Thursday, 18 August 2022

Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Ms STITT:

That the bill be now read a second time.

Dr BACH (Eastern Metropolitan) (15:55): It is really good to rise this afternoon to make a contribution on the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. I dare say every member of this house and I dare say every member of the Victorian community is well acquainted with the appalling circumstances that ultimately proved the genesis for this legislation. The bill has been introduced by the government in very direct response to the actions of Mr Richard Pusey in the aftermath of the Eastern Freeway tragedy, when back in April 2020 a truck crashed into and, tragically, killed four members of Victoria Police who had been on traffic duty. Now, Mr Pusey himself—as is widely understood and widely known to the Victorian community—had been pulled over on the Eastern Freeway by police regarding a separate matter, and as it came to light in the days after these dreadful events, Mr Pusey was something of a recidivist when it came to utterly stupid endeavours in his various motor vehicles.

So he was there with the members of Victoria Police on that fateful night when the truck crashed into their cars and into them. This of course was widely reported. Here is a section of just one report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

As the police officers lay dead and dying, Pusey walked “slowly and purposefully” around the scene and began filming the dead and dying police officers, making two recordings lasting longer than three minutes.

It is still chilling, isn’t it, even years later. We are so across the details of this matter. They have been discussed and debated and broached so widely across the Victorian community, but it is still sickening to recall them. ‘I think everyone got cleaned up’ is a quote from Mr Pusey. ‘There’s four people, four people, look at that’, Pusey says in one of the recordings. He goes on to use the most foul and disgusting language, which I certainly will not repeat here, but he does repeatedly say that this is ‘justice’ and that it is ‘absolutely amazing’.

Following this quite appalling and disgusting set of events and following his appalling and disgusting behaviour, Pusey was charged with the common-law offence of committing an act that outrages public decency. That was in addition to a number of other offences. This common-law offence is of course very little used and of some heritage. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 months jail, three months of which was attributable to the outraging of public decency offence. Now, family members of the deceased police officers, but in addition to that so many members of the Victorian community at large, expressed their outrage at that time at the leniency of the sentence. But to be fair, the leniency of the sentence was only as such because of the fact that our legal system was simply not geared really to deal with such a unique and bizarre offence as this.

And so the Andrews Labor government has responded with this bill. Despite some minor concerns that I will discuss briefly in the course of my contribution and the concerns of some other relevant bodies, I certainly commend them for doing so and note at the start of my contribution, as Mr O’Brien in the other place noted in his contribution, that we will certainly be supporting this legislation.

The legislation seeks to make a series of changes to our criminal statutes. First, a proposed section 195J abolishes the common-law offence of outraging public decency. Now, that is the offence that Mr Pusey was charged with and found guilty of. It inserts proposed section 195K, which creates an offence of grossly offensive public conduct. The elements of the offence are that the offender engages in conduct that ‘grossly offends community standards of acceptable conduct’; the conduct is engaged in in a public place and is seen or heard by a person in a public place—of course Mr Pusey posted his appalling and abhorrent behaviour onto online forums; the offender knows that, or is reckless as to whether, the place at which the conduct is engaged in is a public place; and the offender knows, or a reasonable person would know, that the conduct would likely grossly offend community standards of acceptable conduct.

This is an area of law which is complex and difficult. We understand that and we accept that, but I do feel that the government, and the Attorney specifically, have obviously done their very best to seek to come up with a new arrangement that would, should we see another offence that is not able to be captured by other criminal statutes, ensure that we do not again see somebody of Mr Pusey’s ilk being let off with ultimately the slap on the wrist that he received, not because of any poor conduct from the judiciary in this case—not at all—but simply because our criminal law was not in a position at that time to allow proper recompense.

There are of course, given the nature of the type of provision that we are discussing, some different views from eminent bodies in the legal community whose advice I certainly respect, whose advice I know Mr O’Brien respects and, I know, whose advice the Attorney respects. I will just briefly quote from some of those, not to take away from the fact that, again, I do feel that in the circumstances and given the difficulty of dealing with some of these matters the Attorney and the government have done a good job in quickly and promptly responding to very deep community concerns about this specific matter to enable us to deal with any matters better in future.

The Law Institute of Victoria have made some comments. They have said:

Legislation should be clear and not subject to the vagaries of public outcry or opinion.

And:

… this new legislation may result in a disproportionate application of the law, adversely affecting vulnerable people, including those with mental health issues.

As members of the government have pointed out, there are some safeguards in this legislation. I would have hoped and indeed I would have thought that members of the judiciary would be well placed to seek to deal with some of those concerns. They are legitimate concerns, but obviously the Attorney in this process has sought to mitigate them as far as it is possible, noting the nature of the provisions that are before the house today.

Liberty Victoria has, perhaps understandably, perhaps obviously—again, given the nature of the provisions that we are discussing—expressed some concerns too. Liberty Victoria has said:

Because the prohibited grossly offensive conduct is (deliberately) left undefined and ambiguous, the proposed offence will not act as a deterrent.

And in short:

There is no demonstrated need for this new offence.

There are many reasons for passing new laws. There are many reasons for allowing the enactment of new punishments. One is deterrence. But let us say that in future we have to deal with another person of the ilk of Mr Pusey—heaven forbid. I like to think of myself as an optimistic person and somebody who sees the best in others. He strikes me as the most reprehensible of individuals, so I am not sure that it is always possible to deter somebody like that through the predicted—and, I dare say, predictable—and rational application of the law. Sometimes, I am afraid, the best we can do as a society is to deal with really dreadful matters after the fact. For that reason, while I respect the views of Liberty Victoria, I would much rather today see the Parliament support this legislation on the basis that of course in some respects it must be somewhat vague and then trust our judiciary so that the community can have confidence that—should we ever again have to deal with something as appalling as what the whole community had to deal with and of course, first and foremost, four police families had to deal with in 2020—we are equipped as a society to at least then mete out proper punishment. Punishment is one of the proper reasons for having a strong body of criminal law. Yes, if we can deter, that is a great thing. But of course we cannot deter all crime, and I am not sure anything would have deterred somebody as malevolent as Mr Pusey.

There are some other concerns that have been expressed by some other legal bodies. However, some of these matters have been noted and sought to be addressed by Mr O’Brien in the other place but also numerous members of the government in the other place. They may well be addressed by members of the government here. I do not want to go on at too much length regarding some of those concerns to take away from my support and the support of my colleagues for this measure. We think it is a necessary measure. We think it is a good thing that the government has sought to act quickly and the Attorney has sought to act quickly, because we wholeheartedly agree not only that what we saw on the Eastern Freeway was utterly appalling but also that the only punishment that could be meted out at the time was manifestly insufficient and so new legislation of this nature is necessary. It has our support, and we wish it a speedy passage.

Sitting suspended 4.06 pm until 4.24 pm.

Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (16:25): I rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. This bill will introduce a new offence of engaging in conduct that is grossly offensive to community standards of behaviour. Those convicted under the offence will face a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment. My contribution will only be short and to convey Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party’s full support of this clearer, more serious offence.

The government often tell us that we should not be introducing new offences, penalties or responses in relation to one particular event, and this bill comes as a result of the campaigning of Stuart Shulze, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor’s husband, so here we have an example of doing just that, but we think it is entirely warranted. This extremely important bill means a lot to our blue family.

I also note that the government have included a deferral of the decriminalisation of public drunkenness. In a media release it was referred to as an ‘unrelated item’. I just want to put this on record because we often have limited scope on when we can introduce amendments to legislation which we think is incredibly important but the government often rejects those amendments on the premise that they are not directly amending a particular bill.

On that note, I did have an amendment to this bill. You all know this. It had the numbers to pass, and I am very grateful for this. It was important. It related to the grabbing and dragging of people where they are apprehended and taken to a less public place like a laneway, for instance, or some bushes or similar. It usually happens to women, but it was certainly not gendered in text. It is something that has the support of Victoria Police formally, and I knew it would have the support of my ex-VicPol colleagues individually. They are all over seeing crimes like these against women with perpetrators getting away with it.

I have since withdrawn my amendment very reluctantly. I was told that this bill would be pulled in the Assembly if the amendment was to pass the house. The Attorney-General’s letter, sent via email yesterday, requesting that I withdraw the amendment inferred, amongst other things, that the amendment I had drafted was too narrow for my intent. For the record, I intended to make the offence narrow so that it would not capture offences unintentionally. If it had been drafted too broadly, I am sure the response would have been that it was too broad. It seems it is very difficult to win. Also, I was asked to consult with departments like the Office of Public Prosecutions and VicPol on amendments such as these. However, as a crossbench member I am told that I cannot have contact with these departments as an MP and I have to go through the relevant minister’s office to have any of those meetings in the first place, which makes it quite difficult. This was made quite clear to me when I was elected, but in my opinion it is not entirely correct. Instead I have to seek legal advice informally through colleagues and lawyers. It seems it does not matter that these amendments are drafted on the back of their advice to the commission.

Also, I am not too sure why I had to consult with VicPol, as their submission to the Victorian Law Reform Commission on grab and drag should have been enough. It recommended this amendment. I have been told that the department are looking at this offence but not that it will implement the offence, which is disappointing. The government have had over six months to consider the VLRC report on grab and drag. Any accusation that I am rushing this amendment is simply not true. We have been looking at introducing it only because the government has not made a clear commitment to legislate it in the future. In question time earlier this year, on grab and drag the Attorney said, ‘We are reviewing the VLRC’s findings in detail’, but without commitment. I call on the government to make this commitment. There is clearly a deficiency in the law at present, and I hope this aggravating circumstance for grab and drag can be legislated next year—the sooner the better. The message needs to be sent that we do not tolerate any assaults, especially on women and children.

As you can tell, I am disappointed. Because I was put in a position where I had to make a choice between what I see as the safety of the community and filling a gap in the law, and also the passage of this bill, which is also very important to the blue family—I should not have had to make this decision—I have made the decision very reluctantly to withdraw my amendment.

But back to the bill. What happened on 22 April 2020 was tragic. It was one of those moments where we all remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the news. The lives of four of our finest were taken too soon, all because they went to work to do their job, to protect our community. I do not really have the words for the man they pulled over, Richard Pusey. The words ‘scum’, ‘poor excuse for a human’ and ‘oxygen thief’ come to mind and will suffice for now; the ones I really want to use would certainly be unparliamentary. However, we will never forget that this pathetic creature was not the one who caused the event. That was a truck driver, Mohinder Singh, who thought it was a good decision to go barrelling down the highway whilst being high on drugs and short on sleep, taking four lives with him—four outstanding humans just doing their jobs. As I understand it, he is currently appealing his 22-year prison sentence, saying it is too harsh. He should have got life for each life that he took; he should be serving 88 years minimum. He should never see the light of day beyond the prison walls. Even that is too good for him in my opinion.

Pusey was charged with grossly offensive conduct, but it was a common-law offence with an uncertain maximum penalty. Taking photos and videos of a dying person, let alone a police officer, and failing to render assistance is simply inhumane. It goes against every good fibre that we possess. And it would be an understatement to say that he has since continued to show his true colours in the community and in the courtroom. But rather than continue to talk about that sad excuse for a human being, I would like to speak about those whose lives were taken from us too soon.

Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor was remembered as a caring and dedicated police officer who took care of everyone. Senior Constable Kevin King was a devoted dad, a dedicated husband and a great cop. He loved music and cooking Italian food and held his family in such a high regard. Constable Glen Humphris was described by partner Todd Robinson as bubbly, outgoing and loving. Constable Josh Prestney played guitar, loved the Lakers, was an accomplished triathlete and a Collingwood supporter, and had only just recently graduated from the academy. These four officers, like we all do in the police force, saw the worst of people constantly. We put ourselves in harm’s way to keep everyone else safe. That is just the nature of the job—it is tough, but we do it. But some pay with their lives. The state memorial was incredibly moving, and it was so nice to see many people from all walks of life come together to pay their respects and offer condolences for such an unprovoked and senseless act of criminality.

My sincere condolences to the families of Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King and constables Glen Humphris and Josh Prestney. Time might pass but the pain will still be incredibly raw. We are all with you in your grief and will be forevermore. I commend this bill to the house.

Mr ERDOGAN (Southern Metropolitan) (16:32): I rise to speak in support of the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. With this bill the government is strengthening and clarifying our laws around extremely offensive public behaviour to better meet the expectations of our community. We are addressing a gap in legislation, one that was highlighted by the Eastern Freeway tragedy. As the Minister for Crime Prevention stated in her second-reading speech, it is about protecting more fundamental values and ensuring that the criminal law can appropriately respond when these fundamental values are breached and significant social harm is caused. I guess that is the crux of the bill before us.

It proposes to create a new offence in the Crimes Act 1958 which applies to conduct that grossly offends community standards of acceptable conduct. It applies to conduct which occurs in a public place or is seen or heard by a person in a public place. It will not apply to online offensive conduct. It contains defences for good faith and reasonable conduct that is in the public interest, including genuine political activity, art or science. It has a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment. It includes a requirement that the Director of Public Prosecutions consents to any prosecutions. With the passage of this legislation, the common-law offence of outraging public decency will be abolished. The bill will also defer commencement of the Summary Offences Amendment (Decriminalisation of Public Drunkenness) Act 2021 by 12 months to November 2023. This will defer the repeal of public drunkenness offences by 12 months.

Firstly, I would like to speak to the aspect of the bill which relates to grossly offensive public conduct. The need for the reform in this area was highlighted in the aftermath of the Eastern Freeway tragedy. This horrific incident on 22 April 2020 resulted in the deaths of four Victorian police officers. They were Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King, Constable Glen Humphris and Constable Joshua Prestney. These officers died serving and protecting the Victorian community. We express our profound and deepest sympathies to the families of those killed in the line of duty that day and acknowledge any families or friends listening to this debate today.

Many Victorians were shocked by the actions of Richard Pusey, who recorded footage of the crash scene and made offensive commentary. This caused extreme distress to the families of the victims and their friends and colleagues. In a modern society we expect that public spaces are maintained as places of decency and dignity that all members of our society can safely enjoy. While we hope this offence will rarely or never be used, it is important that clearer guidance is set in law about how the conduct should be dealt with if it occurs. As has already been stated by some of the previous speakers, Richard Pusey was charged with the common-law offence of outraging public decency. This offence is archaic, unclear in its scope and does not have a clear maximum penalty. The old offence will be abolished. The proposed laws were developed after heartfelt campaigning by Stuart Schulze, whose wife, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, died in the crash. The government thanks Mr Schulze for his constructive and valuable feedback.

There are several key features of the offence. Some may seem technical in nature, but I believe they are important to address. ‘Public place’ is defined. The relevant conduct must occur in a public place or be seen or heard by a person in a public place. This includes parks, roads, sportsgrounds, public transport and both government and non-government educational settings. It reflects our society’s expectation that public spaces are maintained as places of decency and dignity that everyone can safely enjoy, free from intimidation and distress. A relevant fault element is also included. The offender must know that, or be reckless as to whether, the place in which the conduct is engaged in is a public place or the conduct is likely to be seen or heard by a person in a public place. This recognises that there may be circumstances in which a person may not know or foresee the possibility of their conduct being public in nature.

Conduct must be grossly offensive. The offender must engage in conduct that grossly offends community standards of acceptable conduct. This relates to the physical act that must take place. ‘Offensiveness’ has a legal meaning, being behaviour calculated to wound feelings and arouse anger, resentment, disgust or outrage in the mind of a reasonable person. The bill uses the language of ‘grossly offensive’ to emphasise the extreme nature and high degree of offensiveness required to meet this threshold. The concept of community standards in the offence is intended to be understood as those of a multicultural, pluralistic and largely tolerant society rather than simply reflecting mainstream views. This draws upon the language used by Justice Harper in Pell v. Council of Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria. This acknowledges that any understanding of community standards must be nuanced and account for the views of all members of our society, including different faith and community groups. The policy intention is not to draw a dichotomy between the views of different groups of people or preference views of one over another. The finding will be a question of fact. A decision-maker, usually a judicial officer or jury, will need to weigh up the competing factors and determine whether the conduct was grossly offensive in the circumstances.

A further fault element of the offence is that the offender must know, or a reasonable person would know, that the conduct would likely grossly offend community standards of acceptable conduct. The first test is subjective—the prosecution must prove that the accused knew that their conduct was grossly offensive. But there is also an alternative objective test to recognise circumstances where the accused does not actually know their conduct would likely grossly offend community standards but a reasonable person would. Obviously the intention is to exclude certain behaviour, in particular low-level behaviour. The bill only targets extreme behaviour. It makes it very clear that conduct such as being intoxicated or just being indecent or obscene or using profane language is not considered to be grossly offensive and will be excluded from this offence.

Online—the bill also does not apply to conduct seen or heard by using electronic communication. This is because online behaviour is adequately covered by the commonwealth offence of using a carriage service to cause offence. The exclusion does not necessarily mean that any reference to an electronic device is completely outside the scope of the offence. Whether conduct is captured will depend on the particular circumstances, including the exact conduct alleged to be grossly offensive as well as contextual factors.

There are defences provided. We recognise that in some circumstances criminal sanctions for this new offence will not be warranted. A broad defence will apply to conduct committed reasonably, in good faith and for legitimate purposes. This includes conduct for any genuine political, academic, educational, artistic, religious, cultural or scientific purpose.

The Director of Public Prosecutions will need to provide consent to proceed with a prosecution under this offence. The DPP is responsible for conducting serious criminal matters in Victoria and plays a leadership role in the criminal justice system. The DPP’s oversight will ensure that an offence will only be prosecuted where appropriate and if it is in our public interest. The DPP will consider this decision in accordance with a published policy. The factors that will be taken into account include the personal characteristics of the accused person, such as their age, physical health, mental health and whether they have a disability of any kind. The DPP policy notes that the prosecution of a child is a significant step and that first-time child offenders should only be prosecuted in serious matters. The offence will have a maximum of five years imprisonment. This provides guidance to sentencing judges. The offence will be an indictable offence, but it can be tried summarily in the Magistrates Court. The commencement is key here as well. There will be a default commencement date of 3 July 2023.

We acknowledge that some stakeholders have raised concerns about a potential disproportionate impact of the offence on vulnerable or disadvantaged cohorts. The bill includes important safeguards that address these concerns and prevent any such disproportionate effect, including by only targeting extreme behaviour; specifically excluding low-level behaviour, such as swearing or being intoxicated; and building in appropriate defences—critically requiring the Director of Public Prosecutions’ consent to ensure only public interest prosecutions are brought forward.

We will monitor the impacts of the offence and consider any concerns that arise. I think that is important to understand. I am proud of our record of listening and acting, and this bill is a demonstration of that. But I think, like all good legislation, it will need review from time to time. I am looking forward to the implementation of this bill. Once it is in operation, whether there will be further amendments needed in the future, I guess time will tell.

In terms of consultation, like many other bills brought before this chamber, there has been broad stakeholder consultation. The Department of Justice and Community Safety consulted with the courts, Victoria Legal Aid, the Office of Public Prosecutions, Victoria Police, the Law Institute of Victoria, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, the Victorian Bar, members of the Aboriginal Justice Caucus and the Victorian Disability Advisory Council. Mr Schulze, the husband of Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, provided critical advice to government and supported this new offence.

There is obviously another subset of changes with the bill before us. These relate to public intoxication and in particular the repeal of the public intoxication laws—or more so a deferral in that regard. This bill seeks to defer the repeal of public drunkenness offences by 12 months to November 2023. We have made the difficult decision to defer to facilitate the transition from a justice-based response to a health one. In February 2021 we passed reforms that enabled the repeal of public drunkenness offences. This followed decades of activism, including key recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the coronial inquest into the tragic death of Tanya Day. When the government introduced these, it was acknowledged that time was needed to properly design, implement and trial the replacement health-based response. This was in line with the recommendations of the expert reference group appointed to advise the government on this work. Unfortunately the impact of COVID-19 has delayed the establishment of trial sites, as health services deal with the unprecedented impact of the global pandemic. It has also placed significant demands on our health and community services sectors. These delays have meant it was not possible to roll out our health-based model by the intended commencement date of November 2022. A deferral will ensure that we have services in place for a rollout of a fit-for-purpose model, as initially envisaged.

Critically, deferral gives us more time to work with the Aboriginal community to co-design and implement culturally safe services in keeping with the commitment to self-determination and co-design of these matters. This decision to defer has not been made lightly. We as the government acknowledge the profound disappointment and frustration that we are not where we should be at this stage. However, this delay, while difficult, will result in a model that provides the necessary supports to people who are intoxicated in public.

There has been progress made since the introduction of the bill and the passing of the bill last year. Government is working with health services and Aboriginal service providers in the City of Yarra, Greater Shepparton, Greater Dandenong and Castlemaine to establish trials of health-based service responses. The trial implementation committees, including representatives from Victoria Police, health service providers and Aboriginal-specific services, have been established to ensure service providers are working together. The City of Yarra trial is well progressed. Interim outreach has commenced, with staff expected to transition to the sobering-up service once operational. Further details are being finalised which will enable Aboriginal-specific outreach in the Yarra trial to commence shortly. The remaining three sites are also being progressed. Through this bill the government is strengthening and clarifying our laws around extremely offensive public behaviour to better meet the expectations of our Victorian community.

On the preparation of this bill, from time to time as politicians we are criticised for the time it takes to consult, prepare and draft laws, bring them to this chamber and have them passed, but compared to many others, these laws’ passage through this chamber has been relatively fast. It is fantastic, and I want to commend the Attorney-General and her team for bringing this work before the chamber in such a fashion. It is in response to a tragic event which deeply affected all Victorians. We were all disgusted by what we saw, and a gap was clearly identified. As legislators it is our role to respond and fill those gaps in the law, and this bill before us does exactly that. Much of the feedback I had from constituents was about the need for laws such as this, so I am proud to support this bill and I commend it to the house.

Mr BOURMAN (Eastern Victoria) (16:46): I rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, and it still disgusts me that we needed to actually do this. The irony of it is that this has come about not because of the person that crashed into the police car but because a piece of excrement, who I will not name, because I do not want anyone to ever google him, did not have the normal human decency to at least try and help the people that were dead or dying and decided to film them instead. He was more worried about his car and whether he was going to get his sushi than the people. I understand that some people do not like police, and that is their prerogative, but to not actually do anything except carry on and give a tirade about his car shows, and his subsequent actions show, that he really is not fit for the population.

Frankly I have got to say the world is very lucky I am not a dictator, because that guy would be locked up forever and I would see just how far down the mine shaft I could chuck the key. But the world is lucky; it is not up to me. Four heroes went to work that day. They pulled someone over on the side of the road, and the rest is history. I still do not get how to this day this guy is carrying on and still sending the pictures to people, which obviously shows no remorse or anything like that. It is just one of those things that will forever elude me, but anyway.

I will keep that part of my contribution short, but I will keep my next part, on the public drunkenness part of this legislation, even shorter. It has been deferred. They were warned at the time they had put the cart before the horse, and here we are. They needed a solution before that legislation came in, because they just cannot fix it as easily as they thought. If they going to do it, they need to get it done soon, and I hope we are not here in another year just fixing this again.

Ms MAXWELL (Northern Victoria) (16:48): I rise to speak on the Crimes Legislation Amendment Bill 2022, which abolishes the common-law offence of outraging public decency and replaces it with a new one of engaging in conduct that is grossly offensive to community standards of behaviour. The catalyst for this new offence was the outrageous and deeply offensive behaviour of—and like Mr Bourman I cannot say that person’s name, so I will just refer to him as ‘RP’. It was in connection to the Eastern Freeway tragedy in 2020. That horrific incident took the lives of four loved and valued members of our community after a driver who was high on illicit drugs ploughed into them on the freeway. RP was sentenced to 10 months jail for his involvement in this incident, with just three months of his sentence attributed to his acts in outraging public decency. My colleague Mr Grimley has very aptly described our feelings about the two offenders, whose combined actions took four members from our police force and left four families to grieve.

In speaking today I acknowledge and remember those whose lives were lost: Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King, Constable Glen Humphris and Constable Josh Prestney. I also acknowledge the ongoing grief of their families and friends, and we continue to keep them in our thoughts.

While the government have been keen to point out that they do not introduce new offences in response to a single event, it is often traumatic events that expose the gaps in our justice system or illustrate the opportunity to help improve safety or shape societal norms through legislation. This is the case for the family of Joy Rowley, who have been campaigning for many years—too many—for the standalone offence of non-fatal strangulation. The government have reaffirmed their commitment to them to deliver on their promise for this offence; however, little progress has been made in this respect. I have been very pleased to advocate on behalf of this family, and I hope that next year this Parliament will be presented with legislation that, like today’s, may not respond to one tragic incident but is drawn from the strong campaigning of families affected by crime.

Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party is also advocating for grab and drag laws, and my colleague Stuart Grimley has done a power of work in this respect, including presenting an e-petition with more than 90 000 signatures seeking better from our justice system after an offender dragged a nurse into a laneway with what appeared to be an intention to commit sexual assault.

A small but important item tacked on to this bill defers the start date for public drunkenness laws that passed this Parliament last year. When this bill was debated in Parliament we noted our support for the shift to a health-based response to public drunkenness but also noted our serious concerns about its practical implementation. This includes careful consideration of how to mitigate risk for healthcare workers and the infrastructure and resources required, particularly in regional hospitals where emergency departments and waiting areas are not fit for purpose to cater for the diversity of cases that they have to deal with. Deferring implementation until the pilots are completed and have undergone rigorous evaluation, including any further consultation required, is a good thing, and I commend the government for being transparent about needing more time.

While the offence of conduct that is grossly offensive to community standards may only be used on a small number of occasions, that does not diminish its importance. As I said earlier, our laws should reflect the expectations of our society. Grossly offensive conduct should have no place and little excuse, and anyone who shows such arrogance and disrespect so as to blatantly disregard community standards should be held to account.

I would just like to leave you all with this statement by an unknown police officer. It is in memory of those who have died in this terrible, traumatic accident, but it is also for those who attended the scene:

I am a Police Officer.

That means that the pains and joys of my personal life are often muted by my work. I resent these intrusions but it is my job to do the things others fear to do. The label ‘police officer’ creates a false image of who I really am. Sometimes I feel like I’m floating between two worlds.

My work is not just protecting and serving. It’s preserving that buffer that exists in the space between what you think the world is, and what the world really is.

My job isn’t like television. The action is less frequent, much more graphic and it involves all my 5 senses. What I Smell, Taste, See, Touch and Hear at these horrific senses will stay with me long after I close the file. It is not exhilarating to point a gun at someone. Pooled blood has a disgusting metallic smell and steams a little when the temperature drops. CPR isn’t an instant miracle and it’s no fun listening to an elderly grandmother’s ribs break while I keep her heart beating.

I am flattered by your curiosity about my work. What you need to know is I don’t keep a record of which incident was the most frightening, or the strangest, or the bloodiest, or even the funniest. I don’t want to share the images that haunt me with others.

But I do have some confessions to make: Sometimes my stereo is too loud. Music sometimes makes it easier to forget the wasted body of the young man who died alone in a rented room because he was hooked on crack. A hug erases the sight of the nurses who sobbed as they scrubbed layers of dirt and slime from a neglected 2 year olds skin. The anger that beats inside me assures me that it was ignorance that drove a young mother to not put her toddler in a car seat as she drove around today.

Sometimes I might seem rushed or impatient. I am having trouble shedding the adrenaline that kicked in when I discovered that the man I handcuffed during a drug raid was sitting on a loaded 9mm pistol.

Sometimes I’m not as attentive as you would like. I was distracted when you complained about your noisy neighbour because I was remembering the apartment of the elderly women who lay dead and decaying for a week because no one came to check on her.

Sometimes I’m not as sympathetic as you would like. I’m not overly concerned about your ability to pay your speeding ticket, it’s because I really wanted to tell you that I attended a call just yesterday where a speeding careless driver took the life of a child. I didn’t sleep last night because I could still hear her mother’s screams.

Take a moment and remember what my job is and isn’t. Police officers are needed but what we do can leave lasting effects on my family and I. Take a moment and tell an officer that you appreciate their work. Smile and say ‘Hi’ when I am getting coffee. Bite your tongue when you start to tell a ‘bad cop’ story. Better yet, find the time to tell a ‘good cop’ story. The family at the next table may be a cop’s family.

I commend this bill to the house.

Ms TAYLOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:56): We know that our government is strengthening and clarifying our laws around extremely offensive public behaviour, and it is really about better meeting the expectations of our community. The impetus was obviously extremely tragic. We have already spoken in the chamber about the Eastern Freeway tragedy in 2020, which took the lives of four Victorian police officers, Leading Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, Senior Constable Kevin King, Constable Glen Humphris and Constable Joshua Prestney, who were just doing the job that they were paid to do with good intent and with honour. They all have, I am sure, many connections in their lives from family and friends and colleagues who will never forget that day and will probably have to manage the deep pain and emotion of that day for the rest of their lives as best they can.

I think perhaps an outcome that might be a positive in a very, very sad situation is that we could pass a reform that could somehow mitigate the risk of this behaviour ever happening again and also send a signal—‘signal’ is the wrong word because I think that ‘signal’ does not properly encapsulate what the purpose of this legislation is. I am trying to find the right word, but in any case what we are seeking through this legislation is to make very clear behaviour that is completely unacceptable with no validation and which falls within the ambit of the legislation we have here. I think it is very important to note, and it has been spoken about to some degree in this chamber, that there are very careful controls, I should say, or that the ambit of this bill has been very carefully consulted upon, for obvious reasons, because, yes, we want to curb what is—and I am going to be careful with how I describe it in the chamber, for obvious reasons—conduct that is grossly offensive. Well, what does that mean? That means the offender must engage in conduct that grossly offends community standards of acceptable conduct. This relates to the physical act that must take place. Offensiveness has a legal meaning, being ‘behaviour calculated to wound feelings and arouse anger, resentment, disgust or outrage in the mind of a reasonable person’, and the bill uses the language of ‘grossly offensive’ to emphasise the extreme nature and high degree of offensiveness required to meet this threshold.

I think a further comment I want to make on the tragedy that was chiefly the impetus behind this very important legislative change is that it does affect everyone when something as horrible as this occurs. It is not only but it is primarily and probably at its most potent point certainly for the family, friends and colleagues—absolutely. But I think as Victorians, we all feel—I will say broadly speaking—a deep sense of compassion. There will be other emotions as well—horror, disgust et cetera. But it is disappointment because I think there is a code amongst us and we do have expectations of reasonable behaviour, and clearly what occurred with this tragedy was far from reasonable and does not meet the standards of our community—not now, not ever, would it meet those standards. But that is why it is important to make these kinds of changes, and when we are thinking about the concept of community standards it is intended to be understood as those of a multicultural, pluralistic and largely tolerant society rather than simply reflecting on mainstream views. These are important caveats to make sure that the controls being implemented by this legislative tool are truly targeting behaviour that needs to be at worst curbed but at best completely stamped out.

This acknowledges that any understanding of community standards must be nuanced and account for the views of all members of our society, including different faith and community groups. The policy intention is not to draw a dichotomy between the views of different groups of people or preference the views of one group over another. The finding will be a question of fact. A decision-maker, a judicial officer or jury will need to weigh up the competing factors and determine whether the conduct was grossly offensive in the circumstance. A further fault element of the offence is that the offender must know, or a reasonable person would know, that the conduct would likely grossly offend community standards of acceptable conduct. Even though I know, as laypeople, we do have that generic sense, that code, that says, ‘Oh, my goodness. How could anyone behave in that manner?’, of course with legislation it has to be defined in a way that aptly encapsulates the ambit of the kind of behaviour that is sought to be deterred.

The first test is subjective—the prosecution to prove that the accused knew that the conduct was grossly offensive. But there is also an alternative objective test: to recognise circumstances where the accused does not actually know that their conduct would likely grossly offend community standards but a reasonable person would. I note that when we are looking at defences in this context, we recognise that in some circumstances criminal sanctions for grossly offensive conduct will not be warranted. A broad defence will apply to conduct committed reasonably and in good faith and for a legitimate purpose. This includes conduct for any genuine political, academic, educational, artistic, religious, cultural or scientific purposes.

There is a further caveat or a protective element, can we say. The bill includes a critical safeguard requiring the Director of Public Prosecutions to consent to a prosecution of the offence before it is commenced. The DPP is responsible for conducting serious criminal matters in Victoria and plays a leadership role in the criminal justice system. The DPP’s oversight will ensure that the offence will only be prosecuted where appropriate and if it is in public interest. The offence will have a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment, and this provides guidance for sentencing judges, and the offence will be an indictable offence but it can be tried summarily in the Magistrates Court. It will begin operating by the default commencement date of 3 July 2023.

I know my learned colleague Mr Erdogan did allude to some important elements, again with important caveats acknowledging that some stakeholders did raise concerns about a potential disproportionate impact of the offence on vulnerable or disadvantaged cohorts. The bill includes important safeguards that address these concerns and prevent any such disproportionate effect, including by only targeting extreme behaviour, specifically excluding low-level behaviour such as swearing or being intoxicated, building in appropriate defences and, most critically, requiring the DPP’s consent to ensure only public interest prosecutions are brought—and we will certainly monitor the impacts of the offence and consider any concerns that arise.

In terms of the consultation that has helped inform this legislative change, in developing the bill the Department of Justice and Community Safety consulted with the courts, Victoria Legal Aid, the Office of Public Prosecutions, Victoria Police, the Law Institute of Victoria, the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, the Victorian Bar, members of the Aboriginal Justice Caucus, and the Victorian Disability Advisory Council. Mr Schulze, the husband of Senior Constable Lynette Taylor, provided critical advice to government and supported the offence, and we are truly grateful for that. It was essential, I would say, in informing the development of this very important legislative change.

Noting other aspects of this bill, we note that unfortunately the impact of COVID-19 has delayed the establishment of trial sites as health services deal with the unprecedented impact of the pandemic, and it has also placed significant demands on our health and community services sector. These delays have meant it is not possible to roll out a health model by the intended commencement date of 2022—and I am talking about the repeal of public drunkenness offences being deferred by 12 months to November 2023. It is very difficult to facilitate the transition from a justice-based response to a health one, noting we did pass reforms and noting that when government did introduce these it was acknowledged that time was needed to properly design, implement and trial the replacement health-based response. This was in line with the recommendation of the expert reference group appointed to advise government. The deferral will ensure that we have the services in place to roll out a fit-for-purpose model. Critically, deferral gives us more time to work with the Aboriginal community to design and implement culturally safe services in keeping with a commitment to self-determination and co-design.

The decision to defer has not been made lightly, and we certainly acknowledge the profound frustration and disappointment, particularly for members of the Aboriginal community, that we are not quite where we hoped we would be. However, this delay, whilst difficult, will result in a model that provides the necessary supports to people who are intoxicated in public, which surely lends itself to the purposive elements of that legislative change. Hence when you are going to implement a reform it is important to implement it fully and in a way that actually will achieve the desired outcome for which that reform was brought about in the first place. So we are not resiling from the frustrating elements of that modification but at the same time we note that there is a very good purpose behind the reforms. The government is working with health services and Aboriginal service providers in the City of Yarra, Greater Shepparton, Greater Dandenong and Castlemaine to establish trials of the health-based service response, and trial implementation committees, including representatives from Victoria Police, health service providers and Aboriginal-specific services, have been established to ensure service providers are working together so we can see progress along the path in any case—and that is very, very important for such a fundamental reform.

To close out, I come back to the tragic impetus behind the very important reforms here that have led to this new offence, and I did refer to him before, but I would like to once again say that we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Schulze. I understand that he has obviously been through a lot in light of the circumstances of the tragedy that has driven forward these reforms, but I am incredibly grateful that he has had the courage and the conviction to see that through. This is what I would say is a community-informed reform which is truly validated and important in terms of striving for better and more reasonable behaviour from our community into the future.

Mr LIMBRICK (South Eastern Metropolitan) (17:11): First of all I would like to acknowledge the circumstances that have brought us to this point, the tragic events on the Eastern Freeway in April 2020. I am sorry for the terrible loss and grief it caused families and the broader police family, who put themselves in harm’s way to enforce the law. I understand why after such a terrible event we would want to do something to fix it, achieve something positive or make sense of the senseless. However, it is my job to look at this bill in the cold light of day and to figure out if it will be better for Victorians, if it will solve a problem and if there could be unintended consequences. There is a fundamental issue about whether it will actually solve a problem. The extraordinary circumstances that motivated this legislation mean that its application could be, and hopefully would be, extremely rare. Recently the Attorney-General acknowledged this when she was quoted in the Age newspaper saying she does not think this new offence will be used. It is not even clear to me that if this legislation had existed before the event this low-life would have been successfully convicted of this offence, because it does not apply to online spaces. This is arguable. But even without this law he was charged and pled guilty to other matters, he was jailed for 10 months and his name will be stained forever.

But then there is the issue of unintended consequences. A major problem with this law, as with government interventions regarding freedom of speech, is: who decides? Offending community standards means different things to different people at different times. Fifty years ago a Pride parade possibly would have transgressed this law according to the standards of the day. A law like this might just have added to the burden of oppressed minorities. We might well look back at this law in the same way in 50 years time.

This bill provides for a number of defences, but whether or not something applies as a defence must ultimately be decided by humans in a courtroom, and those humans inevitably have different values and come from different cultures. A religious judge would be more likely to be grossly offended by a Satanist, for example, or an atheist could be offended by a religious scripture, along the lines of what we saw with the controversy with the rugby player Israel Folau. I do not believe that show trials of these kinds would serve any purpose for Victoria.

Then there is the defence of conduct with a genuine political purpose. This might mean that a protestor burning an offensive effigy, for example, would be exempt, but it might not. I am not here to endorse that kind of behaviour, but I am here to prevent legislation that could give government the power to create political prisoners. What if a person desecrated a war memorial to protest a government-sponsored war? Some people would be grossly offended by this act and others might be offended by the war itself. Some would say that this is a political act and others not, but most likely they could be charged using existing laws anyway. Likewise, who is to define what is art? I think this question should be left to art critics, and judges have better things to do.

They say you cannot legislate against stupidity, but in some ways I feel this legislation is attempting to do just that. If you could legislate against stupidity, then the low-life who triggered this would be locked up for life, but I doubt that would solve anything. This is because this legislation is poorly defined. People need to know in advance what conduct is prohibited, but since everybody has different standards, this is impossible. Clear laws that are knowable in advance are a cornerstone of an effective rule of law.

We are also concerned that this legislation could have a disproportionate impact on people having mental health and psychotic episodes, people suffering from alcohol and drug addiction, artists, homeless people, Indigenous people and potentially sex workers. We are concerned it could also be used to quell dissent. I believe the intention of this legislation is well meaning, but the Liberal Democrats believe it gives too much ambiguous power to the state, and we cannot support it.

House divided on motion:

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Committed.

Committee

Clause 1 (17:23)

Mr LIMBRICK: As I normally do, I will acquit all of my questions in clause 1 if that is to the agreement of the Attorney. One of the things spoken about in the second-reading speech refers to conduct that does not fall within the offence because it serves another legitimate purpose. Can the Attorney please advise what determines what is a legitimate purpose?

Ms SYMES: Thank you, Mr Limbrick, for your question. As the bill sets out in relation to what you have identified in the second-reading speech—and I think particularly the explanatory memorandum is helpful in this regard because it states the concept of community standards that is in the offence—they are intended to be understood as those of a multicultural and largely tolerant society rather than simply reflecting mainstream views. There is also a lot of information in the legislation around exceptions in relation to legitimate activities—artistic, cultural, educational and the like. So there is a lot of guidance about what would be the factors to consider when assessing whether something is grossly offensive or not.

As is very clearly set out and has applied in the common law for some time, it is a very high threshold, and this bill is trying to codify that in a way that is envisaging behaviour that is hard to envisage—so trying to provide a platform that enables it to capture a high threshold of extreme behaviour—but also make it very clear that behaviour such as profound language, urinating in public and the things that some people might find offensive are not intended to be captured by this legislation. That is why there are a lot of references to exclusions and considerations without being necessarily prescriptive.

Mr LIMBRICK: I thank the Attorney for her answer. The exceptions that the Attorney spoke of—the examples of art and political activity—imply that someone needs to decide what is art and what is political activity. Who is it that will be deciding what is and is not art?

Ms SYMES: Ultimately the police are responsible for bringing a charge in the first instance, so there will be a view taken at that point in time. This offence has a step involving the DPP office to make sure that they can have a look at it, so again that would be viewed in relation to the guidance in the legislation. Ultimately if it was to proceed to a court, then you would have a jury determining if conduct is grossly offensive to community standards, or indeed a judge alone if an order is made for trial by a judge alone, so there are a few different people that would look at that. There would be presentations from defence, for example, as well in relation to any of those exceptions. But the guidance in the legislation around art, education et cetera is designed to be informative.

Mr LIMBRICK: I thank the Attorney for her answer. If I am hearing you right, it would be effectively the DPP who would be figuring out before they decided to go ahead with the prosecution whether or not something was art, for example. Now, I have had lots of debates with people about what is and is not art. What capability does the DPP have to determine what is and is not art?

Ms SYMES: Well, it is not necessarily a definitive decision about what is art and what is not. What the decision is to be made about is whether the conduct is grossly offensive to community standards or not. It is designed to have exceptions for when it can be argued that it is in a different realm of art, as you have demonstrated. But the first question would be ‘Is it offensive?’, and then it would look at the context. With all of these cases, if they ever emerge, which I hope they do not—under the common law I think there have been seven of these cases—I am on the public record saying that just because we create offences does not mean we want people charged with them. This will be rarely used. It is designed to capture conduct as we have seen in recent times in relation to the incident on the Eastern Freeway.

We have tried to envisage a range of activities that might offend some people, and as you have identified, quite regularly somebody can be offended by a piece of art, whether it involves nudity or whatever, but they are not the types of behaviour that we envisage will be picked up by this behaviour; neither is prank-type activity like the Jackass-type offensive things that a lot of people would think are pretty out there, pretty gross and pretty offensive in a low-level sense. But they are just designed to provide a framework for this legislation to operate in. We are not concerned about that type of behaviour that some people think is not right. It is designed to pick up behaviour that is at an extreme level. It is difficult for me to articulate what that type of behaviour is because, as we know with the case with Mr Pusey, it is a kind of behaviour that no-one really predicted or anticipated, and I find it difficult to come up with another example of where this is going to apply because I would hope that no-one would behave in that sort of manner.

Mr LIMBRICK: I thank the Attorney for that explanation. Back to the Pusey case itself, if one breaks down the things that happened that were grossly offensive, one of the things that I am concerned about is that I am not certain that his actions would be picked up by this offence, because of the carve-out of online activity. I think it is potentially arguable that he would have been excluded from this offence because the act that was grossly offensive was broadcasting this, making commentary and this sort of thing. Is the Attorney confident that he would be picked up by this new offence if something like this was to happen again?

Ms SYMES: Mr Limbrick, I will avoid answering that directly because it is not my role as the Attorney-General to put myself in the shoes of the court necessarily, but what I would do is bring you to the elements of the common-law offence. There are two. It requires the prosecution to prove that the act is of such a lewd, obscene or disgusting character that it outrages public decency and that the act took place in a public place and must have been capable of being seen by two or more persons that were present. They are the common-law offence elements.

The new offence has four elements that the prosecution must prove, again beyond reasonable doubt. Firstly, the offender must engage in conduct that grossly offends community standards of acceptable conduct, so the physical act must take place. Secondly, the relevant conduct must occur in a public place or be seen or be heard by a person in a public place. Thirdly, the offender must know, or be reckless as to whether, the place the conduct is engaged in is a public place or the conduct is likely to be seen or heard by a person in a public place. The fourth element is that the offender must know, or a reasonable person would know, that the conduct would likely grossly offend community standards of acceptable conduct.

In relation to the incident that started the conversation around the laws and whether there are gaps and whether the common law should be brought forward into statute, we looked at that particular offence and the advice was that this crafting would be an applicable offence. I cannot say how it would be applied because, again, that is not my job, but it is not the online dissemination that would knock that conduct out in this instance. Because of the behaviour of engaging in filming, the commentary that went with that and the act of dissemination—the act of putting it online as opposed to the offence—the action can still be captured by this offence.

Mr LIMBRICK: I thank the Attorney for her answer. I am still not convinced on a number of things. With the idea of community standards, as I said in my second-reading speech, these things change over time. The thing I brought up in my speech was that things brought up many, many years ago back in England under the old common-law offence were things like same-sex activities. Things like this used to be considered grossly offensive, and now these days we consider people’s rights. How do we maintain that sphere of what we know is grossly offensive? It is talked about in the legislation, and people spoke about it here, as if everyone just knows what is grossly offensive, but I am sure I could find many people that would disagree on what ‘grossly offensive’ actually means.

Ms SYMES: Mr Limbrick, I do not disagree with you outright, but that is a feature of our criminal justice system quite regularly regardless. The test of reasonableness is something that I get asked about a lot, and it is difficult to explain. It is incredibly difficult to craft black and white laws, black and white rules, and how they apply to society.

In relation to what is meant by ‘community standards of acceptable behaviour’, whether something is offensive enough to grossly offend community standards of acceptable behaviour will be determined by a reasonable person test—that is, what would a reasonable person consider to be extremely offensive to normal community standards. When applying a reasonable person test and interpreting the meaning of community standards, courts have looked to contemporary standards of a multicultural, partly secular and largely tolerant, if not permissive, society. This kind of objective test is common in the law and will allow the offence to stay relevant over time as social norms and attitudes change, and it is up to the judge or jury to apply that test.

Mr LIMBRICK: I thank the Attorney again for her answer. My next question is just on a totally different part of the bill—on the public drunkenness deferral. The Liberal Democrats were very supportive of this reform that the government did, but I am concerned about what happens in the interim while we are waiting for this new system to come into place. Could the Attorney please advise what sorts of interim measures are in place to prevent public drunkenness arrests and to support vulnerable people who might be caught by the current laws in this interim period?

Ms SYMES: I thank Mr Limbrick for his question and indeed his support of the substantive legislation. Indeed it was a really difficult decision to have to make, and I spent a lot of time talking to the relevant stakeholders, including members of the Day family, about the need to defer this. Obviously we wanted to make sure that we have a health system in place for the trials to make sure that we can get the evidence that we need to ensure that we can roll this out statewide.

In terms of the discussions that I have had in relation to the interim measures for the deferral period, since 2017 in fact measures have been taken to further safeguard the people placed in police custody and to consider their wellbeing. The measures include updated guidance in the Victoria Police manual on the medical checklist and detainee risk assessment, additional and revised mandatory training and improved Aboriginal cultural awareness training. Between now and November 2023 Victoria Police will exercise its discretion to not arrest people for public drunkenness offences where a safe alternative response is available, ultimately hoping to avoid the need for a person to be placed in a police cell, which is consistent with current practice but is obviously something that is being discussed much more with police. The Aboriginal Justice Forum, for example, is a forum that I attend, and so does the Chief Commissioner of Police, and we talk about these issues regularly.

Funding has also been allocated to support the expansion of the custodial notification system, with funding provided to the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service to ensure adequate resourcing to respond to all notifications from police where an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person is taken into custody and to ensure that the service is aligned with the public intoxication health model.

Victoria Police also continue to work with Aboriginal community justice panels to provide direct support to Aboriginal people held in police custody, and government is funding the expansion of the ACJPs and the administrative support provided to them. This includes funding for them to transition from a volunteer model to a paid workforce at trial sites, in recognition of the significant role they play in the Aboriginal-specific model.

We know that these measures are an important step towards mitigating the risks of death in custody. They will be further complemented by the phased transition to the health-based services response, beginning with the rolled out dedicated health-based services in the four trial sites.

Clause agreed to; clauses 2 to 7 agreed to.

Reported to house without amendment.

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (17:40): I move:

That the report be now adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.

Third reading

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (17:40): I move:

That the bill be now read a third time.

The PRESIDENT: The question is:

That the bill be now read a third time and do pass.

House divided on question:

Question agreed to.

Read third time.

The PRESIDENT: Pursuant to standing order 14.27, the bill will be returned to the Assembly with a message informing them that the Council have agreed to the bill without amendment.