Tuesday, 6 February 2024

Justice Legislation Amendment (Police and Other Matters) Bill 2023

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Harriet Shing:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (18:06): I am pleased to rise to make a contribution for the Liberals and Nationals to the Justice Legislation Amendment (Police and Other Matters) Bill 2023, and in doing so I want to make some clear points before I get into the detail of the bill. The first is that I am reliant on the significant work of Brad Battin, our shadow minister in the area. He has consulted widely on this bill, and in doing so brought in the views of a range of different groups. Whether they be the Police Association Victoria, fire or other groups, he has actually talked quite widely on this bill. We will not be opposing the bill, and certainly that is driven in part by the wide consultation that we have undertaken on the bill and the fact that overwhelmingly that consultation did not bring back concerns.

The bill is an omnibus-style bill, and it does cover a number of different acts. It is probably worth just putting on record precisely what it does. It amends the Child Employment Act 2003 in relation to exemptions from the working with children check. It amends the Fire Rescue Victoria Act 1958 to provide for further allocation of certain property rights and liabilities and obligations of the Country Fire Authority to Fire Rescue Victoria. It amends the Firearms Act 1996 in relation to the surrender of firearms to licensed firearms dealers and special arrangements or conditions for longarm firearm licences. It does amend the Road Safety Act 1986 to provide for use of vehicle immobilising devices. It amends the Terrorism (Community Protection) Act 2003 to provide for procedures and operations for the Countering Violent Extremism Multi-Agency Panel and also powers of the courts and the secretary’s delegates in relation to support and engagement orders. It amends the Victoria Police Act 2013 in relation to the code of conduct for Victoria Police personnel, medical assessments for fitness to participate in inquiries, conditions that may be imposed on a police officer or protective services officer for breach of discipline or an offence punishable by imprisonment and changes with respect to restorative arrangements and redress schemes for current and former members of Victoria Police personnel, and it deals with the unauthorised access to and use and disclosure of police information. It also amends the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 1998 in relation to federal subject matter or material. It amends the Worker Screening Act 2020 in relation to exemptions from the working with children check, and there are a number of other minor and technical amendments. As I said, it is a genuine omnibus bill that covers the field.

According to the government, the bill before the house introduces a range of policing reforms which are aimed at strengthening the integrity of the Victoria Police discipline system and supporting Victoria Police and other agencies. We have no objection to these. It will amend the Firearms Act to allow licensed firearms dealers to receive, accept and take possession of firearms from unlicensed persons who are not exempted by the Firearms Act for the purpose of sale, registration or destruction. Police custody officers will no longer be required to obtain a working with children check if they are engaged in child-related activities, including as part of their role. This will provide consistency with frontline Victoria Police roles, in effect removing a duplication, and to that extent we do not believe it diminishes the information that is on hand and the checks and balances, but it does provide a situation where there is not a duplicative set of steps.

The bill amends, as I said, the FRV act to enable the minister to ensure the allocation of rights, liabilities and obligations for staff not assigned to a particular station, ensures that is captured and ensures consistency with arrangements legislated for staff assigned to a particular station.

The bill makes a number of minor technical amendments to the VCAT act and in particular provides the courts with power to extend the limitation period for federal jurisdiction matters referred to them by VCAT. I should say that our Shadow Attorney-General Michael O’Brien has been calling for some of these changes to the VCAT act. The minor technical amendments to the VCAT act address what is a potential ambiguity, and it was amended as recently as 2023 to provide courts the power to extend the limitation for federal jurisdiction matters, but this will make it clear. I will just quote this:

Following the introduction of those amendments into Parliament, the Court of Appeal handed down its decision in Krongold Constructions (Aust) Pty Ltd v Thurin [2023] VSCA 191, which raised ambiguity as to whether this power to extend limitation periods applied to third parties who were not joined to a VCAT proceeding, where that proceeding was then referred to the court under section 77(3). The Bill clarifies that if a matter is referred to a court under section 77(3), the court has the power to extend any limitation period, including to any party that was not joined to a VCAT proceeding before the matter was referred.

Again, my point is that the shadow attorney has actually been campaigning for this change and sees the relevance of it, so in that sense we welcome the government’s decision to take the steps that are required here.

As I said, the Fire Rescue Victoria Act change fixes a drafting error that was in the relevant act when the merger happened some years ago. It is related to differences in that in-house staff not allocated to a particular station had to be handled in the background compared to staff with a permanent station. Advice from stakeholders is that the changes are supported, and we think that that is important.

On the amendments to the Firearms Act, the categorisation as we understand it will make some sense, but I know that at least one of our colleagues in the chamber has raised some issues, and we will certainly look at those as they are brought forward during the debate.

I want to say something about the Road Safety Act, and I think this basically enables the better deployment of vehicle immobilising devices in a great range of proactive situations. The change gives blanket approval to the police, but specific approval still has to be sought from local commanders on each occasion. We think this probably makes sense, but I do want to make some reflections on the road safety situation in the state and nationally. It is a serious situation. The road safety performance in the state has deteriorated. The number of people dying and the number of people injured has grown. We have called repeatedly for the reinstatement of the parliamentary road safety committee, that committee that was instituted in the 1960s and 70s and had a lead role nationally – a lead role internationally – in a series of steps which brought the road toll down massively. We think in a situation where the road toll is rising so significantly and without the explanation that is required – I do not believe there has been the quality of explanation that is required in such a serious situation – it is our view that the parliamentary road safety committee should be reinstated. It should have that leadership role. It is a matter on which parliamentary committees can act in a generally bipartisan way and have people of quality from both sides of the chamber who are able to contribute and lead on steps going forward. The government has been very resistant to reinstituting the committee. There have been votes in the chamber, and on every occasion they have resisted and fought the idea that the parliamentary Road Safety Committee would be reinstated. I do not understand why, and I do not understand why such a sensible and practical suggestion has been resisted in the way that it has.

I do want to make a number of other points. In terms of community safety, there is no doubt that there are real issues in the community now, and these issues are growing; they are not declining. I have watched people in this chamber and the other chamber work for their local communities to try and get stronger protective outcomes. I am particularly thinking of Mr Newbury in Brighton, who has campaigned strongly for a better presence and a stronger response to the home invasions and other matters which are increasingly becoming an issue. All of us have seen these cases on the television. We know that there is problem. That doctor out in Doncaster – what a shocking case. This was an exemplary person who was killed through no fault of their own. I do think that there has got to be a stronger response from the government. The government appears becalmed. It appears uninterested in responding to these terrible matters that go directly to security. Ms Crozier, for example, has also had her own issues. This is something that actually needs to be responded to, and the government does not appear to be responding.

New data from the Report on Government Services figures for the 2022–23 financial year does shed some light on the number of police. The Productivity Commission’s report shows the number of operational sworn police per 100,000 people decreased from 242 in 2021–22 to 235 in 2022–23, a fall of 2.9 per cent, while at the same time there is some increase in unsworn staff, non-operational staff. But it is actually about the feet on the ground, the police on the beat in the face of these terrible issues; the fewer police on the beat to solve crimes and protect the community is what I think is concerning people. The proportion of Victorians satisfied with police services decreased 6.4 per cent since 2020–‍21 to 73.4 per cent in 2022–23. So there are actually measurable changes occurring here in people’s satisfaction with outcomes. The Crime Statistic Agency data for 30 September 2023 release found a 33 per cent increase in residential aggravated burglaries over the past 12 months, with motor vehicle thefts up 25 per cent. These are horrific figures. Overall theft figures were up 22,683 to 167,099 offences; theft from retail stores increased by more than 38 per cent, or 7308 offences, to more than 26,000. It is clear that there is a real issue. We know there are over 800 vacancies, forcing police stations to close and cars to remain idle.

It is also interesting to look at the Productivity Commission’s report on prisoners and the issues around that. In Victoria real net operating expenditure per day per prisoner was $400.95 in 2022–23, compared to $298 in New South Wales and $251 in Queensland. This per-prisoner cost equates to it being 34 per cent higher in Victoria than New South Wales and 59.77 per cent higher than in Queensland. Yet we hear of the escapes and the problems, and even in this chamber we hear inadequate response from the government.

I want to put on record some figures from my local area around the strength of our local police stations. This comes from FOI figures, and they relate to November 2020. I have got new figures on the way, I hope. Camberwell, for example, had 55 staff, but the interesting point is there were five secondments. So this is the idea that the number of secondments is growing and a number of police who are actually in a local station available for response are being removed and put into secondments in big offices in the city away from people, away from the community and away from proactive policing, which is actually a local focus and a local way forward. There were five secondments there, so 9.1 per cent of the staff allocated to Camberwell were on secondment. At Malvern there were nine secondments in 53 – that is 17 per cent. At Prahran there were 19 secondments in 91 police, so that is actually 20.9 per cent. In South Melbourne there were three secondments out of 56 – that is 5.4 per cent. At St Kilda there were 15 secondments out of 87 – that is 17.2 per cent. The total across those stations is 51 secondments in 342 police – that is 14.9 per cent. Almost 15 per cent of police in those local stations in my region are out from the local police station and seconded far away or to some hifalutin taskforce. I am not saying that none of these taskforces do any good work, but I am saying that local policing is important and actually the proactive policing where police actually understand their local community, understand where to go and how to deal with things is actually quite an important point.

In my area stations like Ashburton, Burwood and Murrumbeena have all been closed by this government. Ashburton sits there as a shell, and it should be opened. We saw what happened in the period before 2010 when they wound back support there. This is happening broadly. On a broad front these police stations are being closed. I am indebted to my colleague here for the story on Reservoir police station. In 2020 the government compulsorily acquired three homes to make way for a new $15 million police station that would be open 24/7. Lisa Neville was there. Mr Mulholland makes it clear that there is actually footage out there of Lisa Neville opening this and talking it up big, only for it to move to an 8-hour reception late in 2023. That is another case study of the local policing presence being contracted, being cut back.

The cuts and the cutbacks of police in the community are significant. It is no wonder people feel vulnerable. They see the rising rate of home invasions, they see a rising rate of retail crime and they see threats on the street. We see people being killed, and then we see that the police are being stripped out of our suburbs and police are being stripped out of local police stations. I think that that is a very significant concern.

We have got more and more of these large marches, and I want to put on record my concern at the approach of a lot of the pro-Palestinian groups who have been marching actually in my view sort of in a provocative way designed to elicit response to attack, often in an anti-Semitic way – not always, but it is often the case. I for one am very concerned in my own electorate about the safety of the Jewish community. We need to be very clear and strong that these anti-Semitic views are completely and utterly unacceptable. The sort of attack on Israel via ‘Oh, it’s the right of the Palestinians, this, that and the other,’ well, I understand all that, but at the same time Israel has got to defend itself. Those attacks happened in October, and it is not a coincidence that Israel has been forced to respond in the way that it has.

I also today want to say something about the Pride March and the threats that were involved there. I do not think this is acceptable. As somebody who has actually marched repeatedly over two decades in the Pride March, I find it completely and utterly unacceptable that there would be a targeted and planned set of incidents that go after the police in a very unacceptable way. I think we have got to respect our police and protect them. We have got to recognise that they are owed our support. They often have a very difficult job to do. I was disappointed to hear that Midsumma Festival chief Karen Bryant is reported to have said of the premeditated attack on marching police:

We are highly disappointed by the disruption of the march and the escalation of events from both sides …

From both sides – I mean, the police in that march were marching sensibly and responsibly, and many of them were gay themselves. I remember when that first march by police happened, and I understand the controversy around that, but the idea that you would then have a group of people setting up a deliberate ambush in this kind of way I just think is fundamentally disgraceful. My focus is to protect those police who are there to protect us.

I also just want to return to the issue of policing more generally and just say we cannot continue to have police stripped out of the suburbs. We cannot have police stripped out again and again and again and the numbers wound down in our suburbs, where the local policing is such an important factor. The understanding that comes from local policing, the understanding of local communities – they know where the trouble is likely to arise, and they know often who is likely to be behind it, so they will work from previous knowledge to build a proper case in a lot of these situations. We need available police. Community safety depends on the numbers being available. They cannot all be seconded into big-city taskforces. I know it is fashionable and I know the police hierarchy love all that, but the truth is it is actually old-fashioned policing that is such an important part of protecting the community.

Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:27): I move:

That debate on this bill be adjourned until the next day of meeting.

Motion agreed to and debate adjourned until next day of meeting.