Tuesday,18 March 2025

Bills

Bail Amendment (Tough Bail) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed.

These laws will be our toughest bail laws ever, uplifting many offences so that tougher bail tests will apply and bail is less likely. We will amend schedule 2 of the Bail Act so that people charged with the following high-risk offences will have a presumption against bail on their first offence unless they can show compelling reasons to justify bail. Those charges are serious firearms offences; serious arson; committing an offence involving a controlled weapon, including machete violence, a prohibited weapon or an offensive weapon, including everyday implements fashioned into or used as weapons, such as baseball bats, kitchen knives and shivs; and also offences relating to vehicle theft when co-charged with conduct endangering life, conduct endangering persons, failure to stop or possession of a prohibited or controlled weapon.

We will also elevate the following offences from schedule 2 in the Bail Act to schedule 1. This means that people charged with these offences will have a presumption against bail, even on their first offence, unless they can show the very tough exceptional circumstances to justify bail. Those offences are armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion and carjacking.

Bail rules should not be broken. The tough bail laws will restore respect for bail and its conditions at all levels of offending, with consequences for breaking the rules. The legislation will introduce the offences of committing an indictable offence while on bail and breaching a condition of bail without reasonable excuse.

A while ago I sat down with local police at Werribee police station, including those leading our dedicated youth crime taskforce, which was set up with funding from the Labor government at our police station, working in the Wyndham police service area. I have always said that I will work in government to make sure our local police have the resources and legislative powers they need to do their job. One officer brought out a de-identified list of offenders that their youth crime taskforce is managing. They shuffled through a considerable number of pages and landed on one case. This person was first arrested over five years ago and since then has committed dozens of offences while on bail. Many of these were extremely serious.

The number of youth offenders on remand has increased following changes in 2024 to target serious repeat offending, but more changes are needed. Despite what the Leader of the Opposition may tweet today, reoffending remains a serious problem and this bill goes to addressing this. Males in their mid to late teens, both adults and youths, make up most alleged aggravated burglary offenders by far, with 64 per cent being under the age of 20. These laws squarely target the risks of these younger serious offenders. Many of these offenders are on first-name terms with the youth crime taskforce at Werribee.

The current system is still not tough enough and does not reflect the expectations of victims or the public. This government will make sweeping changes, not to punish people who have not had their day in court but to reduce the risk of someone on bail reoffending in the community. We know, as does the opposition, that prevention is also important when tackling this offending. Since 2014 over $6 million has been invested in community crime prevention programs in the council area that I represent, in Wyndham, many focused on youth offending. Protections for vulnerable cohorts in our community will still exist in our bail legislation.

While those opposite will bluster about this all over social media to stoke up fear, we listened and acted. My first phone call after leaving the police station that time was to the office of the Minister for Police. It was clear we had to act quickly. The people of Werribee and indeed the people of Victoria are a practical lot. They do not want politicians who just post grainy CCTV footage or photos to make them afraid or politicians that talk about not being able to go out for dinner at night. They want politicians who work with the people in charge and get the job done.

I was shocked to read in the paper about the behaviour of some members who stormed out a few moments after a briefing on this bill. They claimed they were not properly briefed, despite later offers to reschedule. Those opposite have shown that when it comes to community safety they are all bluster and no bills. When the government put these reasonable and responsive measures out to the public last week, the Leader of the Opposition was north of the 26th parallel. The Leader of the Opposition needs to get his party shipshape. Those opposite have no right to cross the West Gate –

Danny O’Brien: On a point of order, on the question of relevance, Speaker, I ask you to bring the speaker back to the bill.

The SPEAKER: I ask the member for Werribee to come back to the bill before the house.

John LISTER: Those opposite have no right to cross the West Gate for the first time in 18 months at the by-election, come to our community in Werribee and stoke up fear and division and then not step up to pass this legislation and fix the problem.

The people of Werribee elected me to be their voice in this place. I have heard their concerns about community safety, whether that is an email, at their doorstep or meeting with them at a local cafe. When we announced these changes last week, I called a lot of the people who had contacted me and spoken to me about community safety. They were overwhelmingly in support of the changes we are proposing today.

As I mentioned at the start of my contribution, bail laws are not a set-and-forget situation. We have a responsibility to make sure our laws meet community expectations and the responsibilities of the state. On behalf of the people of Werribee, I commend this bill to the house.

Consequences are something I want to talk about, because the problem that we have had in our community in the past couple of years in particular – particularly with youth and particularly with home invasions, carjackings and the like – is that there have not been consequences. We have heard the stories. We have seen the stories in the paper. Indeed, I can inform the house of a young person in my own electorate who police tell me has been charged and bailed around 50 times, and that has been reported for other individuals in the Herald Sun. This is happening time and time again. Not only that, we actually had one individual on social media actively bragging that he could steal a car, drive it at 200 k’s an hour, cause damage and cause a threat to community safety, but that he was going to get away with it because he would just get bailed even if he did get caught. That is the issue that Victorians are raising with us. They are saying the problem is there are no consequences. No-one on this side wants us to be locking up kids. But when you have got kids, whether they are 14 or 17½, who are repeatedly causing trouble in the community and committing crimes – serious crimes like carjackings and aggravated burglary, coming into a house with a machete or a knife or a baseball bat and stealing people’s vehicles, going on joy rides and the like – that has to have some consequences. Under the changes that the government has made in the past couple of years to bail, those consequences have been removed. As the member for Malvern quite rightly said, bail should be remembered to be a privilege, not a right.

We have said in here before that we should not be locking up people for minor offences, that we should not be locking up people for a long period of time if they are charged with a crime that would not result in a long custodial sentence anyway. But we must be able to send a signal to the community, and most particularly to the crooks and the criminals and the thugs that are terrorising many of our neighbourhoods, that you cannot just keep doing this and get away with it. That is the problem.

The government removed, and is now making a big deal about reintroducing, the crime of breaching a bail condition. But it is reintroducing it as a summary offence when previously it was an indictable offence – a much higher level and one that required therefore the courts to consider a much higher threshold when it came to addressing bail. The fact that these laws in this respect do not apply to minors – what are we doing it for? As I have just said, much of the community angst and much of the worry from the community is in fact about minors. It is about the 14- to 17½-year-old kids. It is not restricted to that, by all means, but in these cases many of them are teenagers. If these new laws are not applying to minors, then that is a serious, serious concern.

Then we have had, and the member for Malvern also outlined, other failings in what is not in this legislation. That is in things like the tougher test for magistrates to consider that they must have a high degree of confidence that an offender will not reoffend. It is not actually even in this legislation. Likewise there is the fact that although this legislation is urgent, there is a default commencement date of 29 September.

We certainly will not be opposing this legislation; an improvement is better than nothing. But we still think there are issues, and we will have more to say about that in the other place, where we have the opportunity to look at amendments. We do need these tougher bail laws. Unfortunately, we are not convinced that the government will get them right. I am going to leave my contribution there to ensure that we have more time for members on this side to have a bit of debate, given that this bill is being guillotined at 5 o’clock tonight.

I also wanted to touch on the fact that the tough bail test is for serious offences and there are consequences for people who do the wrong thing and breaks the rules. We have listened to the community, and we are meeting them where they are at. They are concerned with those who thumb their nose at the courts and thumb their nose at Victoria Police and the community, who feel that that there are no consequences for repeat offending or feel that they can ignore them or they can continue to commit offences that drive more victims in our community. Every victim is one victim too many, and as the Minister for Victims I also wanted to touch on the fact that these reforms go a long way to responding to the concerns of victims in our community.

This bill is putting community safety as the paramount consideration for bail decisions and removing the principle of remand as a last resort. Remand as a last resort is being used as a get-out-of-jail-free card, and we are putting an end to that potentially happening in the future. Too often our courts have taken the view that custody as a last resort allows offenders to continue to be released into the community where there has been continued reoffending. I should also touch on the fact that what we have seen is the unique-offender rate here in Victoria has remained relatively stable over many years now – that is the unique-offender rate – yet our offence rate continues to climb. What that is telling us very clearly is that our stable number of unique offenders is committing more offences. That comes back to the consequences around bail needing to be effective to hold to account those who think there are no consequences for their repeated offences and actions in the community that do put harm on people and generate more victims in our community.

We are ensuring there is a respect for the rules with these new bail offences and ensuring that the worst of crimes have a tougher bail test to make it harder for alleged offenders. I think the key point to make there is that under the bill the following indictable offences will face a tougher bail test with no presumption of bail: serious firearms offences; serious arson; knife and other weapons and car theft related offences. Further to that, we are making sure that the following offences will now always be subject to the toughest bail test available on the first offence: armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion and carjacking. This is really critical to make sure that the toughest bail test that is available applies on the first offence on those occasions for those offences.

What is also important is bringing theft-related offences of a motor vehicle together with being co-charged with conduct endangering life, conduct endangering persons or failure to stop – that is, failure to stop for police. This is about bringing together the crimes that we are seeing around aggravated burglary often due to the theft of a motor vehicle or in the process of getting that commodity of the motor vehicle. If we can relate the high harm that occurs through the theft of a motor vehicle, the offences that occur and their relationship with aggravated burglary, we are wrapping up together the key crimes that we are seeing in the community that are driving harm, risk and victims of crime in the community. The car-related conduct offences here in schedule 2 that we are linking to those high-harm, toughest bail test offences in schedule 1 is a response to Victoria Police’s evidence and lived experience and the data that shows that these offences are connected and they cause serious harm in the community and put the community at risk. We have seen that through that high-risk driving behaviour. This is about holding to account those who want to commit offences in a vehicle that they have stolen. We do not make any apologies for that, and it is really critical work to make those links in the legislation before the house.

We have seen something like 70,000 arrests in the past 12 months by Victoria Police – that is a record number – and some 190,000 charges laid by police. Police are working harder than ever before. They are making more arrests than ever before. They are laying more charges than ever before. But we also need to see that that is being acknowledged on behalf of the community by bail decision-makers, holding to account those who continue to thumb their nose at law enforcement and at the community more broadly.

I also want to take the opportunity to touch on a couple of other elements in the bill. It was clear on committing serious offences and committing further offences while on bail that we need to hold people to account. Victoria Police have been clear in their advice to the government that we need a circuit breaker, and that is exactly what we are delivering. There are the high-harm crimes, aggravated burglaries, and we have seen this in the work of Victoria Police. We have sought very carefully in some of the considerations that we have made to make sure that we are able to hold those offenders to account in the schedule 1 offences that we have uplifted and added here in this bill. What we also want to make sure that we are doing is cracking down on that high-harm offending immediately by subjecting it to a tougher bail test – really, the capacity for those repeat offenders particularly to not be able to get bail, subject to the determinations of our bail decision-makers. That work is really important, but there is also the high volume of low-level offending, which includes indictable offences. It has victims and it causes harm, and there need to be consequences, and we are looking around the compelling reasons test at how we elevate the broad number of indictable offences and committing an indictable offence while on bail. I have listed that here in the bail bill to have consequences, and we will do some further work in the second tranche of our work to come before the Parliament on how we can also show some discretion around some of those offences, those indictable offences, so that we do not have damage around vulnerable communities but still hold people to account for the consequences of continuing to offend. It has to have consequences in the community.

Can I say also that we have invested some $100 million to support 940 community crime prevention programs and initiatives and $13 million in funding for our youth crime prevention program. An evaluation of that youth crime prevention program saw a 29 per cent reduction in offending and a significant reduction in the severity of offending. We are continuing to invest in our youth cautioning programs. In particular, the Aboriginal youth cautioning program has been very successful. Our landmark Youth Justice Act 2024 ensures we are providing services to young people on remand to get the education and other services – the health services – that they need. That is work that we did in 2024. The safeguards that we put through this Parliament in 2023 for First Nations people, for vulnerable cohorts in the community, remain. The Aboriginal sentencing principles that were outlined in legislation last year in the Youth Justice Act remain. These are very important and critical elements, and we need to make sure we learn from mistakes that have been made in the past, but we also need to have a balance – a balance that is not a free-for-all because we fear damage in the community to those who offend, we also need to be able to assess and support the damage that is done to victims in our community. Finding that balance is always a struggle, but it is a balance that we are committed to finding, and I do believe that the reforms in this bail bill, the tougher bail bill, will do that.

We will bring further reforms into the Parliament in the coming months – a determination from the Parliament and from the government to meet the community where they are at, to support the community and to demonstrate to bail decision-makers and the courts in particular that the will of the people, given that expression in the Parliament through laws, needs to be addressed by those bail decision-makers. As the Police Association said in their statement on 12 March:

We hope now that these reforms pass parliament quickly and complement the work our members do in catching offenders and taking them off the streets in the first instance.

The onus will soon be back on the courts to act in the interests and preservation of community safety, and not in defiance to it.

Also:

… these changes will make a difference, one that will swing the pendulum back in the favour of good, innocent people and families who deserve protection and the right to safety in their homes, their cars and on their streets.

It will give value, greater value, to the work of Victoria Police members 24/7, who are making more arrests than ever before, with more charges for offences than ever before.

Can I say also, as I conclude on these matters, that there has been support here from Victoria Police and the acting chief commissioner, who said the bail overhaul, he was confident, would ‘break the culture of hardcore youth offending’.

Repeat offenders are not out of the justice system when they continue to offend and reoffend. I also note some comments from advocates and the commissioner for young people, who said that Victorians deserve to feel safe. Well, I go much further than that: not only do Victorians deserve to feel safe, they need to be safe. These bail laws and reforms will go a very long way to making sure Victorians are safe.

We know that these bail laws do not go anywhere near far enough to tightening the legislation, the laws that the courts have to enact to give the police the powers that they need to actually keep people safe in their homes. If it had not been for community pressure or 100,000 signatures on a Fox FM petition through that radio station, would we even be here today debating this legislation? Is the Premier only doing this because she is all of a sudden under pressure in her job and the polls are starting to fall the wrong way, so she is doing things with this legislation?

We know that the Shadow Attorney-General, the member for Malvern, on multiple occasions has tried to introduce legislation into this place to tighten Victoria’s bail laws after the weakening of them by this government. Not only did the Labor government here in Victoria not even look at what the Shadow Attorney-General was proposing, they would not allow him to introduce that bill to even have a look or to debate it. Three times they stifled that bill from being introduced into this place. They could in the last year have made some of these changes, and more, that would have actually meant that the 1500 offences we see every day here in Victoria at the moment would have been reduced. We would not have seen some of the home invasions and the terrible footage that we have seen on CCTV cameras from people’s homes. We would not have mothers and kids fearful in their homes that someone is going to break in, as the Leader of the Nationals and the member for Malvern have said, with machetes, with baseball bats, with other weapons, coming in at night and stealing people’s cars. These laws will come in in not anywhere near enough time to be able to keep Victorians safe today. For every day that these laws take to come into effect, another 1500 offences will be committed – today, tomorrow, the next day, the day after that, right through till some of this legislation comes in.

This bill does not go far enough. It does not impose a presumption against bail for repeat offenders with a history of multiple bail breaches. As I said, it reintroduces an offence for committing an indictment offence while on bail but does not mandate automatic remand for repeat offenders. We are getting back to some of the issues, some of the positions that we were in 12 months ago, but it does not go anywhere near far enough. I agree with the member for Malvern when he says that bail is a privilege and not a right, because if you commit a crime it does not mean that within hours of going to court and seeing a magistrate you should be back on the street. There needs to be proper tests and people must be held for some of these serious crimes. What we have seen in this state over the last 12 months has been sad. It has been sad to see people’s homes being broken into. I heard the Minister for Police say that people should not feel safe, they should be safe. I agree with the minister on that, but why has it taken 12 months for that to happen? This government has been in power for 10 years. You cannot trust the people that made the mess to be the ones to fix it.

I know there are a lot of people on this side and the other side who want to speak. Many people in the government want to finally speak about crime when they have been silent on it for the last 12 months. It is convenient now they want to be tough on crime and see it as an issue. For a long time members of the opposition side have spoken about crime right across the state and members on that side have said that it is not happening, that we are making it up, we are embellishing the truth – whatever they want to say. Well, all of a sudden we will see how many members on that side actually get up to say that this government is strengthening something about which there is a problem. They are going to finally admit they have done something wrong. But what this state really needs is not a change of laws that do not go far enough. It needs a change of government. It needs a government that will always be strong on crime and always puts Victorians’ safety first.

I recall before the end of last year speaking to a constituent of mine who lives in Truganina with his family; it was a really difficult phone call. He was a victim of a terrible, terrible aggravated burglary where there were two individuals who broke into his home and threatened his family with machetes to steal his car. I recall this incident ended up being reported on Channel 9, and sadly I acknowledge that this incident is not one that is isolated in my local community. Youth crime is very real, and I do not shy away from talking about it with my community. We know that it is at the highest level we have seen since 2009 for offenders between – really sadly – the ages of 14 and 17 years. As of September last year there was 133 offenders under the age of 18 years who had more than 25 alleged offender incidents recorded against them. Sixty-four per cent of aggravated burglary offenders are currently under the age of 20. Those stats are pretty awful. They are not ones that anyone in this house should feel proud to stand up and repeat. It is these criminal incidents – repeat burglaries, home invasions and carjackings – that we are targeting with these bail reforms.

I want to be very clear: we do not want to go back to a system where people are left languishing on bail for months for minor offences like shoplifting. We do not want to see a situation like what happened to Veronica Nelson, who died whilst in remand for a simple case of shoplifting. We do not want to see vulnerable communities, including CALD and Indigenous communities, reprimanded for minor offences, and we will not be drawn into warped ideas about locking up people for being poor. Non-scheduled offences will continue to have a presumption in favour of bail being granted, and the framework for magistrates to consider a person’s Indigenous heritage will remain in place. I reiterate that it is our government’s focus to prevent crime before it happens by diverting potential offenders away from the justice system in the first place; that is so important and is work that we will continue to do. We should not forget that a lot of these youth offenders come from vulnerable backgrounds. These are conversations I have in my community; we know they come from vulnerable backgrounds. They are usually the victims of or witnesses to family violence. Their families may experience homelessness or housing stress. There is substance abuse. There are all kinds of factors that we know contribute to criminal behaviour at any age.

These are things that we have known for a very, very long time. That is why crime prevention programs and youth diversion programs – like the great ones run by Junubi Wyndham and Le Mana Pasifika, for example – are so important in engaging vulnerable young people from African and Islander backgrounds in my local community, because as much as we talk about these criminal incidents, for every repeat youth offender there are two or three more that have been diverted away and do not commit crimes in the first place. This is something that this place should acknowledge but those opposite continue to ignore and never, ever stand and speak about the incredible work that those people are doing in their communities and here in Victoria. It is absolutely critical that we continue to support and invest in these kinds of programs, because we know that they work.

That being said, it is clear that there is more to do and a line has to be drawn for those serious offenders whom these programs have not reached, have not worked for or are never going to work for. It is these criminal acts that we are looking at with this bill. It is breaking into homes and terrorising parents and their children. They scar families for life and they take away a sense of safety, and for some they never actually ever recover from the trauma.

These laws are intended to strike hard at this behaviour. The bill will do exactly this by making the following changes. It is going to raise a number of offences from schedule 2 to schedule 1 offences under the Bail Act 1977, including armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion and carjacking. This is also going to mean that these acts are considered some of the most serious criminal offences when it comes to bail, and they will have a presumption against bail being granted by a magistrate unless the accused can show very tough exceptional circumstances to justify bail being granted. The bill is also going to amend the bail test for schedule 2 offences, which includes serious firearm offences; serious arson; committing an offence with a controlled weapon, like a machete; or indeed theft of a vehicle. These changes will mean that when a person is charged with these kinds of offences they will have a presumption against bail being granted on their first offence unless they can show compelling reasons to justify bail being granted.

These changes reflect the serious nature of these offences and the community’s expectation that committing these crimes is unacceptable in any circumstance. The bill will bring back the offences of committing an indictable offence while on bail and breaching a bail condition without reasonable excuse. These offences are going to have a maximum penalty of up to three months imprisonment or 30 penalty units, which means just roughly under $6000. These are for indictable offences, many of which carry a sentence of imprisonment, so these offences will recognise, punish and, importantly, deter a person who is currently on bail from knowingly committing a further offence while awaiting trial.

Finally, these new laws will make a big change to the decision-making principles to reduce the risk of reoffending and ensure that the bail system meets the expectations of our community. This bill will enshrine community safety as the overarching principle for all bail decisions. It is meant to be a clear and an unambiguous signal that community safety comes first. When considering whether a person is granted bail, we must consider whether they are likely to continue to pose a risk to the safety of the community – in other words, are they likely to reoffend again?

In addition to this, the bill will also remove the principle of remand as a last resort. Under the current legislation an accused youth offender is remanded only as a last resort. For offences like the ones we are talking about here today this will no longer be the case. How the system will work now is if a young person is accused of a schedule 1 or 2 offence, the bail magistrate – I note that we recently appointed a new magistrate precisely to deal with youth offenders – will consider not only the safety of the community in making decisions on bail but, most importantly, whether the person is likely to go ahead and reoffend again and risk that safety.

This bill is the first step forward in ensuring that Victoria has one of the toughest bail laws in the country when it comes to serious offences. Communities like mine in Melbourne’s west want to see that community safety is front and centre of our bail laws, and that is exactly what this bail bill is doing. We are cracking down on serial youth offenders who engage in serious crimes like carjackings, home invasions, aggravated burglaries and armed robberies, which leave families absolutely traumatised and scarred from these incidents. But we have drawn a line in the sand, and it is now very, very clear: if you are someone who commits these kinds of offences and thinks you can keep doing it again and again, you can think again, because more likely than not under the new system there will be a presumption of bail against you and you will likely be remanded.

While our government continues to do the great work before us to ensure that crimes are not committed in the first place and make sure that our community not only are safe in practice but feel safe in their homes and in our communities, we are getting on and putting through the legislation that will indeed not only make our communities safer but make people feel safe in their own home in their own neighbourhoods. This is an incredibly important bill. I commend the ministers who have been involved in this power of work. This has not been an easy thing to do. I do commend the ministers, and I wholeheartedly commend the bill to the house.

I really had to laugh when I looked at the press release that was put out by the Premier earlier this morning which said:

MPs are … gearing up for a long week ahead, because the Premier will not allow them to go home until the bill is passed.

On this side of the house we have 14 members who want to speak on the bill, and there are only a handful on the other side, which I have noticed. If it is going to be guillotined at 5 o’clock, which is truncating debate, we do not all have an opportunity, which is why we are going to speak for a shorter amount of time to let everybody have a say.

There are a number of irregularities with the bill that has been brought today with haste and with urgency. It was sent through after 6 o’clock last night. We would have had a bill briefing yesterday. Who has a bill briefing without actually seeing the bill? Nobody. We wanted to see that. The Shadow Attorney-General was advised that it would be made available to him by 3. Gee, that was pushing it for a 3:30 bill briefing, but by 10 and 20 past 3 it had not happened. The part-time Attorney-General wanted to progress it anyway. We wanted to see what was in the bill, and I wondered why it was so secret. The government seemed very disorganised. It is a bill made on the run.

One of the things that I started with was about having ‘Tough Bail’ in the title of the bill, which is extraordinary because it is not referred to anywhere in the bill itself. This is putting politics in the title because the Premier is pretty desperate to re-establish herself as somebody who is listening to the community. Let me tell you, they are not listening. They have not listened, certainly, to the family of Ash Gordon, who have been desperate to get to the ear of the Premier. She is certainly not listening to them.

As I have said, we have all been truncated here because we have got so much to talk about. Community safety is exceptionally important, and it is exceptionally important for all of us because we go about doing our business as individuals within the community, as do our family and friends and all of our constituents. They want to know, people want to know, that they can go about their business without fear, that they can walk down the street and know that they are not going to be harassed, that they can park their car in the street and know that someone’s not going to try and steal it by breaking into their home to get keys. We need to have stronger bail laws because we know people have been flouting them, knowing that a slap on the wrist with wet lettuce does not help at all. People say, ‘I keep doing it because I get away with it.’

Now the government has kind of started to realise community safety is important. I did have a bit of a chuckle when the member for Werribee was talking, because community safety, he said, did not register as one of the big issues for him, but apparently it does now because when we were campaigning there we heard that consistently. People are talking about how important crime prevention is. I could not agree more. I think those opposite are really living in a world of delusions, because last year in the budget – you can check this out pretty easily by going to the budget papers – the crime prevention budget was slashed. At least $20 million was cut. These were crime prevention programs, community-based offender supervision and youth diversionary programs. These have been slashed. We have known that bail is a problem, and on three occasions Labor have voted our private members bills down: 12 months ago on 20 February 2024, on 1 August 2024 and again this year on 6 February 2025. We know that there are serious problems with bail. The bill does not go far enough to address it, and in fact some of the urgent measures are not even going to be introduced until September, and then we believe there is a second tranche, another bill coming on sometime in the middle of the year, because the government were doing this on the run. It is not good enough. More needs to be done. This side of the house is certainly wanting to see more done.

I believe strongly that bail is a privilege and not a right, and that is what this government believes. I also think the role of government is to continue to listen to their community, to listen to people in their respective electorates, and that is exactly what we have done here. This legislation is a reflection of community standards and community expectations when it comes to the current settings as they relate to bail in this state.

Can I just also acknowledge the member for Werribee, who spoke previously. He ran a fantastic campaign and was out there and spoke to thousands and thousands of people. I think that from people in this place who would know what the issues are, the member for Werribee articulated his community’s concerns and the needs for this reform well, so I want to acknowledge the member for Werribee.

Can I also just make a couple of corrections. There are some suggesting that breaching a bail condition used to be an indictable offence. To be an indictable offence it has to have an imprisonment term of more than two years in the state of Victoria. The bail offence has always previously been three months, certainly in previous iterations, and that is exactly what it will be again. You will also be able to be remanded on that particular offence if the case calls for it. There has been some discussion around who the bail condition is applicable to – the breach, the contravention – without a reasonable excuse. I note as well that in the other place last year when an amendment was put forward to an act of Parliament the very same exemption for children applied as it applied in previous iterations of the legislation.

It would appear that some want to talk about politics. I do not like – in fact I really do not like – politicising crime and safety et cetera. I think it is really important that nuance and context and facts are part of this debate and are part of this legislation, so it is very important that we stick to the facts. It would appear that others who want to accuse others of politicisation then go on to talk for the next 7 minutes completely, entirely and only about politics. We have heard a lot of ‘These laws don’t go far enough, they’re not tough enough’, and I wait and I wait and I wait for them to explain. They have been given the opportunity here. They have the opportunity to explain why and how that is the case.

I used to be a police officer. I was on the frontline for five years. Before I joined this place I was also a police prosecutor. I can tell you now, when the government talks about these being the toughest bail laws in the country, that is absolutely correct and it is entirely appropriate. We are making significant changes to the Bail Act 1977. We are highlighting that community safety and protecting victims of crime is a priority in all bail decisions. We are removing the bail consideration that a child should be remanded as a last resort. We will introduce two new bail offences: committing an indictable offence while on bail and contravening conduct condition. We will expand schedule 1 and schedule 2 of the Bail Act to elevate offences into tougher bail tests, and we will streamline processes to enable police to bring an accused on bail directly to court when the accused has been arrested for breach or likely breach of bail.

This is the first tranche of reforms that we will see in Victoria, where we will have the toughest bail laws in Australia, and as discussed, it will put community safety above all else in every decision on bail to toughen the bail tests for serious offences and ensure there absolutely are those consequences for breaking the rules when on bail.

We know that there will be a further bail bill which will be introduced in the middle of the year. Importantly as well, we have seen discussed that this will target repeat offenders of the worst crimes. The government will create a new bail test that is extremely hard to pass. Under the new test, bail cannot be granted to someone who is accused of committing a serious offence if they are already on bail for a similar serious offence unless there is a high degree of probability they will not reoffend. This test will apply to offences including murder and aggravated charges of home invasion, burglary and carjacking. That similar test introduced into New South Wales recently saw the number of people granted bail more than halve. Victoria’s test in these circumstances will go further. It will apply to all ages and it will apply to more offences.

In that very same bill that will also be introduced into Parliament it will uplift the new offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail to a tougher bail test, therefore establishing that if you are going to commit two indictable offences whilst on bail, there will be a reverse onus bail test on you and you will have to demonstrate to the court or the relevant bail decision-maker that compelling reasons exist in your circumstance for you to be granted bail, because again bail is a privilege and not a right, and that will be at the very heart. By reintroducing a contravening conduct condition we are also making that a very important part of the narrative of unacceptable risk and a reason why police, our law enforcement, can revoke an individual’s bail. There will be specific consequences in terms of breaching that offence as well.

We know that the first package of reforms will deliver on that commitment to act with urgency, putting community safety at its heart and as of course the top priority of this reform. We will see as well the following offences moved into schedule 1, which is the exceptional circumstances test. Of course that is the highest test currently in the Bail Act. Soon there will be the high degree of probability in that further tranche in the middle of the year. There will be armed robbery in the exceptional circumstances test, aggravated burglary, home invasion and carjacking, which will sit alongside the offences of treason and murder in schedule 1 exceptional circumstances. Also, there will be the reverse onus bail test of compelling reasons where the accused must prove those compelling reasons to be granted bail. We will move using a firearm to resist arrest into the compelling reasons test. We will also move an offence under the Crimes Act 1958 in circumstances where the offence is committed in relation to a motor vehicle, and there are a range of different acts in connection with that offending. Also, regarding the offence of theft in circumstances where it is in regard to theft of a motor vehicle and in conjunction with Control of Weapons Act 1990 offences, there is theft of a firearm as well as a range of other offences.

This is absolutely a very tough bail bill, moving a number of offences into an extremely hard test for bail – into exceptional circumstances – moving offences now that only exist in terms of revoking bail where the onus is on the prosecution in proving unacceptable risk. Now that will be moved into the onus being on the accused – into the onus of it being on them to prove why they should get bail. These are very, very tough bail laws, and we are putting offences in that do not currently exist to obviously change the onus of who has to prove unacceptable risk plus uplifting those really shocking, disturbing offences into the highest bail test of exceptional circumstances.

As well, this is very important legislation. Remand can be seen as a circuit breaker for people to get the support and help they need but also a circuit breaker when it comes to the importance of community safety. What I am really disappointed about is that this legislation is so critically important from speaking to my colleagues, from speaking to my community, and I think the last thing the community would want to hear is a lack of detail, no nuance, no context and, instead of listening to a briefing, running out and running this boycott session so you can try and get a line into the media. The community would fully expect you to listen and to understand the changes to bail. What I would ask those opposite to do is to actually dig in, put some effort in, understand what these changes actually mean and use some facts – stick to facts – and I implore them to vote for this bill. This will create the toughest bail laws in the country, and I commend the bill to the house.

Last week there was a period of time when the Premier stood up in front of a press conference and said, ‘Enough is enough. We need tougher bail laws to stop what’s going on on the streets and to protect our community.’ We all thought, ‘Well, it’s about time. Here we go.’ But in her next breath she let herself down when she said that she needs to act with urgency after she had been listening to Victorians. Well, Premier, you have had 430 days to sit down and talk with the Gordon family. For 430 days we have requested numerous meetings, but you are yet to listen to them so you get these bail laws right. It is okay to listen to people that have been troubled by home invasions and had their car stolen, but sit down and talk to someone that has lost a son. That is what counts. That is what leadership is. That is what we do here in this chamber: make a difference. Make us safe. I brought the Gordons in as I tabled the petition, and I sat them down here. Premier, what did you do? You turned your back on them. You did not even look them in the eye.

Steve Dimopoulos: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, the member impugning the Premier is completely false. She did not turn her back on anyone. That is a gross misrepresentation. In the context of the tragedy that befell that family, for the member now to be politicising it is really appalling.

James Newbury interjected.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Meng Heang Tak): Member for Brighton, can I just listen to the point of order? There is no point of order, but I ask the member to come to the bill.

Martin CAMERON: Listen to other members of the community. The family of Harry Wright, a 91-year-old man from Morwell who died in his home, has requested a meeting with the Premier, but as yet there has been no correspondence. I urge and call on the Premier to please sit down and talk with these families. We need to look after them. In my electorate of Morwell, we have the highest rate of criminal incidents outside Melbourne. The CBD is no longer safe to walk around, because we have people that are out on bail, on numerous bails, wandering the streets. We need to make sure that we take our streets back. Our police are crying out for tougher, stronger laws that they can invoke to protect us. I have elderly people who, if they hear a knock on the door, are now cowering in their lounge rooms thinking, ‘Is that someone who is going to bust through and have an aggravated burglary against me?’ We need to make sure that these bail laws are right now, not in six months time, not in 12 months time. We need to make sure that we are doing the job now.

I sat through the bill briefing. Although we are talking about tougher bail laws, they are not going far enough. Are they going to make a difference? I think people out in the community do not know, because like us they have not seen the bail laws until they have been put into the chamber today. Yes, it will toughen them up from what they are right now, but it does not go far enough. We need responsible action because it is a big issue. We need to make sure that we are doing the right thing by the Gordon family, by the Wright family and by every citizen that walks the streets of Victoria. Premier, please sit down and talk to them. Come for a walk with me. I will not politicise it. Just come and sit down and talk to them by yourself. No-one else needs to know.

We are not opposing the bail laws that are going through today, because they will actually make them tougher than what we have now. But, by goodness, every single one of us in this chamber, from the Premier down, needs to make sure that we do more. And we need to do it now.

I also want to thank the police in my community, who are working tirelessly, as well as many other agencies, to keep my community safe. As the Minister for Police said in his contribution, the police are making more arrests than ever before. They have been given more resources by this government than ever before. But there has been an issue whereby magistrates and others in the court system have not implemented bail laws in the way that has been intended. It is very important, therefore, that we make these reforms to the Bail Act 1977 to ensure that community safety comes first.

It is important to have wraparound services that additionally seek to be tough on the causes of crime. I worked as a teacher, as I know a number of people in this house did, and one of the most rewarding dimensions of that work was working with young people who did not necessarily have positive adult role models in other dimensions of their life and who were at risk of being swayed, being pushed into habits which were really destructive to them and the community around them. Working through schools and also as a coach and as a committee member of lots of community sports clubs along the way, I saw how those forums of community – schools, sporting clubs and, in my own community now in Greenvale, churches, mosques, youth groups – build social capital, they build connections, they enable young people to be exposed to positive adult role models that they may not have in other dimensions of their life, and it keeps them out of the systems that we do not want them to be in. As the Leader of the Nationals said, we do not want to be locking up young people. It is not the starting proposition of this place or of a civilised society. However, ultimately those who commit crimes and inflict misery on communities as older teenagers, as adults, they do have agency. We accept that young children are not fully able to comprehend the consequences or the impact of their actions, and that is fully reflected in very ancient legal principles – doli incapax, which we have already talked about in recent debates in this place. At a certain point, however, individuals are responsible for their actions and the impact they have upon the communities around them. Ultimately it is residents in my community whose homes have been invaded or whose cars have been stolen, the law-abiding business owners and the retail workers who are threatened and/or whose livelihoods are taken away and the community members whose lives are threatened or even tragically taken – they are the real victims of crime and they are the people who we need to be representing and advocating for today. That is why this bill, the first tranche of reforms at least which will see Victoria adopting the toughest bail laws in Australia, is so important.

I acknowledge the comments of the Shadow Attorney-General, and I have listened to the contributions of others on that side, and the substantive opposition with the bill seems to be with nomenclature rather than the policy dimensions, and so I am awaiting where these additional ideas are coming from. We have had a lot of challenge and exception to the title, but where are these measures which they believe would be additional to the bill which will already bring in the toughest bail laws in the country? I look forward to hearing those, but I have not so far.

Contrary to the Shadow Attorney-General’s suggestion, this bill is all about addressing repeat offenders who breach bail, who break bail. We are making it an offence to commit an offence on bail and an offence to breach a bail condition. The bill more broadly, as I have said, will better protect the community from repeat and serious offending by introducing the toughest bail laws in the country. The current system, in particular in relation to high-harm, repeat and serious offending, has not been tough enough and does not adequately protect victims, families or the community I represent, nor the expectations of the community that I represent and the victims who are subject to crime. We must place community safety first, and in doing so we are removing the principle of remand as a last resort to prioritise community safety.

I want to thank, as I said, the Minister for Police and the Attorney-General, but I also want to thank the Minister for Corrections and Minister for Youth Justice for his commitment to ensuring that we have the capacity and the wraparound supports that we need to rehabilitate and to support young people and others who are convicted of crime or who find themselves on remand. I do note, as the member for Laverton said in her contribution, that remand is not a punishment in itself. It is a tool that is there to keep the community safe until that person has the opportunity to go before the courts and to be tried by a jury of their peers or by the appropriate judge for the action, the crime, of which they are accused. But that principle of community safety has to be the core of the bail system and the system of remand, so it is important that we have capacity in our remand system for the increased number of people on remand that we will expect to see as a result of these changes. But as I say, I make no apology for that. Community safety must come first on all bail decisions, and remand is no longer a last resort. These laws will remove that principle of bail as a last resort, because it has been I think improperly applied in some instances, without wishing to impugn any member of the judiciary. The use of that provision has not been in keeping with community expectation, and that has I think a very corrosive effect on the trust that the public have in the legal system more broadly. That is a real concern, so it is important that we get that right.

I want to thank people like the member for Bayswater, who brings a really expert perspective to debates like this, having been a police officer serving our community and also acted as a police prosecutor. As he mentioned in his contribution, we are amending schedule 2 of the Bail Act so that people charged with a number of very high risk offences will have a presumption against bail on their first offence, unless they can show compelling reasons to justify bail. That includes serious firearm offences; serious arson; committing an offence involving a controlled weapon, including machete violence, prohibited weapon or offensive weapon; and vehicle theft when co-charged with conduct endangering life, conduct endangering persons, failure to stop or possession of a prohibited weapon or controlled weapon. There must also be consequences for the breach of bail. As I have said, bail rules should not be broken. There must be consequences for breaking the rules, and this bill, the amendment of the Bail Act 1977, will introduce the offence of committing an indictable offence while on bail and breaching a condition of bail without reasonable excuse.

In making my contribution on this bill I am mindful of a particular case. While seeking to avoid any commentary that could possibly be construed as sub judice, there is a specific case that I am very mindful of when making my contribution. Having spoken at length and listened to the loved ones of a young man called Will Taylor, who lost his life last year, I am extremely cognisant of their pain at his tragic loss and the treatment of the young person accused of having caused his death in its aftermath. I will not talk about the specifics – I think I need to avoid any comment that is sub judice – but as I have just indicated, schedule 2 of the Bail Act will be reformed to ensure that people charged with offences in that category must satisfy a bail decision maker that a compelling reason exists to justify the granting of bail. It is unacceptable that there are offenders out on bail stealing cars and using them to endanger the public. It is unacceptable, and it will stop as a consequence of this bill. Additions to schedule 2 will also ensure that people who are charged with that theft of the motor vehicle – with the provisions that I mentioned earlier – will need to show a compelling reason to justify their release on bail.

In concluding my remarks, I believe that these changes will make Victoria and Victorians safer, including the constituents I represent, who I have listened to, who I have spoken with and whose positions, including that of my own, I have advocated to the Minister for Police and the Attorney-General. I commend this bill to the house. I hope that those opposite will enable it to have a swift passage.

I think the reason why the government hid this particular bill is because this bill will not fix the crime crisis, because this bill does not deal with some of the core things that need changing. Some of the core changes to law are not dealt with in this bill. The new bail test for serious repeat offenders is not included in this bill. The uplift on the new offence of committing an indictable offence while on bail is not included in this bill. If you are not fixing the problem around the bailing of repeat offenders, how can you possibly address the youth crime crisis?

That is what the community has been calling for. The police minister himself only an hour ago stood up in his place and said, ‘We know that the same people are committing the offences over and over again,’ yet this bill does not do anything about them. The community is crying – screaming – for action, yet two of the core things to address the problems that we face are not being dealt with in this bill. That is why this government have hidden the bill from the Parliament and from the community, because they thought, ‘Let’s hoodwink everybody and get away with it by calling it the ‘Tough bail’ bill.’ Well, the proof will be that crimes will continue.

Over the last two weeks we have seen the Premier use, frankly, different words and try to strongly brand her message: ‘I was wrong. We’re going to do something about it. We’re going to get tough. We’re going to fix working families.’ And I thought to myself that her entire strategy has changed. The government has always been about politics, but the strategy around how the Premier has been delivering the message has changed. Then I learned of course that Brendan Donohoe is back in her office full time, and I thought to myself, ‘Oh, is that what I’m seeing in the strategy?’ because I am definitely seeing a lot more of Dan in the strategy of the messaging from the Premier – and no action. The Premier sacked her chief of staff and brought in chief spin That is what the messaging of the Premier is: spin.

Nina Taylor: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, I fail to see the relevance of what is being discussed now to the bill in front of us, and I suggest that the member return to the bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Meng Heang Tak): There has been a wide range of debate, but I ask the member to come back.

James NEWBURY: The government has been caught out not fixing the core issues needed to be fixed to fix the youth crime crisis in Victoria. Not only does it not include the two offences that at some stage supposedly the government will address; this bill does not commence for 195 days. This bill is so urgent it is not going to commence for 195 days. So I would say to Victorians: remember that this government do not want to do anything for 195 days, and they also do not want to do anything about serious repeat offenders. So do not listen to Brendan Donohoe’s spin. It is spin. At the end of the day there is a crime crisis in Victoria, and this government is not fixing it.

I should say, as a caveat, we do expect to see the number of people on remand increase as a result of these changes. However, the system has capacity, and we will ensure it is resourced. So when we are talking about what the ramifications of these reforms are, rest assured that these important elements have been factored in to the reforms. I should say the second tough bail bill will be introduced in the middle of the year, so there is absolute clarity, and we are being very up-front about the particular reforms that we are bringing before the chamber.

I will say, just as a small tangent, that these reforms are not in a vacuum. Everyone in the chamber would be well aware of the huge youth justice reforms that were brought about by our government last year with a significant focus on diverting youths from a life of crime. It brings nobody any joy to see any crime of course but to see youth offenders make choices which are certainly a net negative for them but of course a serious risk to the community.

I should say that the first package will deliver on our commitment to acting with urgency, because I am getting some confusing commentary from the opposition. On the one hand they are saying we are rushing with the reforms and on the other hand they are saying, ‘You need to have brought these through yesterday.’ So that is a bit of confusing rhetoric by the opposition. But make no mistake, we are delivering on our commitment to acting with urgency to ensure our system responds to the risks posed by repeat offending and very importantly reflects the expectations of Victorians.

So what does this mean? What are the reforms delivering? The first package of reforms includes putting community safety, as I said from the outset, as the paramount consideration in bail decisions and removing the principle of remand as a last resort – and when we are talking about the turnstile, the serious repetitious offending, this is exactly the kind of completely unacceptable behaviour that we are targeting with this legislative reform; ensuring respect for the rules with new bail offences; and elevating the worst of crimes to a tougher bail test to make it harder for alleged offenders to get bail. That is the fundamental premise of the reforms that we are delivering here. If we work from the premise that with these reforms community safety comes first on all bail decisions – under the laws community safety will become the overarching principle for bail decision-making for offenders of all ages – it will be a clear and unambiguous signal: community safety comes first in all considerations. You will see that I have repeated this point, but that is fundamentally what counts, because overwhelmingly – and it has been said in this chamber – on the one hand community needs to feel safe but of course they need to be safe as well. That is certainly the focus for our government – the unequivocal focus for our government.

Remand, as I was saying before, is no longer a last resort. Right now, under section 3B of the Bail Act 1977 an accused youth offender is remanded, detained in custody, only as a last resort. The tough bail laws will remove the principle of remand as a last resort. So again, the opposition trivialising this fundamental shift I find perplexing, and I do not think it is helpful for the broader community to be smearing what is an essential element of the reforms that we are delivering. If we think about some of the serious offences that we are talking about, there are things like armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion and carjacking. And I am thinking, without giving too many details, of a particular victim and her daughter who were the subject of a home invasion, and whilst they survived that experience, they still have to live with the PTSD. Every night there is just that little fear in the back of their heads, and who knows if they will ever fully recover from that. That is a completely unacceptable outcome that they do not deserve – and of course there are other stories in the community that have been shared. No-one is resiling from the seriousness of those outcomes, because there can be deep psychological scars from having been witness to any of these kinds of serious and completely unacceptable experiences.

Also I have heard many stories shared of retail workers – I think this was mentioned earlier – being specifically targeted with aggression, with weapons et cetera. Again, this is completely unacceptable. A person going to work should be able to feel safe in their workplace and should not have to contend with that kind of serious and unacceptable behaviour.

A further point I do want to mention is that bail rules should not be broken. I did have a contrary reflection from somebody who was working in defending alleged offenders, can I say, suggesting that it was acceptable to commit offences whilst on bail. I have to proffer the exact contrary of that contention, because fundamentally part of bail is making sure that we secure a person to attend in court, but the other premise is that you respect the conditions under which that bail has been granted, bearing in mind of course you are innocent until proven guilty. But where there is the allegation of an offence, there is nothing to be gained from in any way enhancing or adding to whatever the particular charge or the purpose for arrest has been. That will do no-one any good.

The fact of the matter is, when we are thinking about some of the serious offences that I have already mentioned, we know that the reasoning behind the decision to engage in an armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion or carjacking, just as some examples, suggests a void of reasoning, and the probability of things going horribly wrong is – I would suggest, and I say this quite generously – extremely high. It is an uncontrolled situation and it is, I would proffer, an unacceptable risk to the community. Hence the imperative for the significant reforms that we are bringing about today.

I do want to note the tough bail laws will uplift many offences so that tougher bail tests will apply and bail is less likely. We will amend schedule 2 of the Bail Act so that people charged with the following high-risk offences will have a presumption against bail on their first offence unless they can show compelling reasons to justify bail: serious firearm offences; serious arson; committing an offence involving a controlled weapon, including machete violence, a prohibited weapon or an offensive weapon, including the use of everyday implements fashioned into or used as a weapon, such as baseball bats, kitchen knives and, it says, ‘shivs’ – I am afraid I am not as familiar with certain instruments that might be used in certain crimes but I will trust that that is a particular weapon; theft of vehicle; and theft when co-charged with conduct endangering life, conduct endangering persons, failure to stop or possession of a prohibited weapon or controlled weapon.

So you can see the nature of the reforms that we are bringing about, and I think that it would be well understood the imperative to bring about these reforms here today and not repudiate or diminish the significance of them and the incredible work of the Attorney-General, the Minister for Police and the Minister for Corrections, who were all involved in bringing about these reforms as needed and reflecting the will of the community and the expectation of victims who have done nothing wrong and do not deserve the pain and the suffering that they have had to endure.

Finally, I do not have quite enough time, but I did want to say that there are important caveats also to ensure the enduring protections for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. That does not suffice, but I will just say that there are caveats within the legislation.

Too often we are hearing of people bailed and back out on the street within 2 hours or the next day. We have been saying for 12 months here on this side of the chamber that enough is enough. We finally had the Premier realise that if she did not do something she was probably going to lose the government’s position, and she is finally going to do something.

A member interjected.

Roma BRITNELL: And probably her job – that is exactly right. That is the only reason she has reacted.

We had a bill briefing yesterday afternoon at 3:30. No bill, however, had been produced for that bill briefing. We had said to the government, ‘Will it be available?’ because the whole point of a bill briefing is to find out what is in the bill and to have time to scrutinise the bill to make sure it is right and put forward solutions or better ideas – or accept it is terrific and there is nothing needed to do here. But there was no bill. Instead we got a lecture from the minister saying how bad it is in Victoria. Well, we have been saying that for at least 12 months; Victorians have been saying that. So then they came to us late last night with the bill, and laughably they have used a tactic to try and look good in the bill’s actual title. They have called it the Bail Amendment (Tough Bail) Bill 2025. I mean, who puts that sort of thing in the title of the bill? This is a desperate government that is trying to say to Victorians, ‘Hang on, we’re hearing you now.’ Well, I am sorry, there were three opportunities in this last 12 months for the government to say, ‘Okay, you’ve got a bill. We’ll look at that; we’ll debate that. We’ll adopt some of the ideas, maybe improve some of the ideas.’ But they just did not even allow debate. In the meantime we have seen so many people terrified in their own homes, and it is not just in Melbourne. There are so many people having their cars stolen. There are so many crimes involving knives. And youths, as we saw a few weeks ago, are often using their mobile phone to make fun of the government, saying, ‘Look, I can even get away with it and I can post it all over social media, because you’re just so pathetic in this state of Victoria.’

My own community of South-West Coast have also been complaining. Just some months ago we had a meeting, with 100 traders turning up. They are desperate because they are getting intimidated in the workplace. We cannot get young girls or boys to do after-school work in certain places like the Coles supermarket, because it is just too frightening for the parents to come and pick them up in the car park. It is too dangerous, with people just jumping into cars and intimidating people. The police are doing their absolute best and the best job they can do – and I commend them for the work they do – but it is not their fault that the court is bailing them. They have to then process them, and the next day they are picking them up again. We even had a situation where a young mum and her friend were having a coffee on the street in front of a coffee shop in Warrnambool one morning at 10:30, and a guy who had been bailed the day before came along and actually said – it was heard by many people – ‘I’m going to kick that baby’, and he proceeded to walk up and kick the child in the pram. The mother was obviously very distressed. And do you know what? That guy was bailed again, only to be out four days later, causing havoc and stopping traffic in another part of town. This is what the poor police had to deal with.

I have got the traders doing whatever they can to help solve this problem. One of the girls, Simone Rodger, is sitting on a committee that the police have organised to try and improve things for the town of Warrnambool, but she is frustrated because what really needs to happen is a strengthening of the bail laws – and these laws do not go far enough. You can actually break bail under these amendments, and it will not be something that will result in you not getting bailed again. So you can go out and burgle someone’s home, and that will not be deemed a reason for breaking bail. It is not strong enough. You could get bail again after that. Then you could go and burn somebody’s home down the next day. Committing arson is something that you could get bail for. And then you could rob someone, and once again you could be bailed. These laws do not go far enough. A lot of this is smoke and mirrors. The government have not done what they have been promising. They are pulling the wool over Victorians’ eyes, and people in the South-West Coast have had enough.

I had a woman say to me that she heard a man yelling at her, ‘I’ll only do two months for stabbing if I plead insanity in Victoria.’ That is the intimidating language that has been used on a woman in a small country town. It is really out of control. We have got people smearing blood all over products in shops. There are thefts in shops. We are not talking about locking up people for petty theft, but when you are severely intimidating people and really destroying people’s lives and the victims are the community, something has to change, and this does not go far enough. The government’s supposed Bail Amendment (Tough Bail) Bill does not cut it, and the government knows it. Victorians will not see a better outcome as a result of this.

It is very timely that this bill is introduced into Parliament. As all members have recognised and acknowledged, this bill has been introduced because of issues with community safety in all of our communities. I do not think that there is one of our communities that has not been touched by some violent offences in recent times. One of the ones I do want to touch on and refer to on the bill later on is the incident that happened last year very close to my electorate, which was an absolutely tragic incident involving a hit-and-run where a young doctor was killed by a vehicle that had been stolen by young offenders who were on bail at the time. Offences such as this and home invasions and aggravated burglaries do have our community worried, and it is all elements of the community. It is often those who are most vulnerable in our community who are most at risk in this situation, because they are the ones who are not necessarily going to be able to have the alarm systems, security doors and security garages that may offer some additional protection from people who are particularly looking for an easy way in. When I have heard from victims about how these incidents have occurred, it has often been because, through no fault of their own, they have a house that has slightly less protection and offenders are using that weakness to come in. It is not acceptable in our community that people should be living in fear that someone is going to break in. As the member for Albert Park mentioned before, it is not just about the actual incident itself; there also can be a long-lasting psychological impact on victims of actually seeing somebody in their home. It is that personal impact. You feel that your home should be a safe haven for you, and if you see somebody invading that space, even if they do not commit any direct violence against you, that can be a very, very scary thing indeed.

Looking at the specific provisions of the bill, the purpose of the bill is to improve community safety – as has been mentioned a number of times and by the Premier herself, community safety has really been put at the front and centre of this bill – and to strengthen consequences for alleged offenders and repeat alleged offenders accused of serious and high-harm offending, as well as certain types of alleged repeat criminal conduct driving community concern.

There are a few key changes that will be introduced as part of the amendment to the Bail Act 1977 and the Summary Offences Act 1966. One of the key changes is to introduce two bail offences, one being the committing of an indictable offence while on bail, for inclusion in the Bail Act, and the contravention of conduct condition of bail, for inclusion in the Summary Offences Act.

A second stage of the bill which is planned to be introduced will incorporate offences into schedule 1 that were previously schedule 2, lifting up that bail requirement so that for the bail decision maker there now have to be exceptional circumstances that exist to justify the granting of bail, and that will include offences such as armed robbery, aggravated burglary, home invasion and carjacking. As I was referring to some of the incidents before, in particular in relation to home invasion and aggravated burglary, these are incidents that I do hear about quite frequently in my community. Touching on, again, the member for Albert Park’s point about the psychological impact that that is having on local families, I think it is certainly a move in the right direction to strengthen the bail provisions for those offences. The amendments will also incorporate additional offences into schedule 2 to ensure that people charged with these offences will need to satisfy the bail decision maker that a compelling reason exists to justify the granting of bail, again lifting up that standard to place more of an onus on the accused seeking bail. That includes serious firearm offences, serious arson, committing an offence involving controlled weapons, prohibited weapons and offensive weapons, and motor vehicle theft when charged in combination with reckless conduct endangering life or a person’s failure to comply with a direction to stop or possession of a prohibited or controlled weapon in the course of the theft of a motor vehicle.

I want to again touch on the motor vehicle theft where charged in combination with reckless conduct endangering life or persons and, as I reflected on earlier, the high-profile case that occurred in Burwood in mid-2024. I think there was, rightly, quite a lot of community concern that this incident could involve individuals who not only were on bail at the time but then also subsequently were granted bail as a result of that incident. I think that changes such as these are important as they reflect the community sentiment and can be traced back to real-life cases of how this has played out in practice. Let us hope we do not see a tragic incident like that again, but if that incident were to repeat under these laws, then at least there is a much stronger test that the accused would have to satisfy.

Again, that is I guess the main thrust of the changes to the legislation that we are proposing. We are putting forward changes that will make our community safer and more secure, and as I was saying at the outset, I think this applies to all of the communities that we represent across Victoria, whatever their age and whatever their ethnic demographic. I commend the bill to the house.

But, again, I said last week that I talk about this every week in this house, and I will tell you who else I spoke to during the week. I speak to Victoria Police members every week because I am a very practical person. I wanted to know how this legislation, which we did not get until 3:30 yesterday and then struggled to get it and struggled to get a briefing, would affect the practical enforcement and implementation on the ground. I will tell you what, I learned so much in spending an hour on the phone with a 33-year veteran of Victoria Police. He is at the coalface of youth crime. He is actually through southern metro, so he has a fair bit of work in his patch at the minute. He said he has never seen it so bad, particularly in the last 12 months. I learned so much just speaking to him about the frustrations. I heard the Premier say today about the tools and resources that the government gives to Victoria Police. I mean, go and talk to some Victoria Police members for heaven’s sake. They are so frustrated. Their arrest rates are so high, yet they are getting rinsed through the justice system and bailed. Fifty-two times on bail is completely unacceptable, honestly. The Minister for Police earlier today said there has never been a better time to be a member of Victoria Police. Go and talk to some of them on the ground. They are so frustrated. The other thing I heard was ‘Legislation that is pushed through this quickly is never a good outcome.’ That is coming from Victoria Police members. When it gets pushed through this quickly, it is never a good outcome.

Regarding the intervention programs that the Minister for Police was talking about earlier, some of those are great, like the Pivot program, but the framework under which they are funded is flawed. They are not funded based on outcomes. Again, I talk about this all the time too. If we could just change the framework for funding and fund these things based on outcomes, we would have much better results from these things. The words that I heard during the week were ‘When you lift the veil on these programs and early intervention, there is nothing there.’ That is coming from Victoria Police on the ground in the city and in Mildura. When you lift the veil, there is nothing there.

Again, I could go on. I have got pages and pages of notes on this. Like the Leader of the Nationals said earlier, we are not opposed to this, because any improvement is good improvement. But, again, when something is pushed through this quickly, can we have faith that it will actually fix what needs to be fixed? It does not toughen the bail laws to where they were pre-March 2023. You know what, when we say tough bail laws, we do not necessarily need the toughest bail laws in Australia, we need the best bail laws in Australia. That is what we are after. So, no, we are not opposing this. I am going to cut this short because, with only half an hour left to debate this bill, I want to make sure that some more of our members get a chance to debate this bill. But we want the best bail laws in Australia.

Jackson Taylor interjected.

Jade BENHAM: This does not look anything like the best bail laws. It does not look anything like the toughest. It does not look anything like tough bail laws from March 2023. There are two clauses in this which may be helpful. That is it.

Will Fowles: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, standing order 103 provides that when more than one member rises to speak you call the one who stood up first. I stood up first.

Belinda Wilson interjected.

Will Fowles: Well, the government can do what it likes; the standing orders of the Parliament provide that in the event that two members rise, the one who rose first has the call.

Belinda Wilson interjected.

Will Fowles: That is why I am asking the Acting Speaker for an opinion. You do not sign it off.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Kim O’Keeffe): I did see you both stand at the same time, so my apologies for that.

I have spoken with the Minister for Police and the Minister for Corrections and Minister for Youth Justice and spoken about community safety concerns. Just to correct those opposite, I have also spoken to the police in my area, and recently – about two weeks ago – we had a community safety forum at Springvale City Hall that I attended, and I spoke not only to the community members there but to the local police. The member for Clarinda was there; the member for Mordialloc was there. So we have been speaking to local police, and we are hearing them and we are taking quick action. The response not only from police but also from the ministers that I have spoken to has been swift, which is why we are implementing the first tranche of reforms, which will see Victoria adopting the toughest bail laws in Australia. These measures will start immediately, and we have the capacity in our remand centres to handle them. Our priority, entrenched in law, is community safety. This will be achieved through new bail offences, ensuring that the rules are respected and that officers of the law are applying more stringent bail tests which align with community expectations. This will address repeat offenders and criminals who are escalating their criminal acts – the very criminals that Victorians are most concerned about.

Community safety needs to be first in bail-making decisions, and this bill puts community safety above all in every bail decision. This will provide an immediate jolt to the system, addressing the actions of those serious repeat offenders. In the instance of youth offending, remand as a last resort has now been removed as a consideration in the decision-making process. Under these laws, community safety is the number one overarching consideration for those handing down the rulings.

Schedules 1 and 2 offences are our most serious crimes, the ones that are driving fear throughout the community. Under these proposed amendments we are instituting a tough new bail test that makes it harder for people to be granted bail. If one is committing offences that are schedule 1 offences, such as aggravated burglary, home invasions, armed robbery and carjacking, bail will be refused unless exceptional circumstances exist to justify the grant of bail. Further, schedule 2 has been expanded. This class includes knife crime, serious firearm offences, arson and motor vehicle theft occasioning a threat to public safety. In these circumstances remand as a last resort is no longer a get-out-of-jail-free card. We are holding those who habitually break the law and think they can get away with it to account.

What I have heard in the community is that a small group of repeat offenders are not respecting the rules, and instead of getting the sentence the community would expect they are being granted bail and continuing to break the rules. We are putting a stop to this and implementing bail offences. Breaching conditions of bail will now constitute an offence as well as committing indictable offences while on bail; this will now be punishable by up to 30 penalty units or three months imprisonment. If one does not follow the rules, breaches bail conditions and commits serious offences whilst on bail, there are very serious consequences. The community has an expectation, and this must be met. We are not breaking the presumption of innocence; we are not punishing those who have not had their day in court but ensuring that those who are breaking the rules are being held to account, because the principles of bail must be respected.

Of great importance to me is continuing to ensure that our vulnerable groups and Indigenous peoples are appropriately considered. As part of previous bail law reforms, in 2023 additional safeguards were introduced into the Bail Act 1977 to deal with vulnerable cohorts. This means there are additional determinations that a decision-maker needs to consider, particularly when it comes to Aboriginal persons and children. These safeguards will still remain and will continue to be added to. When in the second bill there is an uplift for indictable offences, that will be the time where even more safeguards will be implemented – for example, removing some of the offences that might get caught up in the uplift of some of those indictable offences.

We expect to see the number of people on remand increase as a result of these changes. I would like to note that there is capacity across the justice system for these changes to occur immediately. Corrections Victoria have also been preparing and training additional staff, ready for these new tough bail laws. We know that when these laws take effect they will occasion an increase in those taken into custody. The community can be assured we will be ready for it.

We need to continue backing our police, and that is something this government has consistently demonstrated. Since coming into government we have invested a record $4.5 billion into Victoria Police to fund additional police and new and upgraded stations right across the state and invested in new technology to ensure that Victoria Police continues to be a modern fit-for-purpose organisation into the future. Furthermore, since 2014 more than 3600 additional police have been funded, and the results speak for themselves, with over 72,000 arrests being made since just September of last year. This bill supports police efforts in presenting offenders to the courts and ensuring they do not reoffend, reducing the need for repeated arrests of the same individuals. I want to particularly thank the police for their hard work in Operation Trinity and Operation Alliance, focusing on aggravated burglaries and significant car theft. While there is still much work to be done, this bill will allow the police to focus more on these critical operations, because the police support these laws, and we are continuing to back them through this legislation.

For many young people diversion programs are sufficient to get them back on track. Young people are accessing mental health supports and mentorship supports at schools and in the community. For most young people these programs are sufficient in getting young people the support they need. As a psychologist I have seen firsthand how young people who might be going off track do get back on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, for some young people these supports are not always sufficient, and no matter how much support they may have there often needs to be that circuit breaker. We have heard many family members calling for such circuit breakers.

I would like to reflect on how much work this bill took to prepare and the severity it needs to be treated with. Much to the disappointment of those on the other side, holiday time is over. It is great to see the Leader of the Opposition back, and I trust that he will make a very valuable contribution to this discussion. Personally, I have been working hard representing my community, and I am disappointed they have not held themselves to the same standard, because this government has attempted multiple times to brief the opposition on our tough bail laws that will be implemented, with our briefing attempts being entirely rejected. This is not kindergarten, so it is important that nobody in this place behaves like kindergarten children, to borrow the words from the member for Malvern, who is in the chamber, I might add. It is important that we go about governing, not going out for dinner. There is no excuse for those on the other side. Attempts have been made to reach out, so now it is time that those on the other side get on board so that we can get on with the job, because that is what it means to be in government, which is something they must have forgotten since it has been a long time.

Again, these bail laws focus on those high-harm, serious offences that are being repeated, putting a jolt in the system and breaking the pattern of repeat offending that is particularly being seen in youth offenders. This will make a difference, because we have consultations and discussions through the work of the various departments, Victoria Police and the justice system. There will be an immediate impact in remand numbers starting to increase as the focus becomes community safety, and through removing remand as a last resort for young offenders. Community safety is first and is the clear overarching principle, and we are putting community safety first. I thank the Premier for a swift response, and I commend this bill to the house.

This government is not tough on crime. All the crimes that have been happening are on Premier Allan and Labor’s heads. They have failed. You only have to look at a story that was on Channel 9 yesterday, ‘Parents of repeat offenders plead for more government help’. We had Jen, whose 15-year-old son was arrested more than 30 times in 15 months. She wrote to the Premier hundreds of times but did not receive one phone call, one email, nothing – bubkis. All of a sudden the Premier cares. All of a sudden the Premier is interested. Well, you know what? The only thing the Premier is interested in is polling and her job – not in law and order, but in polling and her job. That is why we are standing here today talking about these laws.

The member for Mulgrave says we are preparing our jails. They are not prepared, not at all. How can you prepare for something when it was only introduced a week ago. Our jails are not ready for this, our courts are not ready for this, the police are not ready for this. There is no funding, no support, no detail – a complete bail fail. This should not be called tougher bail laws, this should be called bail fail laws – that is what this is. Premier Allan has failed again to keep Victorians safe.

Right now we are in this confected debate about the need to modify bail laws simply because people cannot access justice quickly enough. People talk about offenders having been released on bail and that being the travesty. No, the travesty is that they have not been tried. They have not actually had their charge put in front of a jury of their peers, as not just the Magna Carta demands but the Crimes Act 1958 here in Victoria demand. These rights are the most fundamental rights. The deprivation of liberty is about the most serious thing a government can entertain. Here we are being asked on some 25 hours notice to enact a set of laws that will deprive more Victorians of their liberty. People applying for bail are not criminals, they are alleged offenders.

They have been charged, not convicted. They sit in that part of the process where they are neither person on the street nor criminal. They are in between. They are subjected to a process. They are part of a process that will determine whether in fact they are guilty or not. And the operating assumption from many members on both sides of the chamber today is that these people are in fact already criminals, that they have already committed crimes. No – that determination is made and only made by the processes laid out in the Crimes Act 1958, by the processes that determine a finding of guilt or otherwise.

What we are seeing here is an appalling transgression of this debate by its getting diverted entirely into whether bail ought to be granted in particular sets of circumstances, when in fact the cure for this ill is not changes to the bail laws, it is getting people speedy justice, it is getting these alleged offenders before a magistrate for trial or before a jury of their peers for trial to have a determination made about their guilt. And if they are found guilty, absolutely lock them up, make no mistake. But let us be very, very careful about changing any set of assumptions that puts people behind bars before they have been convicted of a crime.

Bail is not a privilege. Speedy justice is in fact the relevant right, and we ought to be very, very careful before impinging on this fundamental right and impinging on it in a way that is so hasty, so poorly thought through, that it does not allow everyone in this chamber to fully consider the consequences of the matters before us. I ask all members to consider that with the utmost seriousness as they cast their vote in some 13 minutes time.

The Premier told Yoorrook last year:

I … want to acknowledge that it’s not enough to merely know this history. We do need to learn from it and we need to act on it too.

Yet today she says the changes to bail that were made in 2023 in response to the death of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson were wrong and need to be reversed. Veronica Nelson was not convicted of any crime. She died in a prison cell – unsentenced, denied bail on minor charges. The Yoorrook for Justice report’s scathing summary of the 2018 bail reforms that led to her death could be directly cut and pasted for a response to this bill when it said the Andrews government:

… ignored the concerns and advice of First Peoples about the inevitable impact of its bail reforms, making a mockery of government commitments to self-determination and reducing over-imprisonment and eroding the trust that had been generated through the justice-related forums established to listen to and consult with Aboriginal people.

When the coroner released his findings into Veronica Nelson’s death in January 2023, he called the previous bail system in Victoria a ‘complete and unmitigated disaster’ that led to ‘grossly disproportionate rates of remand’ for First Nations women. That is what we are returning to today with this bill. To put it into perspective, this bail bill before us today is far more politically conceived, rushed, non-consultative, politicised, tabloid and reductively titled than the unmitigated disaster that was the 2018 knee-jerk bail reforms.

Last week, after Labor’s announcement to reverse the measures to prevent deaths in custody, Veronica’s mother Aunty Donna Nelson said it was a betrayal of what she was told by the former Chief Commissioner of Police and the Attorney-General after the findings into her daughter’s death. Last week she said they:

… looked me in my eyes and promised to make bail conditions better, because of what Veronica and my family suffered. Where are those promises now?

The Premier has not answered that question, so I will ask it again to the government members in this place. Aunty Donna’s question: where are those promises now? Where are those promises that the institutional violence that led to the death of Veronica will not happen to more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women now? The former police commissioner Shane Patton, who wrote an apology letter to Aunty Donna Nelson, said he believed it was important that he publicly acknowledge that the bail laws ‘started a chain of events that resulted in your daughter being remanded’. Mr Patton also apologised on behalf of Victoria Police during his appearance at the Yoorrook Justice Commission in 2023, telling the hearing that systemic racism, racist attitudes and discriminatory actions of police that have gone undetected, unchecked, unpunished or without appropriate sanctions have caused significant harm across generations of Aboriginal families. Veronica’s family, the community and legal experts have been calling for the implementation of Poccum’s law, named after Aunty Donna Nelson’s nickname for her daughter. It called for urgent changes for fairer bail laws, and only one year ago we changed the law in response to those calls. Although it was not adopted in full, it has already saved lives. Now this kneejerk reaction is undoing all of that.

The Premier claims that these bail laws are a necessary circuit breaker, but for what? A fabricated youth crime crisis invented by the Liberals and the Murdoch media. In 2025 youth crime accounts for just 13 per cent of offences, the same as last year. Victoria has one of the lowest youth crime rates out of all the states and territories in Australia, and when adjusted for population growth, overall rates are at lower rates than 2016. Even if there was a wave of youth crime to respond to, we know that prisons do nothing to improve community safety. Instead they reinforce systemic injustice, disproportionately targeting First Nations people and people of colour.

There are hundreds of good reasons to oppose this panicked bill that the government only circulated last night. Removing the requirement that remand for children be an option of last resort flies in the face of international human rights and makes a mockery of the evidence of what works and what does not work when it comes to crime. But the fundamental reason is that it simply will not improve community safety. When Labor came into power in 2014, 19 per cent of our prisoners were unsentenced on remand, fewer than one in five. Now that sits at 38 per cent – double. By the Premier’s logic, the community should be at least twice as safe as we were 20 years ago, yet at the same time the level of remand has doubled there has been no decrease in criminal offending rates or improvements in public safety. Circuit breakers already exist, but they are not being used. For example, when police have evidence that a young offender has breached bail conditions, they are already able to take an application to return to court and have bail revoked, but senior police have admitted that officers simply cannot be bothered to do the paperwork.

Of course the Premier knows that higher remand rates are criminogenic and perpetuate crime. Karen Fletcher from Flat Out says the evidence is overwhelming that locking up traumatised and distressed people with high support needs increases community risk, not safety. But this bill was never about improving community safety, was it? It is about a panicking Premier scared about appalling polling and by-election swings trying to be seen to be tough on crime. It is worth quoting Russell Marks’s seminal 2022 work Black Lives, White Law to describe exactly why we are debating this bill today:

[QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION]

Political leaders quickly discover that promising to be tough on crime by lengthening prison sentences is infinitely more popular than to be tough on the causes of crime, which include poverty, trauma and state failure.

Consider now the Premier’s confession over the weekend that she was inspired to introduce these bail laws after reading the Herald Sun. I think we should all be very concerned that this panicking Premier is basing her amendments to jurisprudence today not on the considered knowledge of our most expert frontline advocates, like the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service or the 92 community services, family violence, legal sector and Aboriginal community controlled organisations that signed the VALS open letter yesterday condemning this bill. Neither is the Premier basing her amendment on the considered knowledge of our learned institutions, such as the Victorian Law Reform Commission, or the advice of our most experienced senior counsel and King’s counsel. Rather than basing these amendments on advice from experts, the Premier is basing these amendments on alarmist rhetoric from a right-wing tabloid rag, a crew of shock jocks and a Trump-supporting influencer.

I will now be moving a reasoned amendment, given the lack of consultation, that this bill be withdrawn. The amendment goes as follows. I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with the words ‘this house refuses to read this bill a second time until the government engages in meaningful and comprehensive consultations to address the concerns of expert human rights, legal and First Nations stakeholders.’

People deserve to feel safe in their communities, and there is no doubt that some recent incidents have been incredibly distressing, and no-one should endure that. I do not diminish the experience of people who have been the victims of crime. But what the Premier has announced is not going to make the community safer. It will actually have the opposite effect.

There is an old axiom that if someone feels the need to go around telling people they are tough, it is self-evident they are the opposite. Victoria has been badly let down over the last 15 years by politicians from both major parties who have seen crime as either a political problem or a political opportunity and so act on what they think will make them popular rather than what actually works. But we know that early interactions with the carceral system significantly increase the likelihood of reoffending and result in a cycle of crime and incarceration for young people. That is the opposite of what we want to see. This government is failing to address fundamental things that make communities safer: proper investment in housing, health care and education; and preventative and diversion programs that significantly reduce the odds of a young person reoffending. Instead they are demolishing public housing and cutting funding to youth crime prevention programs, like YSAS in my electorate, forcing 33 workers out of a job supporting young people at risk of committing crime. In fact at the end of last year the Premier quietly erased the Minister for Crime Prevention portfolio and its associated department and programs.

Until we have a government that is strong enough to get tough on the root causes of crime, this cycle will continue, and while the cost of this weakness will be borne by all Victorians, it will be hardest felt by the First Nations community and particularly women and children. It is the same old injustice they have felt repeatedly for over 200 years of white law that our current Premier is determined today to impose on yet another generation of First Nations Victorians in a pathetic and ultimately futile way to attempt to be more popular. And for that I condemn the Premier and this bill.

The SPEAKER: The time set down for consideration of the Bail Amendment (Tough Bail) Bill 2025 has expired, and I am required to interrupt business. The house is considering the Bail Amendment (Tough Bail) Bill 2025. The minister has moved that the bill be now read a second time. The member for Richmond has moved a reasoned amendment to this motion. She has proposed to omit all the words after ‘That’ and replace them with the words that have been circulated. The question is:

That the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the motion.

Those supporting the reasoned amendment by the member for Richmond should vote no.

Assembly divided on question:

Ayes (77): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Annabelle Cleeland, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Chris Crewther, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Wayne Farnham, Eden Foster, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, David Hodgett, Melissa Horne, Emma Kealy, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, John Lister, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Cindy McLeish, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, Danny Pearson, John Pesutto, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, Michaela Settle, David Southwick, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Bill Tilley, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Kim Wells, Rachel Westaway, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson, Jess Wilson

Noes (4): Gabrielle de Vietri, Will Fowles, Tim Read, Ellen Sandell

Question agreed to.

The SPEAKER: The question is:

That this bill be now read a second and a third time.

Assembly divided on question:

Ayes (78): Juliana Addison, Jacinta Allan, Brad Battin, Jade Benham, Roma Britnell, Colin Brooks, Josh Bull, Tim Bull, Martin Cameron, Anthony Carbines, Ben Carroll, Anthony Cianflone, Annabelle Cleeland, Sarah Connolly, Chris Couzens, Chris Crewther, Jordan Crugnale, Lily D’Ambrosio, Daniela De Martino, Steve Dimopoulos, Paul Edbrooke, Wayne Farnham, Eden Foster, Will Fowles, Matt Fregon, Ella George, Luba Grigorovitch, Sam Groth, Matthew Guy, Bronwyn Halfpenny, Katie Hall, Paul Hamer, Martha Haylett, Mathew Hilakari, David Hodgett, Melissa Horne, Emma Kealy, Sonya Kilkenny, Nathan Lambert, John Lister, Gary Maas, Alison Marchant, Kathleen Matthews-Ward, Steve McGhie, Cindy McLeish, Paul Mercurio, John Mullahy, James Newbury, Danny O’Brien, Michael O’Brien, Kim O’Keeffe, Danny Pearson, John Pesutto, Pauline Richards, Tim Richardson, Richard Riordan, Brad Rowswell, Michaela Settle, David Southwick, Ros Spence, Nick Staikos, Natalie Suleyman, Meng Heang Tak, Jackson Taylor, Nina Taylor, Kat Theophanous, Mary-Anne Thomas, Bill Tilley, Bridget Vallence, Peter Walsh, Iwan Walters, Vicki Ward, Kim Wells, Rachel Westaway, Dylan Wight, Gabrielle Williams, Belinda Wilson, Jess Wilson

Noes (3): Gabrielle de Vietri, Tim Read, Ellen Sandell

Question agreed to.

Read second time.

Third reading

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.