Tuesday, 18 March 2025

Bail laws

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (00:06): (1509) My adjournment this evening is to the Attorney-General, and the action I seek is that you withdraw the current broken bail bill and instead bring before the house a set of evidence-based reforms outlined in Poccum’s law. This afternoon I had the honour to speak at a community rally on the steps of Parliament. We had called on the Premier to front up to this gathering on the steps, but she did not turn up. You have to presume she does not have the courage to face the communities who will be most impacted by these rushed kneejerk changes to Victoria’s bail laws, which risk warehousing more people to languish in Victoria’s prisons and more deaths in custody. Let the Premier explain why the last time Labor rushed bail reform in 2018 we saw a doubling of the number of First Nations women in Victoria’s prisons. Let the Premier explain why she is more focused on optics than on implementing policies that are proven to improve community safety like early intervention programs – programs that provide wraparound services to young people such as Balit Ngulu that the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service runs and has spent years asking for more funding to expand. I was honoured to stand alongside community members, Aboriginal community controlled organisations, community services and family violence and legal sector organisations. There are 92 separate organisations that have joined together to call on the Premier to withdraw the current bill and instead put forward a range of sensible measures. It is set out in their joint public letter released yesterday – ‘Bail saves lives: Poccum’s law is the way forward’. To do this would honour Veronica Nelson, who died in custody locked up in Victoria’s prison system. It would prevent more deaths in custody, rather than the Premier’s panicked course of action, where she is just set to repeat the mistakes of the past.

The Greens support the implementation of Poccum’s law. We want to see bail reforms that take their lead from the expertise and experience that First Nations people and organisations have put before this Premier time and time again only to have that effort, that intellectual and emotional work, utterly betrayed. The Greens will keep fighting for bail laws that actually make us safer; that do not disproportionately impact already overpoliced communities; that do not warehouse people, particularly strong Aboriginal women, in Victoria’s prisons; and that do not lead to deaths in custody. We will keep fighting for Poccum’s law.