By Rachel Eddie and Kieran Rooney
So many people are expected to be remanded under Victoria’s proposed bail laws that part of the reforms will be introduced later so that corrections staff can be hired to cope with the influx.
Shadow attorney-general Michael O’Brien said the Coalition would move amendments but would not stand in the government’s way, clearing the path for the bill to pass to make it harder for alleged offenders to be granted bail.
Premier Jacinta Allan with Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny and Police Minister Anthony Carbines.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“We have capacity now across our justice system for the immediate changes to come into place,” Premier Jacinta Allan said. “We’re also gearing up, Corrections Victoria are gearing up, recruiting more staff with the additional staff that we expect will be needed.”
Community and Public Sector Union secretary Karen Batt said all sectors of the criminal justice system would need more staff.
Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny claimed O’Brien had “chucked a tantrum” in a briefing at 3.30pm on Monday when the bill was still not ready.
“He chucked an absolute tantrum on the briefing. It was embarrassing, embarrassing.”
O’Brien dismissed that.
The bill was eventually circulated to the opposition and the crossbench about 6pm on Monday, and O’Brien was briefed late on Tuesday morning. He confirmed that while the opposition would move amendments, it would not stand in the way of the reform if those failed.
Part of the government’s proposal will be carved off for later in the year to ensure the system can cope with an influx of people remanded behind bars.
Under the first tranche of reforms, remanding youth offenders in custody would no longer be a “last resort” for judges and magistrates.
Community safety would also become the “overarching principle” for all bail decisions.
Two new bail offences would be created, including committing an indictable offence while on bail. Indictable offences include rape and murder, as well as shoplifting.
These changes would come into effect immediately.
The government said last week safeguards would be developed to ensure proportionality, but appeared to walk away from that. Allan said existing safeguards existed for alleged offenders who were Aboriginal or children accused of low-level offences.
“We are, though, retaining those safeguards that were put in place because our focus is on the serious offenders, the repeat offenders,” Allan said.
Advocates rallied against the new legislation at state parliament on Tuesday.Credit: Justin McManus
Courts are also supposed to consider the likelihood a person would be sentenced to prison, and for how long, when deciding whether to remand someone.
The bill proposes tougher bail tests for serious offences, and would come into effect in about three months depending on workforce capacity.
A second bill would create a two-strike rule for someone accused of indictable offences. A person accused of committing an indictable offence while on bail for another indictable offence would have to prove “compelling reasons” to remain on bail under reforms expected to be brought to parliament in the middle of the year.
Allan had warned parliament would sit this week until the legislation passed.
O’Brien said the opposition would introduce amendments in the upper house focused on harsher penalties for breaching bail and for committing an indictable offence while on bail.
He questioned why the government needed more time for its full suite of changes, particularly after telling opposition and crossbench MPs they wanted to pass the bill this week.
“This government is absolutely driven by panic,” O’Brien said. “They’ve been driven by opinion polls and politics.”
The Greens will oppose the bill and accused the premier of making panicked policy on the run.
Libertarian MP David Limbrick said he could support the bill but opposed rushing it through the parliament.
“It takes time to analyse these things,” he said, noting bail reform had been “stuffed up” many times in Victoria.
The government overhauled the state’s bail laws in 2023 after the avoidable death in custody of Aboriginal woman Veronica Nelson. A coronial inquest found vulnerable people accused of low-level offences had been disproportionately jailed.
Allan’s proposal reverses many of the changes that were made to reflect the coronial inquiry.
Aboriginal, human rights and legal advocates have called on the government to abandon the plans, and about 200 people rallied against the bill on the steps of parliament on Tuesday afternoon. Greens, Legalise Cannabis and Animal Justice Party MPs were among those in the crowd.
Human Rights Law Centre director of First Nations justice Maggie Munn said the government was ignoring the evidence to introduce what Labor says are “the toughest bail laws in the country”.
“Imagine being proud of that?” Munn told the rally.
Formerly incarcerated woman Nina, who did not provide a surname, said prisons were full of people whom society had failed.
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