Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Crime

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:15): I am pleased to move:

That this house:

(1) notes:

(a) the steady increase in the number of reported incidents of aggravated burglary and assault in Victoria since 2018, with a significant increase in the past year;

(b) a lack of clear understanding of what protections are afforded to Victorian home owners when defending their home against criminals;

(c) Victoria’s self-defence laws have not been reviewed since 2013;

(2) calls on the Attorney-General to:

(a) request that the Victorian Law Reform Commission review the operation and suitability of self-defence laws in Victoria, in particular the application of self-defence laws to protect people in their own homes, including those under the Crimes Act 1958, the Jury Directions Act 2015, the Evidence Act 2008, and the Sentencing Act 1992; and

(b) consider the approach to self-defence laws in the United Kingdom, including section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (UK).

Firstly, I would just like to point out a few things that this motion does. What we are trying to do here with this motion is call on the Attorney-General to request that the Victorian Law Reform Commission review the operation and suitability of self-defence laws in Victoria, in particular the application of self-defence laws to protect people in their own homes, including those under the Crimes Act 1958, the Jury Directions Act 2015, the Evidence Act 2008 and the Sentencing Act 1992, and also consider the approach to self-defence laws, including section 76 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, in the United Kingdom.

Why have I chosen to do this today? As we would all know from media reports, many people now in our state, unfortunately, are becoming the victims of home invasions. People come into their house to rob them or cause harm to them and their families, and some of these people are fighting back against the criminals. I am not certain that the current laws protect home owners, protect people, when they fight back against these criminals. In fact I met a man – who was here this morning, actually, at Parliament – when I went out to his house last week: Aaron. He is in my electorate in Clyde. Unfortunately, I think probably all members here have constituents in their electorate that have suffered some form of home invasion. What happened? He lives in a really nice new estate. I was quite impressed by how quiet and beautiful it is, with nice neighbours that all talk to each other. It is the classic Australian dream: a beautiful estate, a nice house, where he lives with his wife and daughter. But one night in August last year, a year ago, he heard a noise. Fortunately, his teenage daughter was not home that night – she was with a friend – but he and his wife were home. His wife called the police, as the Attorney-General suggested that people should do. Yes, they should call the police. But then they have a choice: what do they do next? The police take some time, and the criminals are very quick. Aaron was prepared. He had a baseball bat. He picked up the baseball bat, and he went out and confronted this intruder in his home. The intruder had some possessions of his. The intruder panicked and ran away into the night. I said to Aaron, ‘What do you think would’ve happened if you had actually hit this guy in the head with your baseball bat?’ No-one can actually give me a straight answer of whether that is considered proportionate and reasonable under the law, because the intruder was not armed and Aaron was. Maybe he would have gotten into serious trouble, and that would have been awful. When you speak to people who are victims of home invasions, one thing that you really notice is the trauma that is inflicted on them, because no longer do they feel safe in their own home. In fact Aaron told me that he is moving house. He does not want to live in that house anymore.

Another victim of home invasion was also here at Parliament this morning: Carly. She had a person come into their home and steal their possessions while they were home and again, in a similar scenario, does not feel safe in her home. She and her partner are actually leaving the state. What an awful, awful state of affairs. They were lucky, though, because there have been other cases, and I will give you another case. In Queensland a while ago there was a father with his wife in a home. Many of these cases are families. He heard noises in the night, and he went to check on his infant daughter’s bedroom. There was a man standing in his infant daughter’s bedroom. It turned out that this man was a convicted sex offender, and there was an altercation. I think every father can sympathise with this man. He fought the intruder. What happened was the police arrived – the police were called, again, in this case – and the men were having an altercation. The intruder died – he had a heart attack – and this man was charged with murder. So a man defending his infant daughter in his own home against an intruder was charged with murder. He served time in remand whilst he was awaiting trial. Eventually his case went to trial and he was acquitted, but not because the self-defence was reasonable and proportionate; he was acquitted because a medical expert said that the heart attack was due to the intruder’s methamphetamine addiction. He had a bad heart, and it caused him to have a heart attack.

There was another case which was only brought to my attention through the media this week. A Victorian man was in his home. Two men came to his home not to rob him but to do him harm – to hurt him. There had been some incident over girls or something, but they came around to hurt him. Of course there was an altercation. At some point this man, who had two intruders in his house with the intent to do him harm, picked up a knife from his kitchen, as many people would, in a panic. He said in the court transcript that he did not actually remember doing that. This is common to victims of crime and victims of trauma – they forget things. He picked up a knife, and he stabbed one of the men and killed him. He is currently serving a sentence for murder in a Victorian prison.

I think, and I think that all Victorians think – or most Victorians at least think – that for people in their homes defending themselves against these criminals, the government and the law should have their back when they fight back against crime. It happens too much at the moment that criminals act with impunity and then when people fight back they are worried whether they are going to get in trouble with the law. I do not want them worrying whether they are going to get in trouble with the law. When people fight back against criminals, I think that we should stand with the people fighting back. If a criminal gets hurt by a home owner because they are creeping around in their house at night trying to steal their possessions or cause them harm, well, I do not have much sympathy for them. They have invaded someone’s home. I think most people would not have much sympathy for them. Possessions are one thing. If someone steals your possessions, you can claim them on insurance and stuff. But I am a father; I have got three kids. If you have got an intruder in your home – most Victorians I think do not know the law and do not even think about the law. When someone comes into their house and they want to defend their family, they are not thinking about the law, they are thinking about defending their family, and I think that that is all they should be thinking about. It is sad that it happens in the first place.

I have constructed this motion in such a way that it is very minimal. It is not an inquiry that is going to embarrass anyone. It is asking the Victorian Law Reform Commission to review these laws. We know the commission can do this because they did this once back in 2013. I am asking them to do it again because I think that, with the number of home invasions at the moment and the number of people that are suffering this, sooner or later we are going to have a situation where – I think most people in Victoria sympathise with people defending their homes – someone is going to get in trouble with the law. I want to make sure that the law has their back, that the law looks out for them.

I cannot understand why anyone would not want to look at this and make sure that our laws are fit for purpose, because that is our job as members of Parliament, to make sure the laws are fit for purpose. There are a large number of crimes happening at the moment. Sooner or later someone is going to fight back. The courts or the police or whoever might think that they went too far, and they will get into trouble. I want to stop that happening. It is about time that Victorians stopped being scared and we started making the criminals scared.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (16:24): I thank Mr Limbrick for raising this issue, and I have enjoyed lending my mind to the dilemmas of this issue. The first thing to say is that the government does not support the motion, and my first reaction is to think of the safety of anybody involved in some kind of altercation or home invasion or in a circumstance where they are protecting their own property. I can appreciate that there is an awful dilemma in trying to strike the right balance with people’s right to defend their property or people’s right to be safe in their home in the context of a crime being underway. I would like to acknowledge the motion, and it is a very interesting space. It is certainly not my space of expertise, and I know that the motto in my family is ‘No property is worth your life or serious injury’.

It is important I think to note that our self-defence laws are proportionate and well established, so I thought I would have a look at part (2) of Mr Limbrick’s motion, which calls to consider the approach to self-defence laws in the UK, including its Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, of which I have got a little excerpt here. Unless I am missing something, it does not look extremely different to what we have got already. But I was, I must say, as an aside, a bit shocked to note that UK laws have not been automatically rewritten to eradicate the exclusion of women via sexist language. Just as an example:

… the defence will be available to a person if he honestly believed it was necessary to use force and if the degree of force used was not disproportionate in the circumstances as he viewed them.

In Victoria that would mean that law does not apply to me but does apply to men, because we have changed our legislation to eradicate all of that language. But that is certainly an aside. Just in reading this, looking at the language and then looking at what the current laws are here in Victoria, they do not seem to me to be that much different. Anyway, we will have a look and see what we come up with here.

As I said before, Victorians should always call Victoria Police in an emergency or where there is danger or threat to safety. It is not worth risking your own life and your own personal injury for property. Certainly, as a woman, I was definitely taught to just go, get out of the road: ‘Don’t be interacting, because you’re going to lose out here.’ I thought there was some research that showed that if you actively defended your property you were more likely to be injured, but I could not find anything on that, so I am not going to argue that, Mr Limbrick. But I too know someone that I used to work with – it would have been 35 years ago – who defended a home invasion at his place in Preston, actually, and he was injured and died as a result. We were all very shocked. He was just literally walking out the front to defend his place. So it kind of backed up the messaging that my parents told me: do not interact, just stay safe.

The Crimes Act 1958 was updated in 2014 to simplify the law in Victoria, which provides that a person has acted in self-defence if they believe the conduct is necessary to defend themselves and it is a reasonable response in the circumstances as they perceive them. Of course the first segment to that, belief that the conduct is necessary to defend oneself, is based on well-established common law and captures the broad way in which self-defence works. The second limb to that is that the conduct is a reasonable response to the perceived circumstances. You can imagine that could be very well explored in a police interview and certainly well explored if it travels as far as a court case. Also, it must be aligned with other Australian jurisdictions, including New South Wales, and fact-based, on the recommendation of the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) in its Defences to Homicide: Final Report. These laws are broad and recognise that a person may act in self-defence in a wide range of circumstances, including to protect property, themselves or another person. These laws may well apply in cases involving home invasion or trespass, taking into account the specific circumstances and the proportionality of any response. Noting the basis of Victoria’s self-defence laws in longstanding case law, and on the recommendation of the previous VLRC report, further review of these settings is not currently a priority of the government. Police have the training, the equipment, the powers and the support to respond to emergencies and unlawful behaviour.

If we look, in closing, at some of the activities that we have prioritised in recent times around community safety, you only need to have a look at the bail reforms that we have recently put in place. We are cracking down on high-harm repeat offenders by delivering the toughest bail laws in the country, and we have introduced Australia’s toughest bail test for serious crimes like home invasion. Since our March bail changes, which ensure community safety is put first in all bail decisions, the remand rate has increased. We said we would overhaul bail laws in two stages. The first reforms passed in March, and they are already delivering results. As at 6 August the youth remand rate was up more than 26 per cent and adult remand was up 27 per cent. Just in closing, we do have the largest police force in the country, backed by our record $4.5 billion investment.

All Victorians have the right to be safe and feel safe in their homes, in their communities, at their businesses, at university, at school and in their relationships. As with many issues that confront this chamber, there is a dilemma in getting the balance right. I think it appropriate that we regularly explore the pros and cons in any of these kinds of dilemmas for exactly the reasons that Mr Limbrick has raised them, so I do thank him for bringing this forward and asking us to look at it. It is always a challenge to get it fair and just. I will leave my contribution there and look forward to listening to the rest of the debate.

Trung LUU (Western Metropolitan) (16:34): I rise today to speak on this motion put forward by Mr Limbrick, and I thank him for being prepared to bring this motion forward for debate, because it is certainly an issue I hear about often as I travel around my electorate and I know he too is confronted with this issue regularly in the south-east and more broadly across Melbourne and Victoria. My Liberal and National colleagues join Mr Limbrick in acknowledging that Victoria is in the middle of a crime crisis and that people are scared, people are terrified, in their own homes. As noted in this motion, (1) there has been a steady increase in the number of reported incidents of aggravated burglary and assault in Victoria since 2018, with a significant increase in the past year, and (2) there is a lack of clear understanding of what protections are afforded to Victorian home owners when defending their home against criminals.

People are scared – scared for their safety, scared for their family’s safety and scared about the impact that these crimes have on their community’s reputation. People are fearful of the possibility of legal action, both civil and criminal, if they react to an intruder in their own home. This is because the current self-defence law of the Crimes Act 1958 does not fully address individual protections against criminal and civil action, especially when you are looking at the Crimes Act under section 322N, which has the abolition of self-defence at common law. The fact is that section 322K of the Crimes Act leaves self-defence open to the possibility of litigation if one chooses to act against a threat, because the point of proof is subject to a person’s interpretation when it comes to conduct and a person’s response in the circumstances as a person perceives the threat coming towards him or her. Then the person also needs to prove that there is an imminent threat and that the force applied is reasonable and proportionate to the threat. How can the average person out there comprehend all this stuff in a split second? A person has broken into their home with some sort of weapon to commit a criminal act, yet you expect this person, in reacting, to think logically: ‘Am I acting lawfully, proportional to the threat coming towards me?’

This is why this motion is so important. We need to review and make it clearer for the average person out there to be able to understand what their right is in relation to self-defence in their own home when an intruder has broken into their home with a criminal intent to either assault them or steal or damage their property. In other words, perception and interpretation will differ from one person to another in similar circumstances – depending on variables such as a person’s abilities and how they perceive the threat – and on whether the conduct is reasonable and proportionate when it comes to classifying whether an action is self-defence. What this motion is seeking is to establish clarity by reviewing self-defence law in Victoria in order to provide Victorians with some clear borders and boundaries when a person acts against a threat in their own home. For self-defence law to provide a person with some protection, an average person should not have to worry about the conduct he or she applies against a person who breaks into their home intending to commit a criminal offence and readily capable of applying force to cause serious injury to the person.

Bev McArthur interjected.

Trung LUU: It could be possible, Bev; we have seen many cases in those situations. A person should not worry about all those things when determining whether an act is self-defence. A victim should not have to second-guess their actions or conduct against an intruder who breaks into their home. Remember, this is your own home that the person is breaking into. That relates to many things, whether it is home invasion, aggravated burglary or robbery or other serious indictable offences such as the intention to kidnap, abduct or possibly murder. We have seen many cases on the news where there is an abduction, whereabouts unknown, and you find the body somewhere, weeks down the track. This motion is not seeking to rewrite or amend the definition of the point of proof for self-defence. It is merely calling the Attorney-General to ask the Victorian Law Reform Commission to review self-defence law in Victoria when reasonable force is applied in a self-defence situation. As I stated earlier, Victoria is experiencing a crime surge. People are scared for their own personal safety and their family’s safety. There is news headline after news headline of intruders smashing their way into people’s homes, stealing personal belongings and cars, yelling, threatening that they are going to kill the victim while waving a weapon such as a machete, and we have heard that over and over again in recent times on the news.

While scared for their lives, people are also scared of the implication of legal litigation if they act or respond to the home intruder during the home invasion or aggravated burg. The reality is the vast majority of Victorians do not know what reasonable force looks like – simple – nor can they explain that the conduct of force needs to be proportionate to the threat at that time. This motion seeks merely to review the law and define the course of action that you can take as self-defence while the trespasser is in your home – stealing, threatening to kill you or attack you – to protect you from legal litigation, to make it stronger for the victim. This motion seeks clarity around self-defence law, simple as that, and we view it as a logical proposal.

Many Victorians would never have imagined the wave of aggravated burg and home invasions we are experiencing at the moment and over the years under this Labor government. Mr Limbrick mentioned the law was last reviewed in 2013. This law needed to be strengthened then to combat the aggravated burg that occurred in Victoria. The state was very different 12 years ago when the law was last reviewed, and it was reviewed under the previous coalition government. It is time now for the Labor government to take action and help to protect Victorians and support this motion. The situation Victorians face in the crime surge under this Allan government needs strengthening to combat the 20 or more aggravated burgs occurring in Victoria each and every day that we are experiencing at the moment. On this side we understand and have empathy with Victorians who are fed up with the constant violent stream of aggravated burg and home invasions and the weak response from the current Allan Labor government.

Mr Limbrick rightly pointed out that under the Labor government there has been an increase in the number of reported incidents of aggravated burg and victims sustaining injuries. Here are some statistics which will benefit the house in relation to aggravated burg and criminal incidents: crime across Victoria has increased 90 per cent since Jacinta Allan took over as Premier two years ago, resident aggravated burg has increased 34 per cent since Jacinta Allan became Premier and the rate of aggravated burg has more than doubled since 2016. This comes at a time when the Allan government is cutting almost $50 million from the Victorian police budget and when Labor is stretching police resources to breaking point. Police have flagged the rise in home invasions by youth offenders, who are responsible for about half of reported aggravated burgs.

With my last minute I just want to emphasise that it is important that we support this motion to show people out there that we are making legislation and we are reviewing our current law to modernise it, to support them and to give them comfort that their actions in their own homes toward protecting themselves, protecting their family and protecting their property are in good faith when in self-defence.

Katherine COPSEY (Southern Metropolitan) (16:44): I rise to speak on Mr Limbrick’s self-defence on premises motion. The Greens will not be supporting this motion today. I will start my contribution, though, where most Victorians are: nobody should feel unsafe in their own home. A small number of people carry out aggravated burglaries, and when it happens, it is terrifying and the impact on victims is profound. We share that concern deeply, and we appreciate the conviction that Mr Limbrick is bringing to this debate.

I will step back and look at the crime statistics. The Australian Bureau of Statistics actually reports that Victoria had a sizeable decrease in overall crime rates last year. Quoting from their report:

There were 61,559 offenders proceeded against by police in Victoria in 2023–24.

As a proportion of the population:

… the overall offender rate in Victoria decreased from 1,111 offenders in 2022–23 to 1,008 offenders per 100,000 persons aged 10 years and over in 2023–24.

Specifically, if we consider the categories of aggravated burglary and assault in terms of the steady increase that the motion refers to since 2018, the official record paints a more complex picture. Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency shows that, yes, overall criminal incidents rose in the 12 months to March 2025, with theft a major driver and family incidents also climbing. In terms of the comparison, though, to 2018, that year in 2018 actually marked historic lows for burglary and break and enter, and it was notably lower than 2016. When we look further at longer term trends over the past two decades, it shows us that this category of offences has been steadily declining since 2004. So on the numbers, we are safer than we were 20 years ago.

Turning to the lack of clarity that the motion speaks to for householders, as has been remarked in the debate so far, Victoria already has clear, modern statutory tests for self-defence. Under section 322K of the Crimes Act 1958 a person is not guilty if they believe that their conduct was necessary in self-defence and their conduct was a reasonable response in the circumstances as they perceived them. In fact the act expressly recognises defending another person and protection of property. And in family violence contexts, section 322M goes further with regard to family violence, acknowledging that a person may reasonably act in self-defence even if the harm is not immediate or if the response exceeds the force used against them, because that is often how family violence manifests in the real world. So these tests are available, they are clear and they are relatively modern.

The Greens’ justice platform prioritises investing in prevention and evidence over the theatre of law and order. The Greens support investing in what actually reduces crime: stable housing, youth services, mental health and drug treatment, and community-led justice reinvestment. Preventing crime is more effective than flashy headlines. Victims must be supported, and reducing access to weapons and availability of weapons across our communities is part of what helps keep us safe. The Greens have also long backed reforms that better protect victim-survivors who act in self-defence in family violence situations, one of the very rationales behind Victoria’s existing provisions.

I will also note that the Victorian Law Reform Commission is not a limitless resource, and right now it is working on two complex, high-impact projects that I want to highlight: (1) reforms to family violence intervention orders for children and young adults, ensuring continuity of protection when a child turns 18 and strengthening children’s participation rights; and (2) the impacts of artificial intelligence in courts and tribunals with real implications for fairness, transparency and privacy across our system. The VLRC does really important work, and we do not want to see a situation where it is overloaded or delays work or where other important topics cannot get the scrutiny that they need because of referrals from this place.

In closing, I just want to say that fear thrives when the public conversation is reduced to slogans. The existing statutory test already maps pretty closely onto common sense: act if you must, and your response must be reasonable in the circumstances as you saw them at the time. If people do not know that or understand that, we should – as we always should – increase funding to legal aid and community legal centres so that it is explained clearly and that information is available to community members should they need it. We should also really consider continuing trauma-informed training for police, prosecutors and the bench to ensure that the law is applied fairly and consistently with regard to people’s experience. This approach would be cheaper, faster and safer than the options that are put forward in this motion, so the Greens will not be supporting this referral today.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (16:49): I am pleased to rise to speak on Mr Limbrick’s motion. Firstly, I say that we in the government particularly acknowledge the concerns that many in our community have about the impact that particularly burglaries, aggravated burglaries, have on those who experience them. I know that it is a concern for many in the local community that I represent, and I want to at the outset of this speech particularly thank for their efforts organisations like Neighbourhood Watch Bayside, who do a great job in engaging with the local community about their concerns and then advocating to us as elected representatives about the concerns in the local community.

We know that Victorians have been concerned about community safety. That is why the government has acted to introduce a range of changes particularly to our bail laws, to introduce some of the toughest bail laws in the country, to make sure that particularly those who are involved in aggravated burglaries and other serious high-harm offences have new standards applied to bail decisions, and community safety has been made an overarching objective of bail laws. We passed those laws in two tranches. We have also done other things in the community safety space to quickly address the high harms that have been experienced in the community. Things like the work that we have been doing to ban the sale and then ban the possession of things like machetes – the first such machete ban in the country – I think demonstrate the government’s commitment to making sure that we are doing all the things that are necessary in terms of keeping our community safe.

On this matter it is very clear that Mr Limbrick is very genuine and heartfelt in his advocacy, and it is clearly an issue of great importance to him. However, the government is of the view that our self-defence laws are proportionate and well established. I think the overarching message that we have in this debate is – and I was standing with the Attorney-General on the weekend when she took some questions about this at a press conference, and her message was very, very clear: in an emergency, call Victoria Police. Victoria Police is the best place to seek assistance when there is danger or a threat to your safety, and that should be absolutely the first port of call.

The existing law in this space, specifically the provisions of the Crimes Act 1958, which were updated in 2014, governs the act of self-defence. It makes it clear that a person will have acted in self-defence if they believe that the conduct is necessary to defend themselves and it is a reasonable response to the circumstances as they perceive them. I think both of these things are incredibly important and provide a degree of certainty and comfort to those who are facing threats to their safety. The first limb, the belief that the conduct is necessary to defend oneself, is a very well established common-law principle and captures in a broad way how self-defence works. The second limb, that the conduct is a reasonable response to the perceived circumstances, is where Victorian law aligns with other jurisdictions and is in fact itself based on the recommendations of the Victorian Law Reform Commission in its Defences to Homicide: Final Report. These laws are broad and recognise that a person may act in self-defence in a wide range of circumstances, including to protect property, themselves or another person. Whilst we cannot give any direction as to where a particular law applies in a particular case, these are the laws that would and could apply in cases involving trespass or home invasion and would take into account the specific circumstances and the reasonable response of a person in the circumstances as they perceive them, and they have a distinct proportionality as part of any response.

We do have, in these laws as they currently stand, both the benefit of longstanding case law and the recommendations of the Victorian Law Reform Commission, and therefore further examination of the question is, obviously, at the moment something the government does not believe to be a priority. We are focused, as I said earlier, on making sure that we are updating the laws that are required to keep the community safe. We are investing resources in Victoria Police so that they can continue to do the work that they need to do to help keep Victorians safe. We do understand, as I said at the start of the speech, that there are concerns about community safety in the community. We do listen to the community when they tell us concerns such as this, and the government’s response has been tough where it counts and fair where it matters. On top of the bail laws, which we have debated extensively in this place in the last period and where the government has acted strongly and toughly, we have introduced the machete ban; as I said, we are launching our trial of state-run electronic monitoring for youth offenders to ensure compliance with bail conditions and to deter further offending; we are giving police powers to deal with extreme, radical and dangerous participants in public demonstrations; we are bringing in reforms to stamp out racism and discrimination and protect vulnerable groups in our community; and we are continuing to make the biggest investments into our number one crime issue, and that is family and domestic violence.

There was $1.6 billion of investment in the 2025–26 budget to keep our community safe – record investment that the government is making – and new laws to strengthen the system. That is where our focus has been, because it is the view of the government, based on the evidence that is presented to us from the community and based on the evidence presented to us through an examination of the crime statistics and other matters, that our target must be cracking down on high-harm repeat offenders in the system and making sure that the toughest bail test exists for crimes like home invasion. Since the changes that came through the Parliament and were debated earlier this year, in March, there has been a shift in the number of alleged offenders who are being held on remand. Since March there have been about 26 per cent more alleged offenders on remand in the youth system and about 27 per cent more in the adult system – evidence that the action that we have been taking is having an effect on the highest harm offenders.

We are investing in police. We have currently the largest police service in the country, with record investments in police. I just want to put on record as part of the debate today the appreciation that I know all members have, particularly here on the government side, that our police do an exceptional job of putting themselves on the line day in, day out, and keeping our community safe. We are making sure that our police have got the capacity, they have got the resources, they have got the training, they have got the equipment and they have got the skills that they need to act as required when our community needs them. Victoria Police are providing this 24-hour, seven-days-a-week police response to all Victorians and doing everything they can. When someone does feel unsafe, when there is a threat to their safety, our overarching message in this debate is that if a member of the community is concerned that there is a threat to their safety in their homes, their first action should be to dial 000, get Victoria Police on the line and get the emergency response from law enforcement first responders. That is the best way to make sure that the emergency support, the police response, is available to them. There is always, unfortunately, danger and harm in the community, and the government, through the measures that I have outlined here and more broadly, are taking the action that we can to keep our community safe.

Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (16:59): I am pleased to rise and speak on Mr Limbrick’s motion. There is no more natural right than the right to defend your own home and your own family. I think anyone out there who lives in a home would understand instinctively that the right to protect yourself and your loved ones from an intruder, particularly an armed intruder, is the most natural instinct anyone can have, and it is a right and instinct that no-one should genuinely interfere with. It would be utterly wrong to do so. We are told to wait for police; we are told to trust police. But the world has changed. Ten years ago, when these laws were last looked at, we did not have the volume of aggravated burglaries we have now. We certainly did not have the number of aggravated burglaries where weapons such as machetes and other things were used or were threatened to be used and were actually used in practice. It is a manifest increase in the risk to your home and to your family, and the community feel it and know it. They cannot be gaslighted into believing it is otherwise.

We are also told to trust the judiciary, but the common person has every right to be concerned and a bit jaded about trusting the judiciary when those who commit aggravated burglaries are released on bail again and again and again, yet in the same breath we are told to just trust the judiciary and that these laws have precedents and have been used. Well, I do not see how anyone could go before these laws and say, ‘I trust the judiciary to measure whether I used reasonable force or not in the middle of the night to protect my family, in the dark perhaps, where I cannot even see what they are doing, how many of them there are, how far they have got into the house or whether they have reached my children’s bedrooms.’ How do you know? You are meant to trust, but the only person we are not allowed to trust is the person protecting their family. They cannot be trusted, and they must trust everybody else except themselves. We must trust everybody else except the person being attacked. It seems wrongheaded and the wrong way around. There are no boundaries for the perpetrator; the perpetrator has no limits imposed upon them. The only limits we are imposing are on the victim and his or her family. That is where the limits are being imposed.

This is not a discussion about whether there are better methods to reduce crime. There is absolutely nothing mutually exclusive about measures to have youth intervention programs and children’s courts and programs where young people can have more productive purposes and outcomes. There is nothing mutually exclusive about having more police officers on the beat and people having clarity about what they are allowed to do when they are protecting themselves in the moment. It says to me that the government are not committed to your safety and they are not committed to the sanctity of your home. When someone enters your home, in that moment tough bail laws are pointless, early intervention is pointless and a compassionate magistrate is pointless. The police – if you have time to call them, which you do not – are not there. No amount of investment into policing helps you in that moment.

This is a discussion about a specific point in time. The fact that this debate is necessary at all is obviously a self-evident reflection on the failure of the government to keep the community safe. What we should have is clarity, and that clarity should reflect a modern outlook on what is reasonable and appropriate in defending your family from an intruder. It does not mean if they have got a knife, you can use a knife; it does not mean if they have got a machete, you can go down the back shed and get your own machete – it is not that sort of equivalence. It has got to be real contextual equivalence. In the dark of the night, if someone is in your house and you do not know how many of them there are and your children and family could be at risk, you should be able to take all precautions necessary, all actions necessary, to protect life and limb for your family.

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (17:04): I rise to make a brief contribution on the motion brought by Mr Limbrick before us today, and I would like to start by acknowledging the very real and very legitimate concerns within the community at the moment in relation to crime and aggravated burglary. In particular, the rates of home invasions occurring while a person is present have considerably increased in the last several years. To have your house broken into is obviously already absolutely awful, but to be at home at the same time is an utterly terrifying and traumatic experience and something that I actually experienced myself a few years ago. Whilst I believe that Mr Limbrick absolutely has the right intentions in the moving of this motion, I cannot support something that shifts the burden of safety from the community onto individuals and certain residents, because proposals like this can send a message to the community that to take the law into your own hands is an acceptable public policy response, and that is a recipe for the escalation of violence in many circumstances and not one of safety, which we are all striving for. We should be careful about reforms that normalise taking violent action in the name of defence.

I would agree with Mr Limbrick’s suggestion that there does seem to be a bit of a lack of clarity in regard to the application of Victoria’s legal protections for self-defence. Mr Limbrick has raised cases of individuals who, despite being ultimately exonerated, have had to endure lengthy legal processes. However, this does not mean the laws themselves are not clear; it means the application and public understanding of them are. As others have raised in the debate today, the Crimes Act 1958 already provides exemptions for individuals engaging in necessary and reasonable self-defence. Further, it specifically recognises the defence of another person and, importantly for today’s debate, the protection of property. There have also been examples raised of people who have chased intruders out of their own homes with weapons, with the question then being: what kind of force would they be legally allowed to use? In those cases the law worked as intended. Violence was neither reasonable nor necessary. If violence was used, I would certainly hope the question of whether it was reasonable or necessary would be asked.

Laws that lower the legal threshold of using force can normalise violent escalation in the home and remove opportunities for de-escalation or nonlethal responses. It is important to note this has the potential to increase lethality in volatile relationships. Defending your home assumes the intruder is always an unknown outsider, but it is important to note in this debate today that in instances of intimate partner violence the attacker often lives in the home. These so-called castle rules were not built for that dynamic, and they can produce legal uncertainty about who the aggressor is and who must be the person retreating. This has the potential for victims having the legal requirement to retreat and being criminalised for actions taken to escape their own abuse.

As with all discussions on crime, I must emphasise that changes like the one proposed today and the so-called tough approach that the government is continuously working towards are short-sighted solutions that ultimately only exacerbate our problems. If we truly want to address crime, we must address its causes at their very roots. As others have mentioned, properly investing in mental health, youth services and housing is ultimately the best way we as a society can work to truly prevent crime.

To conclude, I understand and appreciate Mr Limbrick’s concern for community safety, and I share that as well. However, we diverge when it comes to the best way of addressing it. Ultimately the goal should be to reduce violent escalation of crimes in the first place. I implore the government once again to properly address prevention. For these reasons, as stated at the outset, I will not be supporting the motion today, but I thank Mr Limbrick for bringing it to the house.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:09): I rise to speak to Mr Limbrick’s motion 1027 in his name, and I want to congratulate him for bringing this motion to the house, because it is an important issue. As he has said in the media, his constituents have raised concerns about home invasions with him. If you just look at the statistics for aggravated burglaries, they have more than doubled since 2016. These are extraordinarily alarming figures, and as we see every day, the police are stretched to be dealing with aggravated burglaries, carjackings or other very serious crimes. Dare I say it, now that we are the protest capital of Australia, the number of hours police are required to be monitoring those 500 protests or whatever we have had over the last couple of years is just a disgrace, actually.

But I want to move back to this motion, because it is asking for a review from the Victorian Law Reform Commission, and it is a sensible move given where we are at. It is just asking for a review. I do not understand why those opposed would have a problem with this. I want to go to part (1)(b) of Mr Limbrick’s motion:

a lack of clear understanding of what protections are afforded to Victorian home owners when defending their home against criminals …

I think this is a really important aspect. We have got personal security guards cruising around streets. We have got councils hiring security guards because there is not enough police resourcing. This goes to the extent of the crime that is in our community and in our suburbs and what is happening in our homes. Can I say I understand this, and I said to Mr Limbrick when I saw him on Sunday after he had been speaking to the press, ‘I really do support you in this, because I am one of those victims of an aggravated burglary.’ And what protections would I have? A constituent actually gave me a baseball bat following that – dropped it off to my office – and I have that under my bed, but that is a fat lot of use if I am sound asleep and somebody is standing over me. That is what happened to a constituent of mine who woke up while she and her partner were in bed, and she was confronted with a balaclava guy with a machete in hand. She thought she was going to be raped or murdered; it was terrifying for her. Thankfully, that was not my experience, but my experience was that this guy that tried to get into my home got on the roof and tried to get into an upstairs window. He fell off my roof and sat there for 20 minutes or so holding his arm. I do not know if it was broken or not, because he came around and tried to kick my door in. But what would have happened if he had got in? What protections would I have had if I wanted to defend myself? Why should I not be able to protect myself?

We have seen the horrific story just this last week with the son and father out in the western suburbs, both stabbed. That son heard his father, and he came to his aid. They were both very seriously injured and ended up in hospital because somebody had come into their home, into an elderly man’s home. This is just so wrong. It is so wrong because it is so frequent. For me it is very personal because it has happened to me, and I have sleepless nights – when I hear something in the night, I go, ‘Oh my God, is somebody trying to get into my home?’ And that is despite the security I have had to upgrade with new gates and cameras, which the Parliament has not had to pay for – I have had to do that. Well, every Victorian who is feeling like me has had to do the same thing, and this is where Mr Limbrick’s motion goes to: we need this review, because at what point does an intruder have a right over that home owner? At what point does somebody like that son who was trying to defend and assist his father have a right to defend his father and his father’s home?

That is why I say that this is a very sensible motion that I would hope all members would support – although we have heard that some are not – because this crime crisis is not fiction; it is happening, and it is frightening. For those victims who have experienced very horrific circumstances, I think they deserve to have this review. They deserve to understand their rights. I am reminded that your home is your castle – people do not have a right to come into your home and for you to have no say on that intruder. The Attorney-General said, ‘What’s proportionate?’ Well, of course you are not going to have massive force, but if you need it – I mean, what was that son meant to do or that woman who was lying in bed with somebody with a machete standing over her in Sackville Street, Kew? It was just horrific for her. I spoke to her, and she really was so terrified. I know how terrified I was, and I had nothing near that experience.

I congratulate Mr Limbrick for this, because I often reflect on: ‘My God, what if that guy had got into my bedroom? What would have happened? You are completely defenceless, you are completely vulnerable, and what do you need to do?’ After the event, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll get a cattle prod.’ As kids, my brother used to run around with a cattle prod and try and prod us. Well, it is an illegal weapon – I could not get a cattle prod.

David Limbrick interjected.

Georgie CROZIER: It is a prohibited weapon, Mr Limbrick, that is right, which I did not know until after this. I thought, ‘Good God, why couldn’t I have a cattle prod to fend off these people?’ It was very kind of the constituent to drop off to my office a baseball bat, which is under my bed, as I said; it is there.

I say again I think this is a sensible motion that needs to be reviewed. There is far too much crime going on in this state. It is just out of control in proportion to the civilised society we should be able to live in. We are living in a lawless state at the moment, with the government having no answers to be dealing with these very serious issues that are impacting people’s health and wellbeing and their livelihoods.

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:16): I also rise to make a contribution on this motion brought by Mr Limbrick in regard to our self-defence laws, and I do want to thank Mr Limbrick for bringing this motion. I know it is a well-intentioned motion and it comes from a place of genuine concern, and I know Mr Limbrick has had meetings with constituents coming to him to express genuine concerns over their safety in terms of their homes and I know Mr Limbrick has had a consistent record of advocating for constituents in regard to self-defence, and this is not the first time we have debated something like this in this chamber. Matters around self-defence have been brought into this chamber by Mr Limbrick before, so again I just want to acknowledge Mr Limbrick’s genuine advocacy in this space. But I will say up-front that the government does not support this motion.

I just want to also say that I have listened to Ms Crozier, and I appreciate where she is coming from. It is not nice ever to have someone break into your home. You are feeling threatened, you are feeling unsafe, you are feeling attacked and under siege, and it is natural to want to defend yourself in those circumstances. It would be very terrifying, so absolutely, Ms Crozier, you have my full sympathy and understanding about the predicament you found yourself in – and anybody who has found themselves as a victim of crime my similar sympathies and sentiments go to as well. It is not nice; it is always terrifying.

But where I guess it is a challenge is if you do have some kind of personal device or whatever, however you want to describe it, whether it is a cattle prod or a baseball bat or some other such thing. My concern is if you are in a position where you are using something like that – and I think, Ms Crozier, you were right when you talked about how, if you are asleep and someone is standing, you are not going to have the chance to grab your baseball bat anyway. But if you are fortunate enough to be able to access whatever protective thing it is you have got, whether it is your cattle prod or a baseball bat or whatever it is – some other thing – you have to have some level of confidence that you are going to be able to overpower your attacker and protect yourself. If someone is affected by drugs, with some particular drugs some of these people can have superhuman strength – it is incredible. This is where I speak as a woman: if someone is a big, large, strong man, even though I am pretty physically fit – and people know my propensity to lift weights – I would still worry about the capacity that I would have to defend myself against the force of an attack, whether it is a knife, a gun that is being pointed at me or whatever. The reality is that oftentimes it has happened that people have had a weapon to protect themselves and it has been turned on them and used against them. So I guess the thing is – and it does go to what Ms Crozier spoke about – that unfortunately, whether we like it or not, there are people in our society who will do bad things, and it does not matter what we do to dissuade them.

But what we do know is early intervention works. Where there is a risk analysis around a person who might have a propensity to do bad things, what the research tells us is that early intervention strategies actually work more than having to deal with it at the pointy end we are talking about today and the examples Ms Crozier talked about. What we really want to be doing is preventing people getting to that point in the first instance. That is where I think the real work can begin, looking at those early intervention strategies: why are people doing break and enters? Why are people doing the crimes they are doing? And there are a range of reasons for that. But I personally do not want to be in a position where I am having to defend myself like that, because I just would not have the confidence that I would be able to maintain it and defend myself properly. They would probably get me in the end.

The thing is, when we talk about defence – I think the second part of Mr Limbrick’s motion was about looking at our self-defence laws – I go back to my criminal law days when I was lawyering and learning about this stuff. Some of the laws are complex in this area, but what is pretty consistent is if you are defending yourself and you injure someone or kill someone, the courts have to determine – it is their role to look at all the circumstances – what happened to the person and, if they came into your house and you killed or injured them, whether your conduct was reasonable. There was also another test around proportionality: were your actions proportionate to what happened? It is about the facts and circumstances that happened at the time when you were defending yourself.

The Crimes Act 1958 was updated in 2014, which simplified the law. It provides that a person could use that self-defence defence if they believe the conduct was necessary to defend themselves and it was a reasonable response in the circumstances as they perceived them. So the law has been updated in regard to that, and like I said, the courts will look at the circumstances around the attack and then what your response was to that. The first limb is the belief the conduct was necessary to defend oneself, and that is a well-established common-law principle, and then the second limb is whether it was a reasonable response proportionate to the act. Nobody wants to have to then go through, after the fact – after you have been attacked in your own home, for example – a criminal trial. The whole thing is just distressing. It would be really nice and better if there was an early intervention strategy so you do not get to that point and you do not have to be faced with those sorts of circumstances. I think early intervention strategies are a better approach and a way of trying to head these things off before people become desperate to the point where they are breaking into people’s houses or breaking into cars and the like.

I will leave my contribution there. I know Ms Watt wants to say a few words on this. Again, the government will not be supporting this motion.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (17:23): Thank you very much for the call to speak on this motion moved by Mr Limbrick, which I know he has a deep and abiding passion about. You have been a very vocal leader on this, and I know that the motion before us comes from a place of concern for Victorians, although I will say that the current self-defence laws we have in Australia are fit for purpose and in this state have long been established as proportionate and measured in their approach. The laws are broad and recognise that a person may act in self-defence in a range of circumstances, including to protect property, themselves or another, and this may well apply in cases involving home invasion or trespassing, taking into account the specific circumstances and proportionality of any result. But can I just take a moment to reaffirm that all Victorians should call the police, when they are able to, if there is a danger or threat to their safety, as these behaviours are risky and certainly there can be some unintended harm both to them and to others. Police certainly have the training, equipment, powers and support to respond to emergencies and unlawful behaviour.

Any victim of crime, I will say, is one too many, and that is why we will continue to crack down on offenders with a range of new laws that back the work of Victoria Police. When it comes to justice reform and keeping Victorians safe, it is a Labor government that gets the balance right. On top of this, we have introduced the toughest bail laws in the country. Our dedication to community safety is also why we have introduced the machete ban, and it is why we have launched statewide electronic monitoring for youth offenders to ensure compliance with bail conditions and deter further offending. It is why we are bringing in reforms to stamp out racism, discrimination and hate and protect minorities and vulnerable groups in the community. We have seen that some of the most heinous acts of racial vilification in Australia’s history have happened recently and right here, with neo-Nazis staging demonstrations around our city and spreading their hateful messages – messages that actually threaten the safety of people of colour in our community – so I was really pleased to see decisive action against this sort of hate and all the things that we are doing to protect people being targeted by these groups, because Victorians deserve to feel safe in their own state, wherever they are. I will just say and reaffirm that racially motivated crimes committed by these really vile individuals absolutely will not be tolerated in our state. There is more that I could say –

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Sheena WATT: Yes, I accept that people have been threatened in their homes, and I am also saying that Nazis have threatened to violently hurt people of colour and that that is unacceptable behaviour. I am not going to hear it from people that are not actually from the group whose own safety is being threatened by these groups. Threats on their life are just as meaningful and just as devastating and tragic in our community.

So what I will say is that there is of course more that we can do and there is more that we should do, but I believe, and I am very happy to say, that the reforms moved by the Allan Labor government in this place and that are yet to come are evidence that this government is not just talking but is taking coordinated and targeted action to build a safer, fairer and more inclusive state. I will not hinder this work by supporting this motion, and I reaffirm that I and this side will not be supporting the motion before us. I thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution to other members. I am going to resist the urge to talk about the hate-fuelled demonstrations in our streets only in the very recent past, because I will need a little bit more time than the time afforded to me on the clock.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:28): I thank everyone who contributed to this debate today. I would like to address a couple of points. Firstly, the government talks a lot about vulnerable groups in society. Well, I will tell you about a vulnerable group at the moment, and it is people in their homes. We need to protect this vulnerable group, and there are many people who are suffering because of this. The other excuse brought up by the government was about the Victorian Law Reform Commission and their limited capacity. I accept that all resources are limited, but my understanding is that there are only two active inquiries currently being run by the VLRC, and one of those is in the process of finishing up right now. That is the inquiry into AI in courts. They have closed submissions, and they are writing their final report as we speak.

Another thing that was mentioned, I think by Ms Ermacora, was around it not being worth risking your life for property. Yes, I agree with that. You can claim things on insurance. But you know what is worth risking your life for? Your family. I think that every Victorian agrees with me on that. When you find someone in your home you do not know their intent. You might see them rummaging around trying to steal stuff, but initially you do not understand their intent. But you know that whatever the reason they are there, it is not good. It is not going to help you, and it is not going to help your family. You have to act. People in these situations, as Ms Crozier pointed out, panic. When someone is in your home, you panic, and sometimes you might pick up a knife or whatever it is. I think that Victorian law should make sure that it always has these people’s backs. The government was saying it is not a priority to review this law. Well, what I say is that it should be a priority.

Council divided on motion:

Ayes (17): Melina Bath, Gaelle Broad, Georgie Crozier, David Davis, David Ettershank, Renee Heath, Ann-Marie Hermans, David Limbrick, Wendy Lovell, Trung Luu, Bev McArthur, Joe McCracken, Nick McGowan, Rachel Payne, Adem Somyurek, Rikkie-Lee Tyrrell, Richard Welch

Noes (18): Ryan Batchelor, John Berger, Lizzie Blandthorn, Katherine Copsey, Jacinta Ermacora, Michael Galea, Anasina Gray-Barberio, Shaun Leane, Sarah Mansfield, Tom McIntosh, Aiv Puglielli, Georgie Purcell, Ingrid Stitt, Jaclyn Symes, Lee Tarlamis, Sonja Terpstra, Gayle Tierney, Sheena Watt

Motion negatived.