By Kieran Rooney and Chip Le Grand
Children accused of serious crimes would be treated like adults when courts decide whether to grant them bail or release them into the community under a shake-up of Victoria’s juvenile justice system.
Under changes to the Bail Act proposed by the Allan government, remanding youth offenders in custody would no longer be a last resort for judges and magistrates. Instead, community safety would become the “overarching principle” when deciding bail for children and adults.
In other proposed changes approved by the cabinet on Tuesday, it would again become a separate crime to commit an indictable offence while on bail. This provision was scrapped in 2024 after it contributed to people spending months behind bars for relatively minor offences.
Under what the government claims will be the toughest bail laws in Australia, people charged with serious, violent crimes including home invasion and carjacking, would have a greater onus to convince courts they could be safely released while waiting for their trial.
For people who repeatedly commit serious and violent crimes while already on bail, a new test would be created in which a court must be satisfied to a “high degree of probability” they won’t reoffend.
A similar provision in NSW led to a halving of the number of people who received bail, a government spokesperson said.
Premier Jacinta Allan.Credit: Photograph by Chris Hopkins
In a further crackdown on youth gangs and civil disorder, machetes would be outlawed as “prohibited weapons”.
“Our tough bail laws will jolt the system – putting community safety above all, creating the toughest bail laws ever, and ensuring bail rules are respected,” Premier Jacinta Allan said.
Previously in youth justice, courts have given priority to rehabilitation when considering bail for youth offenders. The change, in effect, would reverse the onus in bail decisions in which the courts have evidence that young people present a risk to community safety.
Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny said the laws aimed to reduce the risk of young people committing serious crimes while on bail.
The legislation is likely to face serious resistance from civil libertarians, defence lawyers and backbenchers within Allan’s Labor Left faction.
Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny.Credit: Jason South
Allan ordered a review of the state’s bail laws in February as she faced increased pressure to take further action on crime, particularly an increase in high-profile home invasions and car thefts.
Statewide, the number of criminal incidents recorded in the 12 months to September rose 15 per cent compared with the previous year.
Crime statistics show a sharp increase in the rate of recorded thefts, 2995 per 100,000 people, driven by car and shop thefts.
Labor MPs have also reported that crime is being raised more often by residents when they are doorknocking their local communities.
The review was also criticised by Aboriginal legal services and the state opposition as an effort to win votes before the Werribee byelection, in which Labor survived a 10 per cent swing that nearly cost the party a heartland seat.
Facing continued pressure on the issue over the past two weeks, Allan said the changes would be delivered soon. Ministers were sent scrambling over the long weekend to provide a list of policies for the cabinet on Tuesday afternoon.
The Andrews government toughened Victoria’s bail laws after the Bourke Street massacre, but this also led to a rise in the number of prisoners held in remand across the state.
Coroner Simon McGregor said in 2023 these laws were a “complete and unmitigated disaster” in his findings on the death in custody of Indigenous woman Veronica Nelson.
They were amended later that year, removing two offences related to breach of bail and altering the unacceptable-risk test used to determine whether bail should be granted.
Amid concerns over youth crime, changes to youth justice were put into separate legislation that passed parliament late last year. These laws raised the age of criminal responsibility to 12, but stopped short of raising the age to 14 as originally committed.
Shadow attorney-general Michael O’Brien.Credit: Eddie Jim
Speaking on Tuesday before the legislation was discussed at cabinet, shadow attorney-general Michael O’Brien said the government’s changes to bail, introduced 50 weeks ago, had weakened the system.
“We need a root-and-branch change to bail laws, no more tinkering around the edges,” O’Brien said.
He said bail conditions should not be an optional extra and people who breached them should go to jail.
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