Tuesday, 9 December 2025

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (13:34): Today I rise to speak about something that I have spoken about on the last day of the last three years, which is the tragic death of Celeste Manno, who at just 23 years old was stabbed to death on her own bed by a violent stalker. The reason I raise this is it has now been five years since the Law Reform Commission of Victoria handed down 45 recommendations to strengthen stalking laws in this state, and it is devastating to continue to talk to the family and to continue to report that still nothing has been done. I acknowledge that next year there is going to be some legislation coming through this place that will partly acquit two of those recommendations, but I want to say that I will continue to pursue and continue to fight for law reform until all 45 of those recommendations are made a reality in this state. The second thing that I want to raise is that in 2018 Katie Haley was murdered by her violent partner, bashed to death with a dumbbell on their son’s bed – absolutely horrific. Since then the family have been advocating to make sure that violent and high-risk offenders are not awarded emergency management days that take them below their non-parole period. We had a debate in this place, and we still have not had a response from the government, so next year I am asking that these two areas be strengthened and that work is actually done.