Wednesday, 12 August 2026

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:22): I rise to speak on the Corrections Amendment Bill 2026. We will not be opposing this bill, but I am going to point out what is missing from this bill and what is, quite frankly, not in line with community expectations. The background to this bill is that an underworld boss, George Marrogi, recently won a legal battle regarding prison conditions. This man is serving a 38-year sentence for murder and drug trafficking, and he took the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety to the Supreme Court and won. He argued that his rights had been breached essentially because the courtyard behind his prison cell – he was in a high-security prison cell – was too small, restricting his open air access. He claimed, and it was proven in the court, that this happened in the Melbourne remand centre and in Barwon Prison. The judge said this:

The yard felt enclosed, with limited room to move around and the only view to the outdoors being to the sky above the yard through the mesh on the cell’s roof.

As a result we are dealing with this Corrections Amendment Bill today. In doing so we are amending the piece of legislation that addresses prisoners’ rights within corrections settings. This is the very piece of legislation that thousands of Victorians have petitioned to see changed, yet the government has gone nowhere near the changes that the community have asked for.

In less than two years I have personally raised the need to change this piece of legislation over 15 times in this place. Why? Because in mid-2024 Bianca and Boyd Unwin contacted me. They told me about Boyd’s daughter and Bianca’s sister Katie Haley and how she had been brutally beaten to death by her partner. Because he was locked up in prison during COVID, he received 427 days off his sentence due to inconvenience. This took him below his non-parole period, not because he had shown remorse, not because he had been well-behaved, but because he was inconvenienced.

I am going to take a step back – because it is important in debating this piece of legislation – and tell you exactly what happened. I want to know why the government has exempted itself from financial compensation in this piece of legislation while completely ignoring the voices of victims and victims’ families. It was in 2018 when Katie was at home with her partner that he got, according to court documents, angry and lost it. He beat her to death because he did not want her to leave him. We know that the stage where people have been in a situation of domestic violence and they make the decision to leave is the most dangerous time in that person’s life. Her partner did not like what he was hearing, so he bashed her to death with a dumbbell bar while their beautiful daughter, just 11 months old, slept in the room next door. I know this little girl well because I have spent a lot of time with this family. I have wanted to understand the impact of this piece of legislation. She is the most beautiful little girl. She has been raised in the most loving family by Katie Haley’s parents and her extended family. But the fact is this little girl had the toughest start to life. She lay innocently in the next room as her mother was murdered. Katie received at least three blows to the face and at least two blows to the throat, and Katie’s cause of death was blunt force to the head. Justice Champion described the crime scene as ‘gruesome and horrific’. He went on and said to Shane Robertson, who murdered Katie:

It is clear to me that you attacked your partner in uncontrollable rage and it was your intention to kill her.

He showed no remorse. There is not a good chance of rehabilitation. Yet he received 427 days off his prison sentence because of these discounts. He was sentenced to 24 years, 19 non-parole. I am going to talk about parole as part of this legislation, because it is an important part of this legislation. I believe that in the community people would imagine that non-parole means non-parole, but no, parole is actually elastic. There is room for it to move, and I am going to go through that in a minute. However, the day Robertson was sentenced, Ms Haley’s dad Boyd said the jail term was in many ways ‘irrelevant’ to the family as they suffered the ongoing loss. He said:

We’ve all got a life sentence. My wife and I, we don’t get to see Katie again.

My daughter, my son, don’t get to see their sister again.

And more importantly, two young children never get to spend any more time with their mum.

I first raised this in this place on 28 August 2024, and I have not been a lone voice on this issue. In fact 3750 Victorians petitioned the government online to change this. If you look this up, it will say on the website:

Petition sponsor: Renee Heath

Response status –

this is since 16 October 2024 –

Awaiting Response

…

Response due: 15 November 2024

So I think it is safe to say it is a little bit late. I am going to read what we petitioned in regard to this legislation:

The petition of certain citizens of the State of Victoria draws to the attention of the Legislative Council that all Victorian prisoners are eligible for emergency management days while incarcerated, which can see up to four days of their sentence removed for each day they are inconvenienced due to industrial action, emergencies, disruptions and deprivations, including due to COVID-19 lockdowns.

This is exactly the settings we are talking about here today. It goes on to say:

Over the two years that Melbourne and Victoria suffered through the world’s longest … lockdowns, thousands of prisoners received more than 360,000 days off their collective sentences. This is equivalent to over 1,000 years …

Well, we were wrong in saying that. More recent FOIs show that in fact well over 800,000 days were taken off – more than 2000 years worth of sentence reductions. It therefore calls on the government to, as a matter of urgency, remove the eligibility of violent and high-risk prisoners – like the murderer and drug trafficker that took this department to court – for emergency management days and ensure that any reductions do not take them beyond their minimum non-parole period. We are still awaiting a response.

Tabled on the same day, on 16 October 2024, 2855 Victorians petitioned the government. That response was due 15 November. However, six months later, in June, I got this response from the then Minister for Corrections, and I am going to read some of it to you. It states:

Emergency Management Days may be granted under the Corrections Act 1986 to people in custody who demonstrate good behaviour during periods of disruption and deprivation such as an industrial dispute, emergency or other … unforeseen circumstances. They are not granted where a person has demonstrated poor behaviour.

We later found out this is false, but that is not what I am going to focus on today. It further states:

Emergency Management Days are an operational tool for maintaining good order during emergencies, as they provide a strong incentive for compliance during times when there is a significant risk of dangerous disruptions inside prison facilities.

But this is the last part:

Pandemic related rules for the application of EMD’s ended in early 2023. EMDs are now being used very rarely, in line with their targeted role relating to disruptions or deprivations.

It explicitly says that that ended in 2023. However, that is not the case. I later received an FOI response when there was a change from Minister Erdogan to Minister Hamer – and it has now changed again – that demonstrates that this was completely false. The FOI response said that between 1 July 2023 until the end of the year, there were 9882 days granted because of COVID. Then from 1 January 2024 to 30 June, there were 7697. I should actually add that up quickly. That is 9882 plus 7697, which means 17,579 days for a reason they said did not exist. That was either a mistake – a mistake that happened over 17,000 times – or was actually misleading. Then I got another FOI response that shows – and this is completely outside the dates that he said they had finished – between July and December 2024 there were almost 3000; between January and June, 1451; and then from July to December last year, 512. This really makes me wonder. Why on earth are we seeing the same piece of legislation that, while still ignoring the voices of victims, manages to exempt the government from its responsibility?

There are some other things that I would really like to point out in the current legislation, which is what we are amending today. It says:

The Secretary may, in accordance with the regulations, reduce the length of a sentence of imprisonment being served by a person or the length of the non-parole period …

This is unbelievable to me when somebody gets locked up and when somebody gets sentenced. This man that this legislation is a response to had murdered somebody and had trafficked drugs, but because his area outside was too small, he has managed to take the department of justice of Victoria to the Supreme Court, and because of the way our laws are written he has been able to extract out of them huge amounts of financial compensation, because the laws in this state are weighted far more in support of the perpetrators than they are of the victims. I think that is an incredible thing that we have got to look at when we are looking at legislation. What this bill actually does is remove the state’s financial liability for past breaches of prisoners’ open-air rights, affecting ongoing legal claims seeking compensation. So if this government are able to amend this legislation but they are not doing it to uphold the rights of victims and their families, what are they doing it for and why?

Let us look at this bill in detail. The purpose of this bill before us today is to allow prisoners’ open-air access to be restricted due to operational issues. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That is exactly what happens in these cases, which thousands and thousands of Victorians are fighting for change on. It introduces a list of operational considerations that can be taken into account when limiting this open-air access. It applies to unexpected events as well as ongoing operational changes. This could be something like an outbreak of an infectious disease once again, or it could be something to do with maintenance. It exempts these provisions from the requirements of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. Now, if you really want a good read, you should read the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities and the statement of compatibility, because it explicitly says that this bill is actually not in line with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. It explains why, though. It says, for instance, here:

In determining whether some hardship or constraint falls into that category, it is necessary to consider not merely what is ‘theoretically possible’, but also what is ‘practicable’, ‘reasonable in the context of a prison environment’, and ‘consistent with the very purpose of imprisonment itself’.

In other words, what it is saying is that, yes, you do have a human right to liberty and you do have a human right to freedom of movement, but when you are locked up in prison because you have breached the laws of the state you actually have some of those liberties taken away. I understand that. But it is also amazing that with essentially the stroke of a pen – and the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee has done an amazing report on this as well – you can actually just bypass every one of those charter of human rights considerations, and the charter can so easily be overridden.

Something else that is amazing, which I think speaks to a lot of what I believe this government is about, is this article from a few hours ago from the Guardian. It says:

Victoria’s new First Nations voice to parliament has made its first intervention on government policy under nation-leading treaty powers to call for a controversial bill that would deny prisoners at least one hour of open air daily to be scrapped.

It goes on:

… the government will forge ahead with debate in the upper house on Thursday.

It has prompted an intervention from Gellung Warl, Victoria’s First Peoples’ representative body established as part of the treaty process.

For the first time, it has exercised its powers under the Statewide Treaty Act to call on the government to withdraw the bill.

In a letter to the minister for corrections, Ros Spence; the attorney general, Sonya Kilkenny; and the deputy premier and minister for First Peoples, Gabrielle Williams; Gellung Warl co-chairs … said the bill was “inconsistent with the spirit and intent of Statewide Treaty”.

It is just amazing that this government has ignored the voice of victims. It is upholding the rights of the perpetrators above the voices of victims. It has bypassed some of the charter of human rights, and it is not compatible with the treaty that they have spruiked so much about, yet they go ahead with it. The article continues:

The Victorian Greens leader, Ellen Sandell, said …

…

“The Labor government can’t go out there and champion treaty on one day, and the next day completely ignore the principles of it.”

The Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe accused the government of treating treaty like a “photo opportunity”.

“Labor celebrated Treaty, took their selfies and filled their socials with how historic it was. But Treaty means nothing if the Government ignores First Peoples when they exercise the powers that Treaty gives them …”

It is quite an interesting point of view. There is a lot to talk about in this bill.

What this bill also does is it preserves compensation claims relating to past restrictions on open-air access. If there are prisoners that have been in Barwon Prison or that have had this access withheld from them within the Melbourne remand centre, they can go ahead. But the bill applies new compensation restrictions and ongoing court proceedings, so from here on in if they make a complaint, they are not going to get anything.

This is the bit that I find just not up to scratch with what the community would expect from a government. The bill removes the Crown’s liability for compensation claims relating to past restrictions to open-air access, which is found in clause 5 of the bill. That is the part that I want to look at now. Clause 5 of the bill inserts a new section that removes the Crown’s financial liability in respect to past limitations of rights conferred by section 47(1)(a) of the Corrections Act. This provision prevents people from receiving monetary compensation from the Crown. It only applies to claims relating to events before the law. This part I find staggering: it does not affect non-monetary remedies or compensation for future breaches. For example, there will be no change to emergency management days that take violent and high-risk offenders beyond their non-parole period. That is unbelievable to me. Thousands and thousands of Victorians have petitioned this government and said how harmful it is when they are told that the person that murdered the person that was most precious to them and who they were told would not get out of jail a day before 19 years could walk out within 17 or 18 years. That does not reach the threshold of community expectations. That is unbelievable.

What does matter to this government? It is really hard for me to read this in any other way than that the way to get the government to change this piece of legislation that we are changing today is not to be a survivor, because let us remember that in a lot of these cases the victims are dead. They have been murdered. For instance, Celeste Manno. Her murderer, by the time he was sentenced, got over 50 days knocked off his sentence straightaway because he was on remand during COVID. Katie Haley’s murderer got 427 days off his sentence, not because of good behaviour but because he was locked up during COVID.

I am going to find some other, I think, quite staggering numbers. The largest number of emergency management days approved for a single individual broken down into six-month time periods – within six months one offender got 245 days off his prison sentence. Imagine that. And you know what, these families generally find out through a generic letter, basically a mass email that says ‘The person that murdered your daughter, the person that murdered your sister, will get out this much earlier.’

This is another one that I found interesting through FOI: the largest number of emergency management days approved for one prisoner related to COVID-19 was 452 days off one sentence. I thought the 427 days that Katie Haley’s murderer received must have been the biggest amount, but it was not. It just keeps getting worse and worse. I do not know where the dishonesty stops, because we were told here in this place – if you go online, you can download Hansard and you can download the letter from the Minister for Corrections at the time. It explicitly says that after mid-2023 none of these days applied to anyone, yet here we are. We have seen over 17,000 days applied since that date. It is unbelievable. There are not really many more ways to read this, but the government will change the legislation when it hits their bottom dollar, when it hits their back pocket, when it is going to be a monetary cost to them, not when it is going to be something that will make the lives of victims and their families better.

In amending this legislation they are giving themselves an out when it comes to financial obligations in relation to loss of time outside of the cell, for example, but they have completely ignored the voices of victims when it comes to giving the perpetrators a get-out-of-jail-early card. Imagine being faced with a choice to protect victims who have lost some of the closest people in their lives, who will live with that loss forever, or to let the perpetrators leave early from jail if they have been inconvenienced, and yet the government does not see this as an issue. Why is that? Because it is not affecting them.

This is a government whose list of priorities seem to go in this order when it comes to crime. First, it is protecting themselves – looking after number one. They are exempting themselves from liability. Second, they then look after the criminal who they allow to get time off their sentences, often letting them out earlier than their non-parole period, which in my opinion smashes to pieces the social contract. For instance, in the case of the man who murdered Katie, the public were told that he would have 19 years non-parole, the family were told that he would have 19 years non-parole, but due to these discounts he is getting out earlier than that. He does not even have to report for parole, because once he gets out of jail, he has been taken below that because of these discounts. Not because of remorse, not because of good behaviour, but because of inconvenience – the very same breach that the government are exempting themselves of liability from. Then the last priority for this government seems to be the victims. They are the last consideration when they really should be the first.

For too long in the state of Victoria there has been a culture where the rights of perpetrators have been put above the rights of victims. The government, in its laws and in its treatment, has given more weight to the feelings of perpetrators than they have to the reality and the lived experience of victims and those that survive them. Under a Liberal and National government, that is going to change. That is why it is not just talking points for me, because once you have sat with one of these families and you have looked them in the eye and they have told you about the experience and what it has been like after they have lost their loved ones, it changes your life forever. There are just little things, like when I was speaking recently to Katie Haley’s brother he was telling me what it was like when he got that phone call, and he and his dad hopped in the car to go to the house because they thought that Katie had been murdered. When they got there the whole place was cordoned off and there were lights, there was stress and what had happened began to sink in. He said to me – he was a bit embarrassed about it, and he reminded me so much of my own little brother – ‘All I kept saying to Dad was, “Dad, who’s going to cut my hair?”’ He said of course there was so much more, but in that moment something so horrible had happened that the only way he could process it was by going through these tiny little things that he found so special that would forever change his life.

That is why we have to get law and order under control in the state of Victoria. That is why if you break bail you should face jail. You cannot keep flouting the laws. Laws in Victoria should be more than just recommendations and suggestions; they should be enforced. We should not be giving kids this opportunity to just titrate up their crimes until all of a sudden there is a reaction and they end up locked up forever. We have to get this state back on track, and there needs to be an accountability and a responsibility for what our laws are actually doing. The first people we should think about, I believe, are the victims and the people they leave behind.

We are not opposing this bill, but the reason that I brought these things up is that this exact piece of legislation needs much more change. It should not be just to give violent and high-risk offenders that are put in cells that are contained more rights because their patio is not big enough. There should at least be consideration that if parole is not given that is upheld by the law. I hope that there will be more to come on this piece of legislation, and I hope when it does it gives a lot more weight to victims than it does to perpetrators.

 David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (18:50): When a bill is tabled in Parliament, as all members here would know, a bill needs to be submitted with a statement of compatibility with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities and now also a statement of compatibility with treaty. This is the first bill I have ever seen in this place where the statement of compatibility with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities is thicker than the bill itself. I do not know, maybe Parliament staff can check that for me, but this is absolutely the first time that I have noticed that. That tells you a lot about what we are talking about here.

The Corrections Amendment Bill 2026 is a human rights disaster. This bill is probably one of the worst bills that I have seen come through this place. The genesis of this bill was a prisoner in the matter of Marrogi v Secretary, Department of Justice and Community Safety, who took the government to court. Ultimately, the court found a number of things, but one of those things was that they did not have sufficient access to open air and fresh air and exercise and that sort of thing. With a normal government that respected human rights and with an opposition that defended human rights and held the government to account, what we would have in a situation like this is the government would either appeal the decision of the court or they would comply with the law. But instead we have a situation where rather than comply with their own law, the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities, what they are doing now is simply changing the law. What they are doing with this bill is effectively overriding the charter on many issues. You only need to look at the statement of compatibility with the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006:

Human Rights Issues

The following Charter rights are relevant to, and in some cases may be limited by, the Bill:

•   protection from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (section 10(b));

•   the right to humane treatment when deprived of liberty (section 22(1));

•   the right not to be deprived of property other than in accordance with law (section 20);

•   right to freedom of movement and right to liberty (sections 12 and 21);

•   right to fair hearing (section 24(1));

•   right not to be tried or punished more than once (section 26); and

•   right to protection from retrospective criminal laws (section 27).

What the government have done here, with the support of the opposition, is rewrite the law to allow, in perpetuity, breaches of human rights for prisoners because they do not want to manage the prison system to allow these rights.

I do not think anyone would say that Libertarians are soft on crime. My staff did some research earlier today, and I have spoken about organised crime apparently more than anyone in this place. The number two person that has spoken about organised crime is former Premier Steve Bracks, apparently. It is possible to both be tough on crime and also respect human rights. It is very easy to be tough on crime and disrespect human rights. There was reporting today on this bill in the media by someone who had been imprisoned by the Islamic regime in Iran. They said that even in Iran they were allowed to get fresh air and exercise. They said they were appalled by the idea that Australia might have in some way worse conditions than under the Iranian regime. I share this view as well. I am very concerned by this idea that we are not at least treating people as human.

Taking away someone’s liberty is a very serious thing, and of course that is taking away their rights. The correct time to take away someone’s liberty is when they cause harm to another person. The people that are imprisoned here caused harm to other people. We are talking about very serious criminals. We are talking about drug dealers, murderers, very serious criminals. But just because we deprive them of their liberty does not mean that they are not human. In fact it degrades all of us when we do not treat these prisoners as human, when we take away human things such as access to fresh air. We have spoken about fresh air more than a few times in this place. In the last term of Parliament I tried to move an amendment to guarantee people access to fresh air and exercise when they were deprived of liberty under the old Public Health and Wellbeing Act 2008. I am glad that since that time it is apparent that the Greens have had some epiphany on that and now support fresh air and exercise for Victorians that are deprived of liberty.

It is totally possible to be tough on crime and respect human rights. In fact it is important for the provision of justice that we do respect human rights, because if we do not respect human rights what happens is people lose respect for the system, people lose respect for our institutions and people come to mistrust our institutions. And that is one of the biggest problems that we have in Australia at the moment, especially in Victoria – people have lost faith in our institutions, they are losing faith in the government, they are losing faith in our entire parliamentary system in many cases and they have certainly lost faith in our justice system. They see decisions by courts that they do not understand, that they do not like, that are not in line with community expectations, and I totally agree with them. There have been many cases which were not in line with community expectations. But where a court does come to the decision to deprive someone of liberty and remove them from society – appropriately because they are a danger to other people, because they have committed crimes against other people, murdered other people or hurt them in some way – that does not mean that we should treat them like an animal. That does not mean that we should treat these people like animals. They are human, like us. The way that we treat prisoners says a lot about the society that we are. The Libertarians will not support this bill.

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:57): I just want to make a couple of comments on this bill – and I know my colleague Dr Heath has interrogated it to a fairly extensive extent – to put on record some comments from me in terms of the Corrections Amendment Bill 2026. This bill is addressing prisoner rights in the corrections portfolio. It is looking at a number of elements which allow prisoners’ open-air access to be restricted during operational times. It introduces a list of operational considerations that are to be taken into account when open-air access is limited. This applies to unexpected events as well as ongoing operational concerns and challenges, and it exempts provisions in the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

We have heard both in the lower house and in this house that this is in relation to a particular prisoner who took the Department of Justice and Community Safety to court in relation to access to open air and indeed won. This particular individual happens to be a murderer and a drug trafficker and is incarcerated for a number of decades. Often we can get indignant, and everyone certainly has the right to a free opinion while I am still standing, but we do have to recognise the fact that in order to be incarcerated for some 38 years he had certainly committed the most heinous crimes of murder and drug trafficking. In this case there are people who are no longer here because of those actions and there are families who are forever altered, forever grieving and forever having lost a limb of their family tree. I put that on record because we are seeing this so much.

In relation to that, this now is, I guess, closing what could be considered a loophole. We have seen in my time some changes to legislation to close certain legal loopholes. With the shocking occurrence of the Bourke Street murders, a car driven by Mr Gargasoulas, I think it was, terminated the lives of many, many people. I remember at the time our Shadow Attorney-General Ed O’Donohue gave a very eloquent and impassioned speech about the need to close certain loopholes to contain people’s rights and privileges in order to ensure that those sorts of dangers and risks and therefore impacts and victims were minimised into the future. I take the point that we should be treating people with dignity and respect. That is also overlaid with the fact that these people have made a choice in their life to compromise forever the lives of others. Nevertheless, this is where we are at at this point.

We have stated that we will not be opposing the bill, but I do want to put on record my recognition of the fact that in this place, in November last year, there was an extensive debate and there was much handclapping and indeed flags were unfurled in relation to the passing of the Statewide Treaty Act 2025. I am not going to be duplicitous about this. It was very clear – and I have been very open, frank and I hope respectful in my dealings with the First Peoples’ Assembly through my portfolio as the Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs – that we would not support treaty. Through consultation, understanding and development, we have a different pathway to support First Nations people in Victoria, and that is First Nations Victoria, a standalone department with a focus very firmly on enabling, on supporting, on working with community-led solutions and on trying to punch holes in silos that I have, through consultation, learned about, to be able to create success, to create self-determination and to improve jobs. There is nothing like the facilitation of empowerment through jobs, health and housing. These are our focuses, and we will walk hand in hand with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Victorians.

Back in November we were all made to feel ashamed, apparently, because we did not agree with the government’s position. We were all told to cower our heads. As the bill passed through, there was a particular section in that bill about treaty compatibility. We asked questions at the time in relation to what that would look like. Gellung Warl and the co-chairs have the right to decide how they view various pieces of legislation, reports, actions, plans and the like within almost any department and any authority down to – I was reminded – the CFA and what it would mean to the First Peoples’ Assembly in terms of the impact on them through treaty compatibility. The government endorsed that, and they patted themselves on the back. As I said, we moved forward, and therefore section 66 of the Statewide Treaty Act invites treaty compatibility, invites First Peoples to have their say, legislates the value of that and requires their scrutiny. Now we saw only yesterday that Gellung Warl wrote to Ros Spence, Minister for Corrections; Sonya Kilkenny, Attorney-General; and Gabrielle Williams, Minister for First Peoples, most significantly, that:

This Bill will have a disproportionate impact on First Peoples who continue to be significantly overrepresented in Victoria’s correctional system.

I will hold there and come back to that. They wrote:

There are a significant proportion of First Peoples who are currently held in remand without a formal sentence, and First Peoples are vulnerable to systemic neglect and solitary confinement.

Now that must be its own kind of incarceration and a horrible thing for anybody. But there it is; that is part of our justice system. It goes on:

It undermines the renewed relationship between First Peoples and the State agreed to under Statewide Treaty.

We had Labor members – we had many members – whacking themselves on the back saying that they were going to create self-determination. Then at a very significant issue, which they have the right to decide under treaty compatibility, which is significant, lo and behold, there it is: Gellung Warl does not agree with it. And then they just move on.

As I said, we have opposed treaty. We will repeal treaty. We will put legislation in in the first 100 days. We have a plan. We want to walk forward with our First Nations people together. We want to enable, facilitate, support, learn and commit to – and the very part that I want to also get to – under 10 years. When I asked the minister in this house in relation to certain aspects – I think it was to do with VACCHO and young children – the minister said at the time and the Treasurer said at the time, ‘It hasn’t been working, so we’re trying something different.’ After 11 years we have got an incarceration rate in Victoria of around 18 per cent higher than for non-Indigenous Victorians. I am putting that on record. I am not being magnanimous about this, but at the first hurdle, it is like, ‘Well, there you go. Here it is. Yes, First Peoples’ Assembly, Gellung Warl, treaty compatibility and away we go.’

In finality for me, as I said, I have put on record our commitment. I have stated our situation, which is unerring. This bill is overwhelmingly going to pass through the house, but I just call on the government: when you are backslapping at one end, it is on your head that you have then gone and ignored at the other.

 Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (19:08): I also rise to speak against the Corrections Amendment Bill 2026, which in my opinion is probably one of the most blatantly obvious, gross violations of rights that this Parliament has seen, and that is saying something, considering what they did to Victorians during the COVID era. When we talk about jail, we know that that is really the last line of defence that we have in dealing with people who are completely antisocial, do not learn and commit grievous crimes. Before that, you have fines, you have apologies and you have mediation. We can talk about the criminals and how bad their crimes are and what they deserve, and we can talk about the victims and what they need. But as victims all know, there is no getting back what is taken from you when you are the victim of serious crime like that. I think what is equally important is to remember the difference between justice and revenge. You do not want to become the thing that you say is evil when you are saying that you are after justice and actually end up doing the same kind of evil to another human being that you say should never be done to anybody else and that it was not injustice. These topics are always very emotional because you can never get a perfect situation when crimes like this have been done, but two wrongs do not make a right, as they say.

We know why this bill is here. The government seem to have made a mistake in their architecture designs of the prisons, which have then been found not to meet the standards of the human right to open fresh air. But instead of just dealing with that fact, paying their fines and then updating the prison architecture, they have actually permanently given themselves an exemption from a human right. That is something that governments must never do. History has taught us that governments can never be trusted to do that. It never leads to anywhere good. It never leads to justice. Operational reasons are not defined. They are not enough. You should not be able to create an exemption for yourself from a basic human right.

It should not need explaining, but the human right that this bill extinguishes is referred to by the United Nations and in prisons as the Mandela rules. It should not take knowledge and understanding of Nelson Mandela and his fight against apartheid to work out that humans in prison, regardless of their crimes, should be treated with humanity and given basic open-air access. I would also like to point out that this is the second Mandela rule that this government has trashed, the other one being the right to single-sex prisons, for obvious reasons. So do not be giving me this garbage about how it is just a special one-time deal, it will not happen again. Please!

The other reason is how can anyone expect prisoners to be rehabilitated or even remorseful if their time in prison is incredibly inhumane, if they look at us and they do see that we are just as bad as them, we are just as inhumane as they are, if they spend their time locked up in the dark losing their minds, all because the government has decided that it is convenient to rewrite the rules for themselves and say that if it is operationally difficult then we do not have to respect human rights. Does that sound like a government that you want to rule over you? It does not sound like a government that I want to rule over me.

Let us not forget that this is the same government who flew youth offenders to another state to go to theme parks and gave pizza to prisoners who got on the roof of a prison. We should not have to choose between cancelling human rights and making prison a holiday, just completely trashing justice and victims’ rights. That is not actually the choice before us. It should not be. We do not have to choose between these two things. That is the job of a responsible government: to balance rights and duties.

Usually these kinds of bills are brought in with a sunset clause – I know that my Libertarian colleague here loves a sunset clause – but there is nothing like that in here either, which I was very shocked to find, and I made sure that I double-checked. This is not even a temporary measure, it is permanent. That is outrageous. It is really actually quite phenomenal that you would consider yourselves above the United Nations and above every single global intergovernmental organisation that respects human rights, that we draw all of our other laws from and that are referred to in our own charter. I mean, that is amazing. I have got to hand it to you.

Either human rights are non-derogable, which means there is no situation and no scenario in which they can be justifiably denied, or there have to be extreme circumstances. Operational considerations are not extreme circumstances. This government was supposed to be analysing the data, building prisons, hiring staff and adjusting the law so that these kinds of operational considerations never became such an issue that you had to deny a basic human right to open air. You are literally subjecting human rights beneath your administrative burden. That is not good government. That is terrifying, actually.

I absolutely reject this bill. I reject it. It goes against every single lesson we have learned throughout history – the Nuremberg trials, the Clapham sect, if you know what that is. William Wilberforce, who I named my son after, was not just anti slavery, he also participated in a group with lots of good people, but with prison reform he talked a lot about architecture. These things are not new. These principles are not new. Human rights are not new. Morality is not new. Dealing with administrative burdens is not new. If anyone loves a bureaucracy, I mean, it is that side of this place, so you should be experts at it, really, but clearly you are not. Instead, you are just trashing human rights for your bureaucracy, and it is unacceptable. I am voting against this bill.

John BERGER (Southern Metropolitan) incorporated the following:

President, I rise to make a contribution on the Corrections Amendment Bill 2026.

I firstly want to thank the Minister for Corrections over in the over place for bringing forward this legislation.

It is important to all Victorians that the Corrections system is run effectively, safely, and in an orderly manner, and I would also like to thank the minister for their work on that front as well.

This Bill makes targeted amendments to the Corrections Act 1986 to clarify how the right to spend time in the open air is applied within Victoria’s prison system.

Currently, the Act provides that prisoners who are not ordinarily engaged in outdoor work are entitled to spend at least one hour each day in the open air, weather permitting, under section 47(1)(a).

This Bill recognises that there are circumstances where, despite the importance of that entitlement, it is simply not reasonably practicable to provide it because of operational requirements within a prison.

I want to start by recognising that this bill isn’t diminishing the importance of being entitled to open air but rather ensuring that management, safety and security are top of the agenda.

The amendments in this bill make clear that decisions about access to open air can also take into account operational considerations, including maintaining the good order and security of a prison, protecting the safety and welfare of prisoners, and ensuring the safety of correctional staff.

President, I think that these are sensible and necessary changes to the Victorian Correctional system.

Our correctional system must always balance individual rights with the practical realities of operating secure facilities that house people with varying security classifications and complex behavioural needs.

And these amendments are reflective of that fact, and doing so help to strengthen the system as a whole.

The Bill responds to the recent Supreme Court decision in the Marrogi case, which highlighted uncertainty in how the existing provisions should operate in practice.

Our legislation needs to be clear so it can be interpreted in the way that it was intended.

The supreme court case has exposed significant operational and financial risks for the correctional system that require an effective and immediate legislative response.

Importantly, these amendments do not remove the expectation that prisoners should have access to open air wherever it is safe and reasonably practicable.

These amendments still make it clear that the entitlement to open air remains an important part of correctional facilities.

Rather, they acknowledge that there will be circumstances where operational realities make that impossible.

This is particularly relevant for prisoners housed in high-security or management units, where movement throughout a prison often requires significant staffing resources and carefully managed security arrangements.

In those circumstances, providing access to external exercise areas may create unacceptable risks for staff, other prisoners and the safe operation of the prison itself.

We need to ensure the safety and security of these facilities first and foremost.

These people deserve to live with at least some sense of certainty that every possible step is being taken to ensure that at the end of the day they can go home to their families both healthy and safe.

The Bill therefore provides Corrections Victoria with the flexibility to make operational decisions that prioritise safety while continuing to provide access to open air wherever practicable.

The legislation also addresses the State’s exposure to compensation claims arising from limitations on access to open air that occurred before these amendments commence.

It ensures that claims already finally determined by the courts remain unaffected, while preventing further compensation from being awarded in relation to historical limitations that arose under the previous legislative framework.

What these provisions do is help strike an appropriate balance.

They provide certainty for the correctional system while ensuring public resources remain focused on delivering frontline services and maintaining a safe and effective justice system.

The Government also acknowledges that aspects of this Bill engage rights protected under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

The decision to include an override declaration is not one that has been taken lightly.

However, the Government considers that, in the unique and highly complex environment of correctional facilities, these amendments are necessary to ensure prisons can continue to operate safely and effectively while balancing the rights and safety of everyone within the system.

President, ultimately, this Bill is about providing clarity for those working in and operating Victoria’s correctional system.

And it is about ensuring that best possible practices are followed to keep everyone’s safety and security at the top of the priority list.

It recognises that access to open air remains an important element of humane prison conditions, but it also recognises that the safe operation of our correctional facilities must remain paramount.

These amendments support Corrections Victoria in continuing to manage prisons safely, securely and effectively, while ensuring that operational realities are appropriately recognised in law.

They also provide certainty following the Marrogi decision and protect taxpayers from unnecessary financial liability, allowing public resources to remain focused on the services that benefit the broader Victorian community.

Corrections Victoria is responsible for handling some of the most complex and challenging environments with our justice system.

Environments that can host some of the most dangerous elements of our society.

Everyday correctional staff are required to balance rehabilitation and wellbeing of people in custody.

Their overriding responsibility is to maintain the safety and security of these facilities, and frankly of themselves.

Quite frankly, these facilities are not ordinary workplaces.

They are housing individuals with a wide range of security classifications, behavioural risks and medical needs.

Decisions that might appear straightforward from the outside are often far more complex in practice.

Providing access to open air at a minimum requires, movement of prisoners, deployment of correctional officers and coordination of multiple operational requirements.

Those arrangements can be affected by emergency incidents, intelligence regarding security risks, medical emergencies, lockdowns or infrastructure constraints.

Therefore, we need legislation to be adaptable to unpredictable environments like those of our prison facilities.

This is of critical importance if these sites are to remain as secure and safe as possible, for all who occupy or work in these facilities.

These amendments recognise the operational realities on the ground.

It is important when talking about these changes to recognise the correctional staff that undertake this work.

The workers at our correctional facilities work in what is an incredibly difficult role.

They work in high pressured, unpredictable and at times dangerous environments.

So, it is important that we recognise them and do our best to ensure their safety.

Every decision made must reflect the safety standards for prisoners and visitors alike because complications can be dangerous.

Perhaps the most dangerous and complex situation that these workers can deal with is when moving prisoners around.

When these movements happen within prisons staff are required to handle many different moving parts.

This Includes, managing escorts, supervising interactions between prisoners, and being prepared to respond immediately to changing circumstances.

They do not need the added pressure created by the supreme court case decision.

The law should not place correctional staff in a position where they are forced to prioritise compliance with an inflexible statutory requirement over immediate operational safety.

Again, I would like to stress, that every worker within our state’s correctional system deserves to go home safe.

This bill provides flexibility for experienced prison mangers to make appropriate operational decisions while remaining accountable to the legislative framework following these sensible amendments.

They reflect confidence in the professional judgement of those responsible for operating our correctional facilities every day.

President, one of Parliament’s most important responsibilities is ensuring that legislation is clear, workable and capable of operating in the manner that was intended.

The legislation that we pass in this building needs to provide clarity over the areas that it is regulating.

It should establish clear expectations for those responsible for administering the law, and it should minimise unnecessary ambiguity wherever possible.

When uncertainty arises through judicial interpretation, Parliament has an important role to consider whether legislative clarification is required.

It is clear that in this case such clarification was required, which is exactly what this Bill seeks to achieve.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Marrogi case highlighted uncertainty in the operation of the existing legislative framework.

Whether one agrees with every aspect of the Court’s interpretation or not, the decision demonstrated that the existing provisions were capable of producing outcomes that Parliament did not intend when the legislation was originally enacted.

It is entirely appropriate that Parliament now considers amendments to address that uncertainty.

This should not be viewed as criticism of the courts as the judiciary performs an essential constitutional function by interpreting legislation as it is written.

Equally, Parliament retains responsibility for determining whether legislation continues to reflect public policy and operational realities.

Where clarification is required, Parliament should not hesitate to provide it.

That process is a normal and important feature of our democratic system.

Indeed, many pieces of legislation evolve over time as governments respond to judicial decisions, practical experience and changing community expectations, the Corrections Act is no exception.

These amendments are designed to ensure that the legislation reflects how correctional facilities must operate in practice.

Having clear legislation and regulation is a benefit for everyone involved in this sector.

This is because it assists prison managers, it provides certainty for correctional staff, it reduces unnecessary litigation, and it assists the courts in applying Parliament’s intention.

Most importantly, it provides a legislative framework that can operate consistently across Victoria’s correctional system.

Consistency creates certainty, and certainty creates safety.

President, what we see in this bill is ultimately an example of this Parliament performing one of its most important functions

Reviewing and updating legislation, responding to developments in the law and ensuring that statutory provisions continue to operate effectively in the public interest.

President, I also want to acknowledge that this Bill engages rights recognised under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities.

The Government has been transparent about that throughout the legislative process.

Access to fresh air and exercise forms part of the humane treatment of people in custody and has long been recognised as an important aspect of prison conditions.

Nothing in this Bill seeks to diminish that principle.

However, the Charter itself recognises that rights may, in appropriate circumstances, be subject to reasonable limits.

The Charter requires those limits to be demonstrably justified having regard to the broader public interest.

That reflects an important reality, that very few rights exist in complete isolation.

They frequently intersect with the rights and safety of others, as well as with broader responsibilities held by government institutions.

The correctional environment illustrates that point particularly clearly.

Correctional facilities are unique institutions.

They exist to detain individuals lawfully deprived of their liberty while maintaining order, protecting staff, safeguarding other prisoners and ensuring community safety.

Those objectives can occasionally come into tension.

The law must therefore provide a framework that allows those competing considerations to be balanced in a practical and proportionate manner.

That is what these amendments seek to achieve.

Importantly, the Bill does not remove the entitlement to open air.

Nor does it suggest that access should be withheld for administrative convenience or routine operational preference.

Instead, it recognises that there will sometimes be circumstances where providing access is simply not reasonably practicable because of genuine operational requirements.

Those circumstances may include emergency incidents, significant security risks, staffing shortages arising from unforeseen events or other operational issues that make prisoner movement unsafe at that particular time.

In those situations, the safety of correctional officers, prisoners and visitors must remain paramount.

The Bill therefore seeks to provide an appropriate legal framework for those decisions.

It also acknowledges that an override declaration has been included.

The use of an override declaration is not something that should ever become routine, it is an incredibly important safeguard implemented within Victorian Law.

However, the Charter deliberately reserves this mechanism for exceptional circumstances, and this is an exceptional circumstance.

It reflects Parliament’s recognition that, on rare occasions, there may be compelling public policy reasons that justify temporary legislative action despite identified human rights implications.

The Government has made clear that this decision has not been taken lightly.

Rather, it reflects the unique operational challenges arising from the correctional system and the need to provide immediate legislative certainty following the Marrogi decision.

Whether dealing with prison safety, operational security or the responsible allocation of public resources, Parliament has an obligation to ensure that the legislative framework remains workable.

These amendments seek to achieve that outcome while continuing to acknowledge the importance of humane treatment within Victoria’s correctional system.

That is why this Bill represents a careful balancing of competing interests rather than a departure from the principles that underpin our correctional framework.

In closing President, I support this bill for a few crucial reasons.

For one, it provides certainty and stability to those working within Victoria’s correctional facilities.

Given the nature of the places we are talking about today, stability and certainty is without doubt are very important thing to achieve.

However most importantly, it helps to promote the safety of the workers in these facilities, increasing the likelihood that they will be able to return home to their families everyday after work.

This is a simple but crucial premise, that no matter what field that you work in, every precaution must be taken to ensure that you remain safe at work.

I understand fully that there are some well-founded concerns regarding the way that this bill has been achieved.

It would remain a rare undertaking to pass legislation that does not comply fully with the Charter of Human Rights.

However, at the end of the day I do believe that the benefits of passing this legislation will be seen in this state’s ability to maintain a well-functioning corrections system.

And as such I commend this bill to the chamber.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) incorporated the following:

This Bill makes several targeted amendments to the Corrections Act 1986.

The changes relate to access to open air particularly for high risk prisoners in Victoria.

It will make it clear that the right to be in the open air is subject to it being reasonably practicable.

Not all prisoners are safe to mix with other prisoners.

It will also provide that no amount is payable to any person for any loss or damage caused by past limitations of a person’s right to open air.

And it will fix a technical delegation issue affecting Community Corrections Advanced Practitioners.

Community safety is a top priority for the Carroll Labor Government.

To keep Victorians safe, we have:

•   introduced the nation’s toughest bail laws;

•   introduced the Adult Crime Adult Time laws, so that those who commit serious violence face the full consequences.

And our new laws are working.

•   In the year to March 2026, Victoria’s criminal incident rate fell by nearly three per cent, and the youth offending rate fell by six per cent.

•   The drop in alleged youth offending is the biggest since before the COVID pandemic.

•   The victimisation rate, overall recorded offences and criminal incidents are all decreasing

More adults are also being held to account for breaching their bail conditions.

For the first time since records started, bail revocations and refusals in the Magistrates Court now make up a greater share of bail decisions – meaning more people are being jailed and not bailed

This Bill continues that efforts to keep Victorians safe.

Every person in prison has, if not ordinarily engaged in outdoor work, the right to be in open air for at least one hour each day, if the weather permits.

These reforms will provide that the right to open air does not apply in circumstances where it is not reasonably practicable.

This right has been met by Corrections for twenty years by providing rear cell courtyards, or ‘run out yards’, attached to high security and management units.

A recent Supreme Court judgment found that these cells did not constitute ‘open air’ for the purposes of the Act.

The reforms in this Bill are a necessary response to the legal, operational and financial risks that arise from that judgement.

The Government must ensure that prisons can operate safely for staff, visitors and people in custody.

The Bill recognises the importance of access to open air

But acknowledges the operational realities this right must be managed within.

That includes the need to manage the risks from, to and between high-risk prisoners.

Corrections facilities are designed to mitigate a range of risks, including the risk of incidents, risk of contraband, and even attempted escapes.

Prisons manage those risks on a day to day basis, in dynamic circumstances.

And I thank our Corrections Officers for the work that they do to keep Victorians safe.

This reform is aimed at ensuring access to open air can be managed in a safe way.

The changes seek to reinforce and align with longstanding practice in the Corrections system.

The use of individual run out yards is longstanding practice in the Victorian system, and common practice in corrections systems around the world.

The Government has a responsibility to ensure that prisons and community corrections operate lawfully, safely and effectively.

This kind of practical balancing is part of a longstanding practice across the prison system.

This change improves prison community safety and recognises the operational practical reality of the corrections system.

The Bill also limits the State’s financial exposure to compensation sought in claims for past limitations of the right to open air.

It provides that no amount is payable to any person for any loss or damage caused by past limitations of a person’s right to open air that occurred before the Bill commences.

It does not affect rights or liabilities that have already been determined by a court.

The Bill also retrospectively validates actions of Community Corrections Advanced Practitioners during a period where there was no effective delegation of powers to those staff members to perform those actions.

This ensures an administrative oversight does not create risks to community safety or undermine the community corrections system.

The Government calls on all Members of Parliament to support the speedy passage of this Bill, because keeping Victorians safe should be above politics

Corrections law must work not only in theory, but in practice.

I commend the Bill to the House.

 Lee TARLAMIS (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:15): 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.