Free to go: Victorian bail laws set to be relaxed

The state’s bail laws are set to be relaxed after a package of reforms passed parliament on Tuesday. Here’s what it means.

Changes to the state’s bail laws are imminent. Picture: Asanka Ratnayake

Victorian bail laws will be relaxed five years after they were toughened in the wake of the Bourke St tragedy.

A package of reforms to the current laws, the most onerous in the country, passed parliament on Tuesday.

It means low-level offenders will face easier tests to stay out of prison and remand will be prohibited for offences where a sentence of imprisonment would otherwise be unlikely.

Under the changes the definition of “unacceptable risk” would also be changed to exclude a potential risk of minor offending as a reason to refuse bail unless there was a risk to personal safety or welfare.

Offences of “breaching bail conditions” and “committing further offences while on bail”, introduced in 2013, will also be repealed.

And alleged offenders will be free to reapply for bail following a failed first attempt without having to show new facts and circumstances.

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Fontana leaves the Coroners Court of Victoria after giving evidence into the Bourke St coronial inquest. Picture: David Crosling

The government has committed to the laws coming into effect within six months of legislation passing parliament.

The changes are intended to address concerns that current laws disproportionately affect women, Aboriginals and children.

They come five years after laws were toughened in the wake of the Bourke St tragedy, in which six people died and dozens were injured in a car rampage by James Gargasoulas.

Gargasoulas had a criminal history and had been on bail but went largely unchecked in the days before the incident on January 20, 2017.

Last year a parliamentary inquiry called for a review of the laws, including a simplification of bail tests.