The Victorian government’s controversial bail laws have passed parliament after a marathon debate, sparking criticism from legal and human rights groups who warn it will lead to the increased criminalisation of Aboriginal and other marginalised communities.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, announced the changes to the Bail Act last week, before they were fast-tracked through parliament, passing the lower house on Tuesday and then the upper house in the early hours of Friday.
The debate dragged on in part due to the opposition’s push to remove the word “tough” from the bill’s title, forcing the legislation to return to the lower house at 12.30am to rename it. It is now the Bail Amendment Act.
Allan had ordered a review into the state’s bail laws in February amid growing community concern over rising crime.
The latest crime statistics, released on Thursday, revealed a 13.2% increase in the crime rate – the highest it has been since 2016. Offences committed by children aged between 10 and 17 rose to their highest levels since electronic records began in 1993.
Allan said her bail changes targeted the serious, repeat offenders police have identified as responsible for the increase in offending.
“I have listened to victims of crime and Victorians, and I have acted. These are the toughest bail laws in the country – putting community safety above all and delivering consequences for those who break the law,” she said on Friday morning.
“These laws send the strongest possible message to offenders – clean your act up or face the consequences.”
The new legislation scraps the principle of remand only as a “last resort” for accused youth offenders. In its place, community safety would become the “overarching principle” when deciding bail for children and adults.
It also revives two bail offences – “committing an indictable offence while on bail for indictable offence” and “breaching of condition of bail” – each adding an additional three months of imprisonment to any other sentence imposed.
The offences were scrapped in 2023, after advocacy by the family of Veronica Nelson and recommendations from a coronial inquest into her 2020 death in custody.
Tougher bail tests for serious offences including aggravated burglary, home invasions and knife crime were also included in the bill but their introduction could be delayed by up to three months, due to the need for additional resources to manage the anticipated increase in offenders held on remand.
The Human Rights Law Centre, the Federation of Community Legal Services Victoria (FCLSV), Flat Out advocacy service and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service issued a joint statement after the bill passed, warning that it would lead to more vulnerable individuals being “needlessly” locked up.
“The Allan government has today rammed through dangerous and discriminatory bail laws which will deeply harm Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and breach human rights,” it said.
The First Nations director at the Human Rights Law Centre, Maggie Munn, said it was “deeply shameful” the Allan government had not learnt from “past policy failures”, and instead “capitulated to the tabloid media to entrench dangerous bail laws that undermine people’s right to liberty”.
Louisa Gibbs, the chief executive of the FCLSV, said the state’s legal sector was “united in our position that rewinding bail laws is a costly and dangerous mistake that will cause far more harm than good, without addressing community safety”.
