Bail laws
Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:40): (64) My question is to the Attorney-General. Attorney, we welcome your indication over the weekend that your government is considering reform of the bail system in Victoria, a system which we know is disproportionately impacting First Nations people and people in vulnerable circumstances. The government has previously stated that it responded ‘quickly and perhaps, without the opportunity to consider all of the consequences’ when changing the bail laws in 2018. We know that any reform must reduce the number of unsentenced people currently held in our prisons and we must reduce the number of First Nations people held and dying in custody. The question is: will the government commit to comprehensively fixing our broken bail laws, not a piecemeal approach, in line with legal evidence, criminological data and the longstanding representations of First Nations community legal and legal organisations?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:41): I thank Ms Copsey for her question and indeed her interest in this matter and look forward to further engagement with her and many members of this chamber and indeed political parties. It has been fantastic to have the engagement. I have had lots of members of Parliament reach out to me with an interest of bipartisanship and wanting to know more about these reforms. I guess it is an unusual way to be developing legislation in the chamber, and it is not something that I want to start a practice of. It is a delicate piece of legislation that has a range of views and a range of options, and we have telegraphed what we want to do. We have identified the problems.
I concur with the observations that you have made in relation to the disproportionate impacts that our bail laws are having on disadvantaged cohorts, particularly women, First Nations people and people with other underlying conditions such as mental ill health and disability. This chamber will have an opportunity to debate that legislation when it comes through. It is not the only option or the only measure to address the over-representation of cohorts in our justice system. There are a range of options that the government is considering to address those issues. When it comes to justice reform, bail included, it is not necessarily ‘complete something and stop’. We may consider further refinements to bail as we go along. But I look forward to consultations with interested parties in relation to that bill as it makes progress through the department and back to me. I have given a full commitment to being very transparent in the consultation in relation to that bill.
Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (12:43): I thank the Attorney for her answer. We welcome the commitment to reform, but we do note that up until now the concerns raised over many years for the urgent need for bail reform to address the explosion in First Nations imprisonment that has occurred under this government are yet to result in action from the government. I am talking about data that is so shocking it showed that First Nations imprisonment rose by 70 per cent in the first five years of this government and that in only 12 months after the introduction of the 2018 bail reforms the number of First Nations women in prison doubled. Given such data and the deaths in custody that have been driven by the mistaken changes to bail laws, Attorney-General, can I have a commitment from you today that the government will never again delay necessary justice reforms to reduce the shocking levels of First Nations imprisonment?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:44): Ms Copsey, I think that is a little bit more of a statement than a question. But in relation to your substantive question – it was in relation to bail – I have given a commitment in this chamber and outside of this chamber that we are advancing legislation in that regard, and that bill will be in the Parliament within months.