Bail laws
Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:18): (631) My question is to the Attorney-General. Attorney, failing to comply with a bail condition was previously an offence. In March this year your government removed that sanction, meaning that breaching a bail condition is no longer an offence. Despite the government’s Youth Justice Bill, that position has not changed. How does Labor’s weakening of bail laws do anything to keep Victorians safe?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:19): I do not agree that removing breach of bail conditions in any way, shape or form is accurately characterised as weakening bail. It is also a measure that was in the bail bill, which you guys did not oppose, and when you sought to bring it back last sitting week in the Youth Justice Bill, it was quite peculiar to me that you wanted to bring it back but exclude children from the application of it. Mr Mulholland, I challenge you to find anybody that would say that breach of bail condition as an offence in any way had a meaningful impact on reducing crime or making people accountable. What it is important to recognise is that if you are in breach of a bail condition – and this is actually what we reinforced in the Youth Justice Bill – that should be a relevant factor for revocation of bail. If you breach a bail condition, you should be able to have that bail revoked, and there have been recent public instances of just that.
Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (12:20): Attorney, previously committing an indictable offence of arson while on bail led to a much tougher test for staying on bail. In March this year your government removed that sanction, making it easier for repeat offenders to stay on bail. Despite the government’s Youth Justice Bill, that position does not change. Can the Attorney explain why under the government’s bail laws setting fire to a tobacconist is treated far more leniently than actually robbing one?
Jaclyn SYMES (Northern Victoria – Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (12:20): Mr Mulholland, you are really conflating important issues and trying to politicise issues by trying to articulate that the laws in some way would not respond appropriately to an arson incident.
Evan Mulholland: The laws exclude it.
Jaclyn SYMES: Maybe offline we can sit down and I can explain the laws to you. Maybe you could come down and talk to some bail decision makers about how the laws apply. If you do something whilst on bail that causes harm to the community, then that is a consideration for not granting bail, it is a consideration for removing bail. Your characterisation of it is ridiculous, quite harmful, to suggest in any way that somebody who sets fire to something and causes harm – that that would be dismissed as something that is not serious.
Members interjecting.
Jaclyn SYMES: I will explain. The definition of ‘unacceptable risk’ is it brings in harm to the community. If you are actually saying that arson does not cause harm to the community, then that is on you.