The shocking crime made Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan finally toughen the state’s bail laws
In an exclusive sit down with the Sunday Herald Sun, Premier Jacinta Allan reveals the terrifying stories that compelled her to toughen the state’s bail laws and admit she had “got it wrong”.
Victoria
Don't miss out on the headlines from Victoria. Followed categories will be added to My News.
At a Cabinet conference in Daylesford last month, Jacinta Allan was left in no doubt about how her most senior colleagues viewed the performance of her government.
From strategy and execution to policy and messaging, Allan was made very aware of the severe dissatisfaction with the state of play after 18 months of her leadership.
The conference was held six days after the Werribee by-election — long enough after the vote to know Labor had narrowly scraped through to cling onto the heartland seat, but soon enough that the wounds of a brutal 16.5 per cent swing against the government were still raw.
High on the agenda was the crime crisis consuming the state and an issue that has dogged Labor at both the ballot box and in the polls.
It had also become a major attack point for new Opposition Leader Brad Battin, a former cop and prison guard who felt the crime crisis would become a key election issue he could win.
But any suggestion Allan was too slow to respond to the crisis, and politics, not community safety, was the driving factor behind the crime crackdown this week is met with an uncharacteristically curt response.
“I reject that,” she tells the Sunday Herald Sun.
Pushed to elaborate she makes clear it was seeing case after case in the news, and scratching her head in disbelief as serious repeat youth offenders were repeatedly bailed.
“I put this issue on the cabinet conference agenda, I wanted my colleagues to discuss this issue because I had identified it as a priority area that we needed to undertake urgent work.”
Almost two weeks earlier Allan had announced a review into the state’s bail laws.
She admits to having been left dumbstruck at some judicial decisions to repeatedly release on bail teens who continued to thumb their nose at the law.
Allan won’t publicly comment on individual cases.
But she was privately dismayed last week by a Herald Sun front page revealing a magistrate bailed a teen home invader despite admitting the public would want him locked up — and that he agreed with them “100 per cent”.
Other cases to have received public attention include a 14-year-old accused of a three-day crime spree who was bailed 50 times, and another alleged killer teen who was freed on bail despite going missing within 48 hours of his first release.
It was news of a terrifying aggravated burglary that left a 12-year-old boy who was home alone cowering in a cupboard as young thugs rampaged in his home that compelled Allan to act.
She was also moved after speaking to a family whose husband and father was stabbed in a violent home invasion.
“These experiences sit with me and have influenced greatly my motivation to act with urgency, to address what is not just an expectation issue with the way the current laws aren’t strong enough, but the impact it’s having on people in their daily lives,” Allan says.
“There’s a real level of frustration in the community and people want to see action and want to see it urgently.
“I’ve been frustrated as well. Seeing this repeat offending, the worst of the worst offences, and having people who’ve been repeatedly put on bail do these repeat offences.
“Obviously as Premier, I have the obligation and responsibility to do something about it, which is why we’ve introduced the tough new laws this week.”
Under new changes to bail laws to be put to parliament this week, courts will be mandated to remand repeat offenders and apply tougher tests that puts community safety first.
In the case of youths applying for bail, courts will no longer have to consider remand as an option of “last resort”.
It is that provision, which will make it easier for magistrates to keep youths behind bars, that has prompted the most criticism from legal experts and human rights groups.
In part the changes will wind back bail reforms Allan herself pushed through parliament in October 2023, shortly after becoming Premier.
The reforms were first introduced by Daniel Andrews, but continued by Allan.
“We got it wrong. It’s been clear to me that mine and the community’s expectations weren’t being met, that the law wasn’t tough enough to deal with these repeat offenders who are committing the worst of crimes.”
She rejects completely the suggestion the government has rushed its new laws, which were announced less than six weeks after the bail review.
“I think it’s important that government acknowledges that where you might have got something wrong, you need to make a change, you go and do it, and you don’t muck around, particularly as something as serious and important as community safety,” Allan says.
The 2023 changes were intended to address concerns women, Aboriginals, children and disabled people were being disproportionately affected by bail laws.
They ultimately made it easier for some offenders to secure bail and saw an explosion of repeat youth offending.
Allan rejects suggestions safeguards protecting both vulnerable groups and children will be removed.
The Victorian Bar and Criminal Bar Association of Victoria doesn’t agree, and has warned the proposals would “make it more likely that young people are kept in custodial environments in which they are vulnerable to malign influence and physical risk.”
The association’s public opposition to the bill divided the legal fraternity.
Barrister Lana Collaris said the statement was made without any consultation with the Bar Council.
“I strongly disagree with it, as do the majority of barristers in Victoria,” she said.
“The fundamental principle of the criminal justice system is to protect the community and to keep the community safe. This has failed in Victoria.”
Allan agrees, and says safeguards remain in place to protect vulnerable Victorians and children.
Magistrates must still take into consideration particular factors including a youth’s age, maturity, and the need to impose “the minimum intervention required”.
They must also consider the importance of the child living at home, and the need to minimise the stigma to the child of being renamed.
Making remand an option of last resort doesn’t negate those factors.
“Those safeguards remain in place, because what we’re zeroing in here with these tough new bail laws are the repeat offenders who are engaging in some of the worst of offending, not the low level offending. And of course, we want to try and divert as many young people away from a life of crime,” Allan says.
“What we’re seeing in some in our community, is repeat offending, and it’s the worst of offences, the carjacking, the home invasions, the aggravated burglaries.”
Allan is clear that while the views of legal stakeholders and human rights groups are valued, the “voice of victims and the voice of communities has got to be part of this consideration as well”.
The tough approach won’t come cheap, and will force the government to reverse a trend in recent years of the government cutting from the justice portfolio as it tries to rein in spending.
But under-resourced prisons will need a massive injection of funding if Allan’s new laws have the desired effect.
She won’t go into detail ahead of May’s budget, but says any injection of extra funding will be offset by a reduction in crimes being committed.
“Crime’s costing us now,” she says.
“Crime costs communities. It has a budget impact on the government. It has an impact and economic impact on our community, by people not being able to go to work, it puts pressure on our hospital system. It puts pressure on our health and welfare services for people who need support to be traumatised as victims of crime.
“It impacts kids not going to school. So crime costs us, so in terms of the changes we’ve made, our prison system does have capacity, and we will resource it accordingly in response to these tough new bail changes.
“But let’s remember the crime is a cost now on our community in so many different ways, and that has an impact.”
Asked if she’s confident the judiciary will get behind the plan, and not seek to circumvent the new laws, Allan says she is.
“For those across the justice system, I would hope that they would reflect that the current settings are not meeting community expectations.
“It’s an obligation of governments, it’s an obligation of the system, to keep the community safe.
“That’s a very important principle across our justice system.”
More Coverage
Backroom Baz: Battin missing in action during huge news week
The Opposition call Jacinta Allan a “part-time Premier” but what will they come up with for Brad Battin, who was nowhere to be seen as the state government unveiled its plan to tackle youth crime.
Guards left unconscious in bikie attack in Melbourne prison
Two prison officers have been bashed by an enraged bikie at a maximum security Melbourne prison.