Friday, 19 August 2022

Ministers statements: Meeting of Attorneys-General

Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:23): Today I would like to update the house on something that happened a week ago. We had the first Meeting of Attorneys-General (MAG) chaired by the new commonwealth Attorney-General, the Honourable Mark Dreyfus QC, MP. The meeting was a really important opportunity to ensure we have responsive and fair justice systems across the country. The meeting covered a range of shared issues, including access to justice, powers of attorney, coercive control, voluntary assisted dying and the criminal justice response to young people. It was clear that on many of these issues Victoria is leading the nation in relation to legislating and providing appropriate services.

We also discussed the need for continuing action to reduce and ultimately prevent family violence against women, sexual violence and sexual harassment, all areas where Victoria has made this a priority and has been at the forefront. Our landmark Royal Commission into Family Violence paved the way for wide-reaching changes on how our justice system works and supports victims. Victorian laws already recognise that family violence comes in many forms, including coercive and controlling behaviour such as emotional and financial abuse. This behaviour can be a criminal offence also. I look forward to contributing to the national principles to develop a common understanding of coercive control across the country and guide any future reform.

MAG also endorsed a work plan to strengthen criminal justice responses to sexual assault. As we know, Victoria is already on this reform pathway, and I am so proud that today we are debating legislation to adopt an affirmative consent model and provide better protections for victim-survivors of sexual offences. Victoria is also leading work in aspects of model defamation law reform to address the chilling effect that defamation laws can have on victim-survivors reporting criminal or unlawful conduct to police and other bodies. This is relevant to sexual harassment reforms that our government is championing, particularly under the leadership of Ms Stitt.

Once again I am tremendously proud of the Andrews Labor government’s commitment to fighting for rights and protections for Victorians. There is always more work to do in the Attorney-General portfolio, but having a forum of like-minded attorneys from state and federal bodies is really encouraging. It was a decent, productive meeting last Friday.