward.

The opposition comes in here – and I do not know if the member for Berwick would stump up this. I do not think the member for Berwick has been talked to about this, because it makes absolutely no sense. He might be up on this. He might be able to give us a bit of flavour and the colour of movement in shadow cabinet. How you can get to saying, ‘We want urgent reforms’ – right? Tick. But we are going to kick it off into the never-never beyond January into February when we sit next and not allow this bill to go through. It does not make any sense whatsoever. I do not think some of those opposite would agree with this approach, because we need these reforms brought through – the eight offence categories. And let us be clear: those are the offence categories that we have seen Victoria Police and the police commissioner talk about. We have seen high-harm offending and a category of offence from a younger cohort of Victorians that need to face those consequences.

I am the first, as Parliamentary Secretary for Men’s Behaviour Change, to say that we need prevention at the heart of what we do as well, because the overwhelming representation of offenders are boys. Ninety-five per cent of violent crime that is committed in our state is committed by a boy or a man in our community. We have to ask why. What are the societal elements that see 19 out of 20 offences committed by men and boys? We have to front up to that. People will say, ‘Well, it’s not all boys and it’s not all men,’ but we do not say that about mental health. We have a mental health toll that is 75 ‍per cent men and boys, and we have a collective societal effort to try to lower that. We need to have the same conversations about violence in our community that is perpetrated by men and boys and try to understand how it has come to be that we have 19 out of 20 violent offences in that space.

We see the recent category of offending that is listed, which the member for Brighton went through, which I will put on the record: aggravated home invasion, home invasion, aggravated carjacking, intentionally causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence, recklessly causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence, carjacking, serious and repeat armed robberies, and serious and repeat aggravated burglaries. These are the categories that we have seen play out with a higher representation of youth offenders, some as young as year 7 and year 8. We have not seen that young offender category before. It is deeply disturbing and concerning to our community. We have to wonder where these kids – kids that should be in high school – are getting into high-harm, serious crime categories. We have to have a collective approach where there are consequences and we stop crimes from happening in the first instance.

This is not unique to Victoria. We see this conversation in New South Wales, in South Australia, in Queensland and in Western Australia. We are seeing a crime crisis across our nation where younger offenders are in that category, and we must have consequences and early intervention and prevention. But we do not need reasoned amendments coming here that are less than 28 words or 27 words in length that kick the bill out after saying it is serious. And, guess what, we do not need shadow attorneys-general who cannot understand the law. Opt-in is not the same thing as a request to a judge. Tim Smith would be blushing. Tim Smith would be sitting there right now saying, ‘Get me back in, legends; get me back in’, because even without a law degree he knew that cannot be a category. It is a big blunder from the member for Brighton. He might want to come in and correct the record before Flagstaff down there on Queen Street laughs him out of Melbourne.

 Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (15:39): I am pleased to rise on the justice legislation amendment (copying Queensland LNP but not quite getting it right) bill 2025, because I think that is really what this legislation should be renamed. This is a government that is all at sea, and if anyone just demonstrated it, it was the member for Mordialloc, who was at his best explaining exactly how chaotic and unorganised and panicked this government is in both a political exercise and on the issue of crime.

The member for Evelyn was just reminding me that only a year or so ago this government was talking about lifting the age of criminal responsibility, and now we are locking them up for life. What has happened inside you guys? They have obviously had some serious polling that says ‘Mordialloc has gone; there must be a real concern there,’ because they have suddenly discovered there is a crime crisis, particularly a youth crime crisis, here in Victoria, and they think they should do something about it. The old saying is that the most sincere form of flattery is imitation, and this government cannot even get the imitation right. They simply cannot even get the imitation right. They are trying to copy Queensland but cannot even do it.

I can only assume, and I am happy to be corrected by anyone who wants to get up and talk to me about the internal workings of the Labor Party, that the left has gone, ‘No way; we can’t go this hard.’ What was announced a couple of weeks ago has already been wound back by this government, with the Premier saying at the time that there would be eight offences that would come under the adult crime for violent time – sorry, adult time for violent crime. It is hard to get it right. You guys must be struggling with it too, because it is adult crime, adult time. When you put the whole violent thing in, it made it difficult. It again highlights that this government should have just stuck with what the Queensland LNP did because it worked politically and it is starting to work in a crime sense as well. But no, this government is hidebound by its own internal ideology and is struggling to deal with it.

The member for Mordialloc is upset that we have the temerity to suggest a reasoned amendment. We got this bill yesterday at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon. We got a briefing at 4:30. We get the bill today, we are debating it now and we are going to pass it by 5 o’clock. I say to the member for Mordialloc: if this is so urgent, where have you been for the last 11 years? Where has this government been? They have just realised that there is a crime crisis, and now they are trying to act politically and say they need it debated and gone in 5 hours, because this government has messed up crime so badly. We have seen the Attorney-General and the Premier trying to say in here that what we are dealing with is a whole set of new crimes. If they are new crimes and this is a new approach to crime, this has happened on your watch. For the Premier to come out a couple of weeks ago and start to say there have to be consequences – hello, Premier, where have you been for 22 of the last 26 years when the Labor Party has run the state here, has run the legislative agenda and has wound back bail laws and ensured that there are no consequences, particularly for youth offenders? That is the key to this that Victorians have had enough of. They are sick of the excuses of a government that now is acting belatedly and saying, ‘This is so urgent, we have to act.’ Where have they been for 11 years?

Tim Richardson interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: No, we are not going to block it, member for Mordialloc, because we know that Victorians want action on this even if it is Clayton’s action – even if it is the Queensland LNP legislation that you have when you are not having the Queensland LNP legislation. This is the Clayton’s approach, but it is better than nothing. Victorians are pleased that finally the Labor Party has realised there is a crime crisis and that there is particularly a youth crime crisis. We can remember the former Premier, and I will not go to what the member for Brighton said, repeatedly saying there is no youth crime crisis.

A member interjected.

Danny O’BRIEN: The current one has said it, and they are still denying it. Because of the very truncated nature of this debate, I am going to leave it early so that more of my colleagues can have a say. Because this government, that just discovered crime a few months ago, is now so desperate that it needs to get this through by 5 o’clock this afternoon, I will leave it there. This government has just discovered crime. It is acting politically to try and stem the tide of a Premier that is at minus 32 per cent approval rating, not because it is worried about the safety of Victorians.

 Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (15:44): I, too, rise to speak and make a contribution on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Community Safety) Bill 2025. I am really pleased that the Leader of the Nationals has sat down. I am going to begin my contribution, and I will explain why as I go through this contribution and talk about a couple of things and make a couple of observations. The first is that it is impossible here in this place for those opposite to have a serious conversation about crime in this state. That has been entirely obvious, not just over the last three years, but over the last 11 years. Those opposite cannot be trusted to have a sensible, mature, serious conversation about crime here in Victoria. This is really the first thing I want to start with, and I do hope that colleagues and those opposite hear me when I say this: locking up and impinging on someone’s liberty out in the community, locking up a child, is incredibly serious. It is incredibly serious. It is not something that should be undertaken with sudden urge. It is not something that should be undertaken recklessly. It is not something that should be undertaken without serious consultation with the organisations and the people who serve at the front line of this, and I am talking about Victoria Police, those in the legal fraternity and those in the prevention space.

It is incredibly serious to lock up a child. It is no laughing matter. On the contributions of those opposite playing political hot potato, I would caution them against speaking like that about this issue and about this bill. The second thing I wish to mention is that whilst it is incredibly serious to lock up a child, it is also incredibly serious – and should not be joked about and should not be used for political pointscoring, which I have seen time and time again – to talk about these matters when people have died. People have had terrible things done to them; they have been maimed by knives and machetes and had terrible offences and nightmares cast upon them, not only by adults here in this state, but by young people and children. It is incredibly serious.

This bill has not come before this place without it and its implications having been seriously considered ‍– yes, for offenders and for the children we are talking about, but also for the victims. Let us remember that some of those victims are children themselves, okay? We are also talking about victim-survivors who are children. What this bill does is make good on this government’s recent commitment to introduce adult time for violent crimes. This bill is something that has been welcomed in my community. It is the bill that is going to provide, determine and undertake consequences put upon those serious young offenders in our community – yes, in the western suburbs.

I do not want anyone to doubt that community safety is one of the top priorities of this government. It needs to be a top priority of this government – of any government. It must be. Community safety must be paramount. What the changes in this bill have done is provide a whole number of changes that our government has made to tackle what really is a scourge of violent youth crime. It is appalling seeing these crimes committed. It is appalling reading about them, and let us face it, it is appalling watching the footage of these crimes when we wake up and either read the newspaper in the morning or watch the news of an evening.

Earlier this year we went ahead and introduced some of the toughest bail laws in this country, and we targeted offences like home invasion, carjacking and aggravated burglary. We introduced a new test to apply to repeat offenders who commit these crimes, yes, whilst on bail, ensuring that they are less likely to be granted bail in the first place. But what we have seen so far is that, yes, these laws are having an impact now. I know those opposite like to talk about them not having an impact. When I am out in the community, I remind my community we know they are having an impact because the number of people who have been remanded, both youth and adult offenders, has increased substantially since this time last year. But what we know as a government is that there is still more to do and we need to take more action. That is what this bill is about. A lot has been said about these changes that we have announced over the past couple of weeks, including this one, the adult time for violent crimes.

Some have said that we are going too far. I have talked to people in the community, and they can tell me about crimes that have been committed against them by youth, or they know friends or family, or they saw it on their community pages, and they are really unsettled. Some of them are really appalled or frightened, but some of those people have said, ‘Yes, it’s going too far,’ that we are setting these kids up for a life of misery and a cycle that will see them back in jail time and time again. Others have said that we have not gone far enough, but what I know is that these changes will make communities like mine in Melbourne’s west not only feel a whole lot safer, but they will be a whole lot safer. We have seen all of these kinds of offences like aggravated burglaries, carjackings and home invasions occur, and when I talk to folks out on the streets – and I talk to a lot of people, and I am always more than happy to talk about crime – what they tell me is that crime is one of their biggest concerns. It is. And unfortunately the number one sentiment they feel is that there are not enough, if any – and we talk directly about this – consequences and that young people especially need consequences for their actions. That is exactly what this bill is about. This is going to deliver very serious consequences for very serious violent crimes.

I think folks on both sides of the house know there is a litany of reasons why children are committing these crimes. I do want to say in Wyndham the two main reasons why we are seeing young people commit crimes is firstly social media and the normalisation of knives and machetes and gangs, the normalisation of violence, and these are real. This is something that is really difficult to tackle. We have brought in a ban on social media, but we are seeing children as young as 10 and 12 commit some of these horrible, horrible offences. Tackling social media for this generation is really difficult. There is no silver bullet and no easy solutions. It will not be fixed tomorrow, and I think folks on the streets know that.

The second thing in Wyndham that I think those opposite certainly have failed to talk about for the last 11 years here in this place while we on this side have gotten on – we have spent billions; we even had a royal commission into it – is domestic violence. It is a huge scourge on our community. The ripple effect is absolutely abhorrent. But what we do know is that some of the most violent youth offenders themselves have come from homes with the horror of domestic and family violence, whether they are watching dad beat mum or they have been beaten up themselves.

The other thing I will say about Wyndham is that Wyndham in the next couple of years will have the highest population of young people. Yes, it is one of the fastest growing LGAs, not just here in Victoria but in the country. It will have the highest population of young people, and that is something that governments like ours must take seriously. Kids will need consequences for their actions. The more serious consequences will be rolled out for the serious violent crimes for these kids. But what we also know and we talk a lot about and have talked a lot about and have invested a lot and we will continue to do even more because we must do more, is look at investing in prevention strategies. What else we can do? What else is working across the globe in turning young people who are going to fall into a life of crime away and giving them a life where they can be a productive, wonderful citizen in the community?

I think what this side of the house and this government has done is walk a tightrope where they have had to have a balancing act – adult time for violent, serious crime – and then we have put in prevention measures like the early intervention measure that we announced a couple of weeks ago. We were actually at Sunshine College to announce that, and Sunshine College knows very well what happens to young people who are not steered away from the justice system and are not given opportunity. But this is a really serious bill, and I would urge members to talk about it in a much more respectful, serious way.

 Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (15:54): The words ‘consequences’ and ‘brazen’ must have come up a lot in recent polls because they seem to be the words being mentioned the most right at the moment in this conversation. If you want to talk about consequences for crime, does anyone seriously believe bringing in a life sentence for a person who is 14 years old and who has committed an aggravated burglary is the right outcome? I do not think anyone does. Let us be honest: if you want to fix the justice system, stop focusing on the top end of it.

The problem is we have seen just today that the person who was found guilty of murdering Ash Gordon did not even get the top end of the sentence for the crime of going into someone’s home and doing a murder. Let us put it into perspective. That is the reality. We have seen people go into homes with knives and machetes and terrorise houses, terrorise victims and steal cars. Every single person in this room has spoken to someone who has been the victim of an aggravated burglary. It is just a thing that happens now, but when the perpetrators go to court, they are not getting any sentences.

The problem is the system fails them when they get out. If you are going to be fundamentally fair and fix the justice system, the first thing – and I know the member for Laverton spoke about crime prevention – is to put back the money that has been cut from crime prevention here in Victoria. We had 25 staff in the crime prevention unit here in Victoria; it is down to under four. They did not even have enough staff to put in a bid for the budget so they could get funding for the next 12 months to run programs. That is how you fix the criminal justice system: you go out and you work with Victoria Police and other organisations – not-for-profit organisations, private organisations – who can genuinely make a difference when it comes to young people here in Victoria and keeping them away from a life of crime.

I have spoken about it here before, and I will speak about it until the day I am no longer here: you are not going to arrest your way out of this problem. Yes, you can give the police the powers. Yes, we can introduce legislation, but that is not going to make a single bit of difference when it comes to sentencing here in this state, because the message here is wrong. The message should be: how do we ensure the sentencing regime gives the kids the best opportunity to come back out as better parts of our society? We have got to think differently. We can look overseas. I have read one book – I cannot remember, but I think it might have been the Deputy Premier who gave me the book.

The book that I got from the Deputy Premier was Fist Stick Knife Gun, and it was written by Geoff Canada about the changes that happened over in New York. If you do not intervene at the fist, you will end up at the stage of the gun. It is the process and the progress of that. Geoff Canada’s discussion and argument through that book highlights the fact that it was ignored for so long that it was nearly impossible to wind it back. By the time it got to the stage of winding it back, the entire community wanted all these kids locked up forever, but the outcome of locking them up was not getting the outcomes they needed to make the community safer. There has got to be some zero tolerance and other things, but it does not necessarily mean jail. It can also mean youth programs like Youth Start or, when we ran it, Operation Newstart – engaging with the highest risk young offenders early. Let us create opportunities for them before they go and commit the most violent crimes. Let us get to a stage where, like it used to be, aggravated burglaries were rare. No government is ever going to get rid of them, but let us make them as rare as possible, and the way to do that is to engage these younger people earlier.

Victoria Police over the years have struggled. We know the figures at the moment: there are nearly 2000 vacancies on the rosters. They struggle under the pressures when they continuously arrest someone and they know that they get bail continuously. You can argue about the stats and what figures are there at the moment, but the reality is a lot of them continuously get bail. We speak to the coppers every day who go and arrest the same kids the next day, the next day and the next day – we have seen cases where it is above 60 times. Then the coppers get frustrated. How many have sat down with frontline Victoria Police? How many have sat down with people like Sergeant Matthew Mudie, who has operated youth programs and made a genuine difference? These people out there know the programs they want to run, but they cannot because they do not have the staffing. Victoria Police now are literally there to respond. They are not getting the staff allocation to do the crime prevention, which they used to do very, very successfully because they know prevention of crime is the best outcome.

Coppers would love to be actually getting to a position where they are putting themselves out of work. How good would that be? And there are, within Victoria Police, so many people who have the expertise who have done this in the past. There are those that are no longer there and have gone out now with the Community Advocacy Alliance, and you have got some people who have run the Blue Ribbon Foundation and the Blue Ribbon events that we have had in the past. We know the ways that this can be fixed. These are the people who have the common sense and understanding of what they have got done. Shane Smith, who used to be at Dandenong, and Ian Gillespie, formerly at Dandenong, both ran programs that actually engaged kids. At Prahran they used to run soccer events to get the kids engaged with Victoria Police and go and play soccer. Unfortunately the only game I ever got involved in we lost 9–1.

A member interjected.

Brad BATTIN: You said they still do it. Vince Manno still does it with limited funding, because he gets less funding and the staff cannot help him anymore or go on voluntary duties because they are not available on the rosters. So you cannot say they keep doing it and they still do it when they still have this position now where they are trying to do it more and more but they get held back every step of the way. That is because they simply do not have the funding and they do not have the resources to do it. That is not a dig at the police, it is a dig at the government for failing to fund it and for failing to give the police the resources they need.

And this legislation today, which has been rushed through the Parliament all of a sudden, we need to get through urgently. We even heard the member for Laverton say – I think the words, and I will not quote exactly, were along the lines of – ‘We’ve got this legislation coming in. We’ve had to work on it properly because we want to make sure that there are no negative consequences, that the outcomes are all positive and we’re going to make the community safer’. Yet it gets introduced today and has to go through here in the next hour because it is that urgent. It is that urgent that it has to get put through here in a few hours, yet the government have said that they wanted to make sure it was all good in between. Wouldn’t you then give the opposition and wouldn’t you then give external agencies the opportunity to have a look through it and let us know how it is going to have an impact? Well, no, you want to make sure it is out because when the next lot of crime stats come out in Victoria they are going to be horrendous, and we are going to see the real impact of years of failure to address the crime issue here in our state. This is just so the Premier can stand there and go, ‘We’re acting. We’re now doing something. We’ve decided that all of a sudden, now that we have got nearly 120 per cent or something increase on aggravated burglaries over the last 10 years, we’re going to start to do something.’ Too late – it is too late. If you wanted to do something, you would have done what was right, and what was right was to ensure that the programs that were preventing crime longer term were not cut – where programs like Youth You out in Narre Warren, in Hallam; like Boys to the Bush up in Bendigo; and like Operation Newstart, which were cut under this government; and like the crime prevention programs, including the graffiti programs, were cut. Because when you do cut those, the consequences are what we are seeing today, where young offenders think and know they can get away with nearly anything, with nearly any crime, and the consequence for that is people are less safe. That is why we are where we are today.

If this government truly wants to review what is happening in crime, go and speak to those that have run the best programs. Go and invest in the organisations that make a genuine change in their community. Let us try some things that are different. Let us get some of these kids – because they are pretty inventive, some of these kids, and some of them are great artists, we have seen some of the art in the street; we might not like it down the Monash Freeway, but some of it is actually pretty good – and invest in these kids and create opportunities for them. Because if we can get them away from the life in crime, if we can give them the opportunities that they should get and if we can intervene in the highest risk youths at the earliest stage, legislation like this – any language in this Parliament where we all of a sudden want to talk about locking kids up for life – will not exist, because we will make sure that the kids are not committing the crime in the first place. Should I ever get the opportunity to be on the front bench of the other side, that will be my absolute priority – to make sure these kids never go into the justice system in the first place, making Victoria safer.

 John LISTER (Werribee) (16:04): Firstly, I would like to thank the member for Laverton and my fellow Wyndham colleague for her contribution to this bill and framing it in terms that I will turn to as well, which is this idea that we need to have community-led solutions. Community safety does go beyond the headlines. It is about building a strong community, not just necessarily in our justice system but across all aspects of the systems that government has the honour to be able to manage and run for our people.

We have seen the results of an increasing disconnection between children and the community, something I have seen firsthand working through COVID in schools and subsequent to COVID as students returned to schools. Police and people working in this area have observed a new trend of violent offending by children. It is not necessarily those stages that the member for Berwick observed. We are seeing an escalation – ‘from zero to 100’ was the phrase that my local inspector used in a meeting just recently. I have said it several times in this place. Justice legislation is not just a set and forget. We need to regularly look at how the expectations of the community are reflected and ultimately the outcomes in reducing crime in our community and recidivism are met.

Our bail reforms have seen an increase in the number of people on remand. Further changes will come online early next year. Our nation-leading machete ban is now in force, with thousands of these dangerous weapons off the streets. We have made it easier for police to stop and search people for weapons – changes we have already been seeing used by our amazing officers from West Gate transit in targeted operations at Werribee railway station and Werribee Plaza. Operation Omni continues every night, using those laws around carjacking and home invasions to be able to hold these people to account in the Wyndham area.

However, we know that more needs to be done, and while those opposite seem content to run those same fear campaigns they have tried over and over, we have been out listening to victims and members of the community. A lot of the reforms announced as part of the package that this bill comes from, the serious consequences – early interventions package, come from work on the ground in the Werribee electorate and the Melton electorate as well. Police, youth workers and young people who have written to me have said that they want boundaries for children who commit violent offences. So today we are debating a bill around introducing adult time for violent crime.

Community legal services and our amazing refugee settlement service workers have said that they want more support for their programs in Wyndham, so we have established the violence reduction unit to coordinate this response, to make sure that it is not just up to NGOs applying for grants every year. We have actually had amazing programs continue in the Wyndham LGA to address this offending, but to make sure it is coordinated across all those systems, including our school system, which I think is particularly important.

To take up a point from the member for Berwick around our crime prevention programs, these are still operating in the places where they need to be based on data and driven by that intelligence from police and the community services they work with. We have continued the embedded youth outreach project in the Wyndham area, partnering youth workers with police on the street to respond to youth crime in our area.

We have an amazing proactive police unit running out of our Werribee police station. I had the pleasure of meeting Cam from the PPU, who works at my old school, at Wyndham Central College, with the Blue EDGE program, which works in that early intervention space with young people. A lot of those young people were aged 14 years old in that room. Some of them remembered me from year 7, which was a bit awkward. I was a strict English teacher apparently, they admitted. But these programs continue, and they still exist. The thing is, we need to have this wraparound unit to make sure that it is coordinated and driven by data at all times.

My experience working in schools was shared with the Attorney-General and Premier on multiple meetings to help develop the policy they have to have those early intervention officers in schools. These reforms – there is a direct link between what the Werribee electorate has come to me to speak to and what we are putting to the Parliament today. It shows a government that is focused on Victorians. How did your ads go, mate? This is in stark contrast to the Liberals, who have shown the people of Werribee that they only care about broadcasting our community’s issues for their own political gain. We do not need to yell and shout, post misleading bin commentary or tell people they should be afraid to go out to dinner at night. We need to get on with passing important reforms like this.

These reforms are a sensible way to make sure that we can hold young people to account in a court that is appropriate to be able to do that – the Children’s Court. Doing a little bit of digging through the history of the Children’s Court, there has been a form of a children’s court since the 1900s, but the reforms in the 2000s formalised what we see today. It was not set up for the kind of violent offending that people in Wyndham, that people in Melton and that people all around Melbourne are seeing. That is why it is important to have the option to have violent crime tried in the County Court, a court that is set up as a trial court, where it will have juries if needed, and where it will have options to be able to pass sentences that are higher. We do not need to have an artificial throttle on judges when it comes to holding people who are guilty to account.

The reforms will commence by the end of February and target the following eight serious offences: aggravated home invasion, home invasion, aggravated carjacking, intentionally causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence, recklessly causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence, carjacking, serious and repeat armed robberies, serious and repeat aggravated burglaries. For the first five of those crimes, where committed by a 15- to 17-year-old, it will always be removed from the jurisdiction of the Children’s Court, where the accused will face a full trial and sentencing in the County Court. When they are 14, there will be a few other things added to that for their protection as a young, vulnerable person, like many of those 14-year-olds I saw in the Blue EDGE program. They will be removed to the County Court unless the Children’s Court has adequate sentencing options for that offending; there is a relevant exception, such as being in the interests of the victim for the matter to be in the Children’s Court; where the offender in particular is vulnerable due to a cognitive disability or mental illness; and where there are other substantial and compelling reasons. Carjacking will also be heard in the County Court by default, unless there is an exception.

It seems the Shadow Attorney-General, speaking before and in his commentary in the media, does not necessarily understand how this bill works. His public comments about offenders having the ability to choose which court they have their matter heard in is just wrong. Let me be absolutely clear: children who are accused of these violent crimes will not choose where their matter is tried and sentenced. That will be determined through the legislation, and it will make sure that there are still those protections in place for those vulnerable children in our community.

There are also other reforms in this that I think are particularly important to highlight for the people of Wyndham, particularly around the way that we are bringing in longer maximum sentences for violent offences. It increases the maximum penalty for some of those offences, including life for aggravated home invasion and aggravated carjacking. It is important to still have judicial discretion over that, but for the most egregious of crimes we should not artificially throttle a court on what they can actually deliver in those circumstances. It is also particularly important in this, and something that I have spoken about at length in the community around the reforms that we are doing, to hold people who recruit young people into a life of violent crime to account. This is an increasing trend that our youth workers and our local police have spoken to me about, where a very significant portion of offending that they are seeing has been as a result of recruitment. This recruitment looks like lots of different things, and I have seen some of the ways that they have been doing it, particularly online, using platforms like Snapchat to post an image with a phone number that they then text and get a Telegram link sent where they arrange for them to commit that crime for a certain price. Kids are seeing this all the time, and while there are some issues with the social media ban and how it is going to be applied, I do welcome it, because it does mean that our young people are going to be less exposed to this sort of recruitment.

It is also important to send a clear message to these people who try to recruit young people to do their dirty work: you will face up to life imprisonment if you try and recruit someone. Sure, there are conversations around how this can be applied and when it will be applied, and that is really important to have. But I think it sends a clear message to those adults who want to use children in our communities, particularly those like Wyndham and Melton, that time is up, and you cannot prey on children in our community to do your dirty work. Because in the end, the member for Berwick and I do not agree on much, but there is one thing that we do agree on, and that is the fact that we need to protect young people from living a life of crime. That is why not only is this bill important but also the raft of changes that have come from that hard work on the ground, in places like the Werribee electorate, with that direct link between what people have said and what we are getting on and doing.

 David SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (16:14): Many of you in this chamber would know that I used to be a DJ and I could spin some records, but I could never spin as well as the Labor Party has when it comes to crime. They are spinning so hard without any substance or detail at all, and the community do not feel any safer as a result of it. This is another example – a headline with absolutely no detail or substance – adult time for violent crime. It is just a ripped-off, Labor-lite version of what Queensland has been doing, very successfully, mind you. We have been saying for a long time: do not try and reinvent the wheel. Just look at what other jurisdictions are doing and do the same. We would not have a crime crisis like we have in Victoria if that is what this government had done.

The government want everybody in Victoria to believe that they are going to fix the crime crisis, the very crisis that they created over a decade. They believe that they are the ones to now fix the problem ‍– to fix their own mess. No-one believes that for a second. Here you have a classic example. Queensland has 33 different offences that relate to a whole range of things: manslaughter, rape – none of the things that are covered in this area. Just let me read a few of them out. You have got rape, manslaughter, grievous bodily harm, kidnapping, armed robbery, trafficking, torture, unlawful striking causing death and vehicle-related crimes with lethal risk. None of those are in this bill, but they are in Queensland’s ‘adult crime, adult time’. Instead we have got a Labor-lite version of just five offences in this bill. There is no substance. It is not ‘adult crime, adult time’ – that is why they have not quite used the name ‍– it is ‘adult time for some violent crime’. And even then there are the penalties. The government went so hard, saying, ‘We’re going to give 14-year-olds life sentences.’ Firstly, how draconian is it to give a 14-year-old a life sentence? But if you really look at it, they are not giving anyone life sentences at all – it is all ‘maximum’. Nobody believes a word that this government is saying, so we know that it will continue to be the revolving door of crime.

That is happening at one end of the spectrum for serious crime: no consequence. That has been the issue right from the very beginning: no consequence from an Allan Labor government that has been absolutely weak in delivering consequences and safety. But at the other end of the spectrum, I think many of us would agree – I know many of my Labor colleagues on the other side of the chamber in their heart believe this, but unfortunately because the government has run out of money it cannot do anything about it – is crime prevention. In Queensland, unlike what Victoria tried to rip off, there is ‘adult crime, adult time’ for serious offenders, but there is $100 million of early intervention to help people, to ensure they do not commit to a life of crime or end up doing the wrong thing. The early intervention makes an absolute difference. I have heard every member talk about it. If you spend money early, you will save heaps of money down the track and you will turn people’s lives around. Why wouldn’t you do that? Why wouldn’t you take the $100 million that Queensland have spent and do exactly the same in Victoria? I will tell you why: because the Allan Labor government is broke. They are broke. They have wasted taxpayers money. We heard it today: $200,000 on pot plants, not for the Suburban Rail Loop but for the SRL head office, for fat cats. What an absolute disgrace. Money is being wasted, and we cannot spend the money on kids. We cannot ensure that kids are looked after so they do not turn to a life of crime. Spend the money early.

I know in looking at and talking to Blue Light, they have done some fantastic stuff. They want to do more, but they have not got the funding to do it. We have got Boys to the Bush. We have got lots of programs that are out there that work very much with young people at the earliest possible time. I have spoken to the Sudanese community, many in the African community and many working in youth programs. They are all calling out for help. One word: help. But what we get from the government is not help but a headline. A headline will not fix the crime crisis. A headline will not keep Victorians safe. A headline will not take machetes out of the hands of crooks and neither will a machete bin. This is a government that is all about headlines, nothing about detail. Thirteen million dollars on machete bins, and the Premier gets up and says, ‘How good is this? We’ve got crooks handing in machetes with these machete bins.’ No crook has handed one machete in to a machete bin. What a joke that law-abiding citizens are handing in their machetes and nobody is any safer as a result of it. Those attacks are still happening in shopping centres. They are still happening on the streets. They are still happening in people’s homes. And we have all spent $13 million.

Steve McGhie interjected.

David SOUTHWICK: The member for Melton says it is happening in Queensland. There has been a 40 per cent reduction in crime in Queensland. If it happened in Queensland, member for Melton, why are you copying Queensland laws? Why even use the words ‘adult time for violent crime’ if Queensland have got it right? Do not give me half bottle.

Steve McGhie interjected.

David SOUTHWICK: Now the member for Melton says Queensland have not got it right, yet the government want to try to copy them, so they are having a dollar each way – a big fail. That is what this government are doing, and they cannot handle the truth. They are going to get up now, because the member for Frankston cannot handle the truth.

Paul Edbrooke: Acting Speaker, I do not think the member for Caulfield needs to reflect on me. I have not even stated my point of order yet.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Lauren Kathage): What is your point of order?

Paul Edbrooke: My point of order is purely that the member for Caulfield needs to speak through the Chair.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Lauren Kathage): I believe the member for Caulfield was speaking through the Chair, and I encourage him to continue doing so.

David SOUTHWICK: I was speaking through the Chair. I know that Victorians want safety, not spin. They do not want headlines, they want detail. They want to ensure that those who commit violent crime end up doing time and being locked away, not committing additional crimes and threatening people on the streets and in their homes. But at the same time they want to ensure that money is spent at the earliest possible time to ensure that these young people do not commit these violent offences. That is why a Wilson Liberal government will ensure $100 million goes to those early intervention programs, because that is where it needs to go. We need to ensure that we help people as young as possible to choose the right path.

We know that this particular bill is completely lacking in detail. What a hopeless government this is that at the very last minute, almost the last sitting before Christmas, it has turned around and said, ‘Let’s hurry this bill together. Let’s not even consult with anybody; let’s just put it through.’ They have given us about an hour to debate one of the most important pieces of legislation dealing with safety, and they have said, ‘You know what, just trust us because we’ve got it all right up until now.’ We have had a decade of crime crisis created by Labor – ‘But don’t worry, we’re going to fix it. You don’t need to have consultation, you don’t need to talk to anybody, because this is the goods.’ Well, no-one believes that. No-one believes a word that this government says.

I want to put on record the hardworking men and women of Victoria Police, who put their lives on the line each and every day for us. They will tell you, if you go and talk to the frontline men and women of Victoria Police, that it is a revolving door of crime. They catch them, and the government and the courts just release them. Catch and release is what has been happening, and nothing is going to change. If this government believed that something was going to change, they would not have shut the prison system. Because on one hand they want to get tough and they want to lock people up and on the other hand they want to close Malmsbury, they want to close Port Phillip and then maybe they want to look at reopening Malmsbury. And guess who is paying for it. Well, it is not the Labor government ministers that are paying for it – taxpayers are paying for this. Because the government are jumping at shadows – they have got no idea what they are doing. There is no plan in any of this – none of it. The government need to actually look at what other states are doing properly and learn from that.

Just in finishing, our knife crime, as we have said, is through the roof. It is one of the biggest things. Machete crime – I do not care what anybody says – is bigger in Victoria than anywhere. We have seen that, and we have had Brett Beasley down here calling for Jack’s law to be introduced. If the government want to do anything in terms of copying Queensland, they should be copying Jack’s law ‍– copy ‘adult crime, adult time’ properly, not a Labor-lite version, and copy Jack’s law. Then we might be on the way to some kind of community safety program and not a weak carbon copy alternative or a weak, failed imitation like we have got here. This is a weak, Labor-lite imitation of ‘adult crime, adult time’. If the government had anything in them, they would withdraw this bill, go back to the drawing board and maybe call the minister in Queensland and say, ‘Give us a copy of your bill, and we’ll introduce it in the next sitting and do it properly.’ Because I know the Queensland minister would cooperate. He is ready to go, and he has got the bill ready to go. We would not even have to spend much time debating it. We could get the Queensland legislation here tomorrow and make Victorians safe the day after.

 Nina TAYLOR (Albert Park) (16:24): I should note that community safety obviously involves the spectrum of management in terms of going from the issue of boundaries and consequences to, of course, prevention and intervention. I think it is important that whilst this particular bill, quite understandably and with absolute justification, is targeting community protection – and I will speak to that in a moment – that is not to suggest that our government is not tackling the whole gamut, the holistic elements of community safety as well. I think we have to be careful in the chamber, where we are supposed to speak to this bill, not to suggest that there is not other specific action being taken as well. I just wanted to make that comment from the outset, because I have noticed, and I have tried in earnest to understand the position of the opposition on this matter, that on the one hand they are saying the bill is rushed and on the other they are saying it is too late. They have said elements are too soft, and that it is too hard. I cannot actually rationalise the particular thread of what they are trying to put forward. I do say that with absolute respect, because I have been listening here carefully.

I will put forward henceforth what we are proposing in terms of what this bill is seeking to do. We note that whilst of course preventing crime in the first place is absolutely a very high priority, intervention is as well. I will note the many programs when we are looking across the state in terms of free kinder, mandated literacy reforms, free TAFE, vocational pathways, the Orange Door tackling family violence head-on and even backing in community sport – all these elements of government implementation are relevant when it comes to the prevention of crime. I will go further. When we look specifically at targeting crime and young people when they are noted to be at risk, the violence reduction unit is exactly that: intervention. We are taking on board a data-driven approach, tackling it from all angles: the family, schooling, whether they are truanting and other influences that are causing young people to behave in a way that is completely unacceptable. I just want to set that frame because I think it is extremely important when we are discussing the matter of community safety.

A further point I did want to make that has been mentioned in the chamber is that we are talking about very, very serious offences – situations that we have not seen before. There is a new type of crime and, particularly when we are looking at 14- to 17-year-olds, it is extremely sad to say the least to see young people making very bad choices and ultimately impacting the lives of fellow Victorians. I think it is also very important in this discussion that whilst of course prevention and intervention are absolutely paramount and certainly significant when it comes to the topic of community safety, we cannot just push aside the suffering of victims. I think of a woman who lives in my electorate who was at home with her daughter and there was a home invasion. That was two years ago, and every night she lives in fear and has trouble sleeping because she is afraid of another home invasion. To simply dismiss the victims in this situation I would deem unacceptable.

Henceforth that is why, with these uplift reforms being targeted in this bill, serious young offenders aged 14 to 17 face adult courts and adult sentencing when they are charged with certain serious and violent offences. This will occur through their matters being uplifted from the Children’s Court to the County Court and the reforms will commence by the end of February. The uplift reforms target the following eight serious offences: aggravated home invasion, home invasion, aggravated carjacking, intentionally causing serious injury in terms of gross violence, recklessly causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence, carjacking, serious and repeated armed robberies and serious and repeated aggravated burglary. We are talking about really, really serious subject matter – and it is a very sad subject matter – but we cannot just say, ‘Oh, it is a pity that they committed those crimes.’ There do have to be boundaries for very serious behaviour, all the while factoring in all the other interventions and matters that we have well implemented in this state, as well as those that are to be implemented.

I did want to speak to the issue of targeting those that are luring young people into these serious offences as well, because we know that we are targeting organised criminal networks using children as cheap labour. We are increasing the penalty for the offence of recruiting a child for criminal activity from 10 years maximum to 15 years maximum. It is heinous to think that one could distort the direction of a young person to the extent that you would put them at risk of hurting others, harming others and validating the invasion of a person’s home. That is certainly something that is dreadful and shocking, and hence there is recognition for that but also validation in terms of the reforms being implemented through this bill.

I should say there is a further element that is important, and that is noting that currently carjacking does not cover stealing a car that has a child in it. This is just covered under the offence of theft, a broader offence which has a lesser maximum penalty. It does not reflect the terrifying trauma caused by this type of violent offending and the complete disregard for the safety of innocent children. Again, I think when we are talking about moralistic arguments in this extremely complex space of human behaviour and young offenders, we have to factor in the children who are victims of crime as well.

When you are in government you do not have the luxury – and I probably would like to seek an improved word on that – of pretending that certain offences are not happening, that people are not being harmed, that people are not being killed or stabbed or otherwise. We cannot just pretend those matters do not matter and that victims should not be heard. Absolutely when we are talking about protecting fellow Victorians we do have to factor in the suffering of those who have experienced some pretty horrific circumstances that they in no way deserved. On the other hand of course, as I said from the outset, that is not to dismiss the imperative to intervene and to seek to divert wherever we can. I do not think there is any lack of conviction, in terms of investment or otherwise, on this side of the chamber in terms of driving those outcomes. That is exactly what we want to do and are seeking to do, and actually we do have a significant number of young offenders who are able to be diverted. But the fact is there are still those offenders who are committing very serious crimes. We do have to acknowledge that, and we have to deal with it appropriately.

I just think that we do have to take care. We have heard the spectrum of arguments in the chamber when it comes to this matter, because it is disturbing. Nobody gains any particular enjoyment in any way when we are talking about such serious subject matter. It is disturbing to all of us on the one hand to see young people descending to a level of behaviour that is truly shocking and on the other hand to see victims who may be scarred for life as a result of experiencing things that they did not deserve to experience.

I hope that I have conveyed with absolute conviction the premise that on the one hand community safety is not simple and it does have to be tackled from the spectrum of matters – that is, from boundaries to prevention to intervention. It all matters. I think that when you are talking about the ethics of these matters you have to be absolutely factual, because you cannot change what you do not acknowledge. On that note I will commend the bill to the house.

 Gabrielle DE VIETRI (Richmond) (16:34): I rise in disgust to speak on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Community Safety) Bill 2025 and to put on the record that the Greens vehemently oppose this shameful bill in the strongest possible terms, which is why I will be moving an amendment to the reasoned amendment moved by the member for Brighton. I move:

That all the words after ‘this’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘house refuses to read this bill a second time until the government has conducted meaningful consultation with First Nations, legal and community experts to develop an evidence-based policy.’

Today is a dark day for Victoria. The Labor government is pushing ahead with a plan that will allow children as young as 14 to be tried and sentenced as adults, with the possibility of being sentenced to life in prison. Locking up children is not community safety; that is giving up on children. That is spitting in the face of your own government’s treaty obligations. That is turning your back on human rights obligations and making us all less safe. Under this bill serious offences will be taken out of the Children’s Court and sent to the County Court. Adult sentencing principles will apply, and the maximum penalty for some of these sentences will jump from three years in youth detention to life behind bars. The longstanding principle that prison is a last resort for children will be expressly wound back.

This bill is not about careful, considered law reform. In fact I would not even use that word. This is a disturbing, kneejerk, reactionary regression. It has been rushed in as a political response to a tabloid narrative about youth crime less than a year out from a state election, which is the crucial context for these regressive so-called justice bills. What we are seeing is a Premier in campaign mode, not a government interested in evidence-based policy. The Queensland Liberals ran this ‘adult crime for adult time’ experiment already. They ripped out youth justice principles and overrode their own human rights act, and it failed. It did not fix youth crime, but it did explode the number of children in custody.

Victoria is copying the worst of this model while the ink is barely dry on our treaty commitments. Shame on this government. But it is not just the Greens who are saying this is wrong. Aboriginal-led organisations and community experts are furious. The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service has described Victoria as a cruel and unforgiving state for children who make mistakes. They warn that these laws will see Aboriginal children, who are already massively over-represented in our prisons, dragged into adult courts and exposed to life sentences. The First Peoples’ Assembly has said that in the era of treaty a state that talks about self-determination cannot justify life sentences for 14-year-olds. Youthlaw, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Victoria Legal Aid, Flat Out, the Human Rights Law Centre and hundreds of other reputable community organisations and experts have penned an open letter urging the Premier not to condemn children to die in prison. They work with these young people every day and their message is simple: these laws will not make communities safer. They will just lock up traumatised kids for longer and spit them back out more damaged and more likely to reoffend.

The sector briefings and the statements of advice that you have received on this bill, written by those advocates and organisations, could not be clearer about its impact. They warn that more 14- to 17-year-olds will be pushed into the County Court and adult prisons. After all, that is the intention of this bill. Aboriginal children and kids in out-of-home care will be hit the hardest. Children will spend longer in custody, often on remand, and in already overcrowded and unsafe facilities. Reoffending rates will rise, not fall, because this will entrench trauma instead of addressing it.

The government says there is no choice, that youth crime is out of control and that only harsher penalties will fix this. The data tells a different story. Crime statistics and criminologists show that youth offending overall has not exploded and that a very small number of young people are responsible for a disproportionate share of serious incidents. One recent analysis, quoted by the Premier’s government, found that less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of Victorians are linked to around 40 per cent of crime.

If you care about safety, you focus on what works with that small group. You do not deliberately design a system to throw them into adult prisons and hope that fear will scare the next kid straight. We all know that because the evidence on the ground, the data and the research are absolutely clear. Sentencing expert Professor David Brown calls deterrence sentencing’s dirty secret. The idea that making sentences longer somehow scares people off crime simply does not hold up. The evidence is that increasing penalties has little or no impact on whether these people offend. What matters is being caught at all and not whether the maximum is three years or life. Worse, prison itself is criminogenic. It literally makes people more likely to offend. Internationally a former UK magistrate examined whether long jail terms actually stop crime. Guess what, her answer was no. There is no evidence that ratcheting up sentencing lengths reduces reoffending or improves safety. Over a decade in which UK sentences got longer, crime did not fall in lockstep.

When you look at children specifically, the expert view is even more damning. UNICEF, with global data and evidence behind it, keeps repeating what our government does not want to hear. Detention of children is harmful, overused and ineffective. It does not deter crime. It makes reoffending more likely. UNICEF instead calls for prevention, diversion and child-friendly justice, where custody is truly a last resort. The Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council’s own work on youth offending makes the same point. Their fact sheet on children and young people concludes that sentencing alone cannot address the root causes of offending and that the best way to protect the community is to invest in measures that prevent or reduce youth crime in the first place. This government has read that evidence and decided to do the opposite. In fact the Attorney-General’s own statement of compatibility acknowledges that this bill is in part incompatible with the human rights set out in their own human rights charter. It says:

The measures in the Bill constitute significant limits on the fundamental rights of children who are by their nature a vulnerable cohort, which require a very high standard of justification in order to be compatible with rights.

What a shameful act to acknowledge that and then to go on and back this bill. Shame on this government and shame on the Attorney-General. Instead of investing in what works, Labor has been cutting the very services that keep our communities safe at the same time as backing these tough-on-crime bills. Over recent budgets prevention and early intervention crime programs have been absolutely slashed. Community legal centres, youth services, family violence programs, mental health supports and alcohol and drug services are stretched to breaking points. As local MPs we all know this because those services have been contacting us, and no doubt they have been contacting the MPs opposite me and that sit around me as well. All the experts warn that children who end up in the justice system overwhelmingly come from backgrounds of poverty, disability, disadvantage and trauma and that their needs can be met better outside the criminal system, yet this bill pours money into more prison beds instead. The experts lay out the alternative: raise the age properly to at least 14, with no carve-outs; invest in intensive, culturally strong, community-led support for the small group of young people who are in frequent contact with police; expand housing, mental health and alcohol and other drug services; and use restorative justice and diversion wherever possible.

The Greens agree. We want communities to be safe. We want people to be able to sleep at night without fear of a theft or a break-in. But this charade of safety, built on rhyming slogans and cruelty dealt out to our children, is a lie. Real safety looks like a 15-year-old who was on a trajectory towards crime being housed, supported, back in school or training and connected to family and culture, with their trauma actually being treated, not a 15-year-old sitting in a maximum security cell, learning from older, more entrenched offenders about how to be better at crime. When the government tried and in fact succeeded in surpassing the usual process and rushing this bill through today, I told the chamber that this bill was not urgent. But what is urgent, apparently, is this cowardly Premier’s shameful need to look tough before the 2026 election. Like in 2018, like Queensland before us, Victoria is drifting into a race to the bottom where the major parties compete to see who can sound harsher on crime and who can seem crueller to children, regardless of the evidence, regardless of the damage it does.

That might be a way to win the headline for today, but it will cost communities dearly tomorrow in more victims, more trauma and more children lost to the prison system. Jacinta Allan’s government had a choice. Faced with community fear and real harm from serious youth offending, they could have doubled or tripled down on actual prevention: more housing, youth work, mental health, community outreach programs, early intervention, family support, resources to rehabilitate young offenders and other justice reinvestment levers. They could have listened to Aboriginal leaders, to criminologists, to the sentencing council, to the legal and youth sectors. There is no shortage of good advice begging them not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Instead they chose life sentences for children. Shame on this government – deep, deep shame on all of you.

The Greens refuse to accept that this is the best that Victoria can do. We refuse to accept that this is the only way to respond to harm: to throw 14-year-olds into adult courts and call it community safety. We will keep fighting for a youth justice system that is actually just, one that treats children as children, focuses on rehabilitation and tackles the root causes of offending so that fewer people are harmed in the first place. For all of these reasons – because this bill is cruel, because it ignores the evidence, because it will make our communities less safe and because it betrays our obligations to children and to First Nations people – the Greens oppose this harmful bill in the strongest possible terms.

 Belinda WILSON (Narre Warren North) (16:47): Thank you, Deputy Speaker. No, you are Acting Speaker. That is the word I was looking for. Thank you, Acting Speaker. Sorry, my brain has been fried from that last contribution. It is with pleasure that I stand and talk today about the Justice Legislation Amendment (Community Safety) Bill 2025. I will, for the record and for Hansard, correct the incorrect – well, one part of the information that was given by the member for Richmond, that 14-year-olds were going into adult prisons. That is not correct. They are not going into adult prisons. That is an incorrect statement. I guess we find it very hard to believe that the Greens would be giving out incorrect information. I know that that is quite a surprise and astonishing for everyone, but I am sure the member for Richmond got some amazing grabs for her Twitter and TikTok accounts in her contribution today.

Will Fowles: On a point of order, Acting Speaker: wildly irrelevant.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Lauren Kathage): I did not hear that debate as I was being approached at that moment. I ask the member to continue on the debate.

Belinda WILSON: That is the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it? Anyway, let us move on.

Will Fowles: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I take offence at the insinuation made by the member for Narre Warren North and ask her to withdraw.

Belinda WILSON: I withdraw.

A member interjected.

Belinda WILSON: I was just getting started. I have been sitting in this chamber for many of the contributions by both sides, and I find interesting some of the allegations and comments that have been made during my time listening. I think what is so interesting is that many people have been talking about us rushing this bill through, whereas –

James Newbury: Ramming.

Belinda WILSON: Cramming this bill through.

James Newbury: No, ramming.

Belinda WILSON: Oh, ramming – cramming, ramming. Thank you, member for Brighton. Ramming this bill through. Only a few months ago it was many members of the opposition that were crying and screaming for us to improve our justice system and improve and make some changes to what is happening. I will talk about my electorate of Narre Warren North, where I have an incredible relationship with our wonderful police force. I have spoken to them a lot about the justice system and youth crime. In Casey we have had a lot of issues, and in Narre Warren North we certainly have not been untouched by youth crime.

I have had some conversations with some community leaders, and one of the most interesting things that many of the police force, especially at Narre Warren, said to me was that we had got to a point where consequences were necessary. I think that the introduction of this bill really sets in stone and lets these perpetrators be very clear that we are very serious about this. We are very, very serious.

I think one of the other misconceptions of youth crime, and one that I know I have spoken quite a bit about, is that lots of people automatically blame certain cohorts of children. Especially in my community, they automatically blame the multicultural community. They also blame the way they have been brought up, where they have grown up and how they have been brought up. One of the interesting conversations I had when I took the police minister out to Narre Warren station was that these kids – many of them, most of them – were Anglo kids, and most of them came from great homes where consequences perhaps were not high on the priority list. I know when I was 12 I certainly was not wielding a machete, or at 14. I had a Cabbage Patch doll; there are many in this chamber who did. But kids these days and with social media are brought up differently and do lots of different things. I think that consequences are important.

I also want to talk about sport and kids. One of the other really big points that the police officers spoke to me about is that most of these kids committing these crimes did not have an interest, did not belong to a sports club, did not have a community behind them. And I know –

Will Fowles: The member has again strayed miles away from the bill. My point of order, Acting Speaker, is on relevance.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Lauren Kathage): I do not uphold the point of order.

Sarah Connolly: Further to the point of order, Acting Speaker, this has been a wideranging debate. I am listening very closely to the member, and I think that she is being entirely relevant to this bill before the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Lauren Kathage): The member to continue.

Belinda WILSON: One of our great announcements today was about the great programs being run in my community, one by Melbourne Storm – the Waka program – that has been run not only in the west but also in the south-east. This crime prevention program is absolutely incredible and one of the programs that has a really strong group of kids that really get their arms wrapped around them in school holidays, when sometimes things can go a little bit wayward, when kids are bored and do not have many things to do. These kids have actually been identified through the school program, which is actually quite extraordinary. The other amazing group in my community is also City in the Community, and they also do some incredible stuff in my schools and in the south-east in running these great programs with the youth. All of these programs make an incredible difference to our community.

I will talk about the real specifics of the bill so the member for Ringwood is happier with me, because he has certainly been picking on me today, hasn’t he? This bill makes good on our government’s recent commitment to introduce adult time for violent crime and crimes that are committed by serious youth offenders. I have touched on and spoken about that and about the age of those kids in our community. I think that no-one wants to lock a 14-year-old up for life, but what we do want is to make sure that these children are aware of what the consequences are. The uplift reforms target the following serious offences: aggravated home invasion, carjacking, intentionally causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence, recklessly causing serious injury in circumstances of gross violence and serious and repeated armed robberies, all of which are very, very strong offences.

The first five of these crimes will be removed from the Children’s Court, and the matter will then face full trial and sentencing in the County Court. I do not think there are probably many Victorians that disagree on that. Carjacking will also be heard in the County Court by default, unless there are substantial and compelling reasons for a matter to stay in the Children’s Court. These are very strong and serious offences that we are talking about.

We introduced a new test to apply for repeat offenders who committed these crimes whilst on bail, ensuring that these are less likely to be granted bail in the first place. I think that we have had a huge discussion about bail. I know that there were some new tighter and stricter bail laws that started on 1 ‍December, which was yesterday, and these are all coming into effect. The other thing about bail that sometimes people do not understand actually is that when we hear that a child or somebody has been put on bail for a certain amount of time, that does not mean that they have been bailed for serious offences for the whole time. They may have been shoplifting, which is an offence that is bailed and not remanded, so I think that we need to keep an eye on that. I thank the house for listening to me, and I commend the bill to the house.

 Will FOWLES (Ringwood) (16:56): The member for Narre Warren North says no-one wants to lock up 14-year-olds for life, but that is in fact exactly what the government’s bill does. For aggravated home invasion we now have an uplift to a potential life sentence – aggravated home invasion. So what are the elements? It is a burglary – that means you are armed; sure. So entering a house while armed and someone is there, but you only need an intention to use violence, not to actually use violence. I am not saying for a second this is not a serious matter. That would be a very serious offence – to enter someone’s house while armed with an intention to use violence is a serious matter. But a life sentence for a 14-year-old entering a house whilst armed with an intention to use violence but not actually using violence – this is a fundamental massive overreach. This is the single most right-wing bill that this government has brought into this Parliament in its 11-year life, the most right-wing bill and the most right-wing, truncated, obscene process, where the crossbench gets the bill yesterday and gets a briefing on it today, and we have had these 2 hours of debate – just 2 hours of debate – on a bill as fundamental as this.

I think the best comment on this matter is the comment of the Attorney-General in her statement of compatibility:

The measures in the Bill constitute significant limits on the fundamental rights of children who are by their nature a vulnerable cohort, which require a very high standard of justification in order to be compatible with rights.

The government has fallen miles short of the very high justification. This is an astounding overreach from a government that has spent so much time over 11 years trying to put downward pressure on incarceration rates of young people. They have raised the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12. They committed to further raising the age to 14. In 2023–24 they passed age reform, diversion-first principles and restorative justice measures. They adopted a ‘detention as a last resort’ framework back in the Department of Justice and Community Safety youth justice strategy back in 2020 to 2023 and greatly expanded youth diversion programs, including police cautions, restorative conferencing and community-based interventions designed to keep children out of courts and custody ‍– designed to keep children out of courts and out of custody. This bill undoes all of that work. It is a massive overreaction. It is driven solely by politics. It has got nothing to do with the policy, because if you go to the policy there is no evidence to support the policy, no evidence whatsoever. It is being done on the flimsiest basis. The Attorney-General said there are no easy solutions to youth crime, and she is right. But if there are no easy solutions, why ram through a bill with no debate, no consultation, no policy basis and no consideration or forethought? It is an absolute disgrace, and the government should be ashamed.

The SPEAKER: The time set down for consideration of the Justice Legislation Amendment (Community Safety) Bill 2025 has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business. The house is considering the Justice Legislation Amendment (Community Safety) Bill 2025. The Attorney-General has moved that the bill be now read a second time. The member for Brighton has moved a reasoned amendment to this motion. He has proposed to omit all of the words after ‘That’ and replace them with the words which have been circulated. The member for Richmond has moved an amendment to the reasoned amendment moved by the member for Brighton. She has proposed to insert the words which have been circulated after the word ‘This’. The house will deal with the member for Richmond’s amendment first. Because the member proposes to omit words from the member for Brighton’s amendment, the question is:

That the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the amendment.

Those supporting the amendment by the member for Richmond should vote no.

Assembly divided on question:

The SPEAKER: We will now deal with the member for Brighton’s amendment. The question is:

That the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question.

Those supporting the reasoned amendment by the member for Brighton should vote no.

Assembly divided on question:

The SPEAKER: The question is:

That this bill be now read a second time and a third time.

Assembly divided on question:

The SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.