Wednesday, 5 February 2025

Youth crime

Michael O’BRIEN (Malvern) (17:31): I rise to grieve for the people of Victoria who are subject to some of the weakest bail laws in the country and are less safe as a result. Not all members on the other side recognise this. Some of them live in a land of denial. Here, until recently, was the Attorney-General of Victoria:

‘I do not want a discussion about a youth crime crisis that doesn’t exist’ …

Really? Maybe the chauffeur-driven limo gets a bit fogged up through the windows and you cannot look out to see the people running around Chapel Street with machetes when you are a minister of the Crown in this Labor government, because we absolutely have a youth crime crisis in this state.

I will just give some facts and figures on this. For the year ending to 30 September 2024 youth crime had risen to the highest level since 2009 with 23,810 incidents – up a staggering 16.9 per cent, year on year. Those aged 14 to 17 were responsible for most child crime, with 20,753 incidents – a 20.7 per cent increase, year on year. Last year Victorian youths breached bail 2770 times – the equivalent of once every 3 hours. You can literally set your watch to how often young people breach bail laws in this state under this Labor government.

So what is Labor’s excuse, what is Labor’s answer to young people breaching their conditions of bail? ‘Oh, let’s just make it not an offence anymore.’ That is one way to drive down the crime rate. Just make everything legal. Make breaching your bail conditions legal, that is fine. It is not a problem at all.

The quote I gave the house was about former Attorney-General Symes, and isn’t it interesting that the person who weakened bail laws in this state is now in charge of trying to strengthen our finances?

James Newbury: Don’t use any economic terms.

Michael O’BRIEN: I will not use any economic terms, member for Brighton. No, I will not do that. What a task she has.

In the article in the Herald Sun, which is by Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler, very experienced crime writers:

Police are still cagey about commenting in such a politically-charged debate, wary of criticism by crime deniers such as the state’s attorney-general Jaclyn Symes, who last year scuppered controversial changes to youth bail reforms and was openly dismissive when asked about it.

It then goes on, and to repeat that quote:

‘I do not want a discussion about a youth crime crisis that doesn’t exist,’ Symes said.

With political masters like that, it’s no wonder police are careful what they say.

Police might have to be careful what they say, but we do not because we can call it as it is and as we see it – and we do have a youth crime crisis in Victoria. Bail is out of control; bail breaches are out of control; youth crime is out of control – and this government’s answer is to make it not an offence to breach your bail and then raise the age of criminal responsibility.

None of that actually reduces the amount of crime – none of it at all. It is interesting: we get the crime doves, if you like, in the government, like the former Attorney-General, and then we have what might pass for a hawk amongst the Labor government. This is a quote from my own press release from 4 July last year, a very reputable source if I say so myself. I am quoting the Minister for Police Mr Carbines. He said:

It is incumbent on the courts to ensure that repeat serious offenders who are on bail have that bail revoked; that is the expectation of the Government, the Parliament and the people of Victoria.

So all of a sudden it is the courts’ fault that they are not revoking bail. But it is a bit hard for the courts to revoke bail when this government has weakened the bail laws to ensure that those people can stay out on bail. Remember, bail should be a privilege; it is not a right. It is a lease given to you to stay out in the community until your matter is heard, but it is not without condition. What we have seen is that this government changed the law. It used to be that if you were on bail and then you committed a serious offence while you were on bail (1) that was an offence in itself but (2) you automatically faced a higher test, a tougher test, to get bail again. That is pretty commonsense. If you get given a privilege and you abuse that privilege by committing another crime, you should face a higher bar to have that privilege again. That is what the Liberals and Nationals believe. That is what Victorians out there believe. But no, the Labor Party are more worried about bleeding hearts than the bleeding heads of people hit over the heads with machetes. That is what we get. They changed the law and said, ‘No, no, you can go and commit indictable offences while you’re on bail and that’s not really a problem; you can keep having the same weak test again and again.’ That is why we get catch and release. There is more catch and release than a Rex Hunt fishing show. People are arrested, they are jailed, they are bailed and they are out on the streets to do the same thing the very next day. And this does not just happen once or twice. As the Leader of the Opposition mentioned in his contribution during the grievance debate, we have had one young person on bail 50 times. Did he raise his bat to the pavilion when he got his 50? It would be funny if it was not so serious, because these are serious, serious offences that are being committed against Victorians and this government does not have an answer.

The government has denied the problem exists in the first place. The former Attorney-General said we do not have a youth crime crisis. This government then deliberately weakened the bail laws to make it easy for repeat serious offenders to keep getting bail. And then they looked all surprised when that is exactly what happened. They looked all surprised and pretended to be shocked when all of a sudden crime got a lot worse and repeat serious offenders kept committing more crimes because there were no consequences. Then in a panic they got up and said, ‘Maybe we’d better do something about it.’ The government’s answer last year was (1) to bring in a bill to raise the age of criminal responsibility, which did not actually make anybody safer, and (2) to deliver a budget that cut crime prevention. When you actually want to divert young people out of a life of crime and get them back on the right track, this government cuts the funding to do it because apparently it is more important to spend money on a Suburban Rail Loop than actually get people on the right path and out of a life of crime.

They do that and then they say, ‘Okay, well, maybe if you commit certain serious offences while you’re on bail, you may face a tougher test. You know what? It’s okay if you commit burglary. You won’t face a tougher test then – only if it’s aggravated burglary.’ Gee, these are really tough people, aren’t they? I wonder what they are like as parents. ‘Look, don’t punch your sister too much. Don’t punch your brother too much.’ Seriously, actions have to have consequences. That is what most people think. It is our lived experience. It is what we know works. This government is in a la-la land where they think actions should not have consequences, society is to blame and there is no individual responsibility. As the Leader of the Opposition said, we are parties on this side of the house who do believe that people should be held accountable for their actions, good or bad.

The government introduced weak changes, which because they were actually weakening further already weak bail laws we voted against, and then the Premier jumped up in question time this week and said, ‘You people voted against these changes.’ Too right we did, because they were hopeless changes from a hopeless government that has done nothing but weaken bail laws and make Victoria less safe.

We have tried. We have gone out of our way to be constructive and try to bring private members bills into this place and into the other place, and what happens every single time is this government knocks them back, because the government is not interested in actually fixing the problem; it just wants the problem to go away. What is it that could shake the government out of this torpor, this vision that everything is okay? A by-election. It is amazing how a by-election concentrates the mind. All of a sudden, in the shadows of the Werribee by-election coming up this Saturday – and I wish good luck to Steve Murphy; I think he is a fantastic candidate and will be a fantastic member for Werribee if things fall right for him – the government says, ‘You know what, we’re going to have a review of bail.’ After a year of pretending there was no problem, a year of pretending that it was all confected, that apparently we were making things up, the media was making things up and Victorians were making things up, that there is no youth crime crisis, to quote the former Attorney-General, after a year of being told by that black is white by the Premier and by this government, all of a sudden there is a problem so we are going to have a review of bail laws. What sort of review?

James Newbury interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: I have been here long enough, member for Brighton, to remember when a former Minister for Planning Mr Madden – great Carlton player, not so great planning minister – decided to have a review into some planning decisions around the Windsor Hotel. It turned out that it was not a real review; it was a sham review. The Labor Party in government has got form. They love nothing better than a sham review, and I think that is exactly what we are going to get with the sham review into bail laws. Talk about not being able to hold a position from one day to the next. All of a sudden we get the Minister for Police coming out today – this is from the Herald Sun, ‘Victorian police minister Anthony Carbines downplays extent of Jacinta Allan bail law review’:

Victoria’s police minister has downplayed the extent of a review into the state’s bail laws – seemingly putting him at odds with Premier Jacinta Allan – saying there was no major “piece of work” in the pipeline.

In back-to-back press conferences outside parliament on Wednesday, Ms Allan doubled down on the importance of reassessing the state’s bail legislation just minutes after Police Minister Anthony Carbines said he already knew what needed to be done.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Correct titles, member for Malvern.

Michael O’BRIEN: The only thing missing was the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme music. What a bunch of clowns, what a bunch of muppets they are. Goodness me. We now have a review which is not a review. It is a Clayton’s review. It is a sham review. The police minister believes he knows what is wrong anyway and it is not really a review. He has got things in his bottom drawer. Where has the police minister been for the last 12 months? If the minister has got all these brilliant solutions, he could have brought them forward. We now have a new Attorney-General, a part-time Attorney-General because she is more interested in putting up big towers in my backyard and your backyard and your backyard than she is in being the first law officer of the state. Apparently these two people who voted for weakened bail laws time and time and time again and voted against stronger bail laws time and time and time again are the people who are going to be responsible for reviewing Victoria’s bail laws. The concept of Dracula and the blood bank does come to mind.

What are we actually going to get out of this review? Nothing that is going to be useful. This is purely a distraction. It is just a smokescreen, a desperate sham trying to get them through Saturday, trying to get the Premier and this Labor government through Saturday’s by-election, desperately trying to pretend that they will do something about an issue the community is deeply concerned about. But the trouble is this: Victorians are sick of being gaslit by this Labor government. They are sick of being told that their concerns do not matter, their concerns are not real – ‘We don’t have a youth crime crisis. There’s no problem with our bail laws. We’ve got all the police we need.’ We have had 43 police stations across Victoria close down or reduce their hours, including in my electorate. We do not have enough police. We have got weak bail laws, weak sentencing laws and courts that are overworked with huge backlogs, and this government’s priority is the Suburban Rail Loop. Really?

Well, the people of Werribee do not care about the Suburban Rail Loop. They care about the fact that the total amount of theft charges in the last year went up by 20.8 per cent. They care that burglary and break-and-enters went up by 41.4 per cent over the last year. The people of Prahran care that robbery charges went up 48.6 per cent over the last year, and the people of Prahran care that burglary and break-and-enter charges went up 32.4 per cent over the last year.

The people of Werribee also care that the Labor Party is preferencing a socialist who believes that our police are worth nothing. I remember when the Labor deputy premier of the day stood up and referred to protective services officers, who keep us safe, as ‘plastic police’, a term of utter, utter disrespect. And now we see the Labor Party has not changed at all, because they are preferencing their votes to somebody who believes our police are worth zero.

Respect is not what you say; it is what you do. This government has not delivered for the people of Werribee, they have not delivered for the people of Prahran and they have not delivered for the people of Victoria. Not enough police, weak bail laws, weak sentencing laws and a government that is obsessed by themselves – too much spin, not enough substance –

Michaela Settle interjected.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Eureka is warned.

Michael O’BRIEN: too much clowning around, not enough legislating, too many weak bail laws and not enough caring about Victorians. That is why I grieve for Victoria. But I am very confident that on this Saturday and in the months ahead Victorians will send Labor the message they need to hear.