Tuesday would have been Veronica Nelson's 43rd birthday.

As protestors gathered on the steps of Victoria Parliament to protest the state's new, "knee-jerk" bail laws, which Premier Jacinta Allan admits will see more people - including children as young as 12 - incarcerated on remand, her mum, Aunty Donna Nelson, was not there.

At home with family and loved ones celebrating her daughter's life, she thanked - via lawyer Ali Besiroglu, who represented Aunty Donna at the inquest into her daughter's passing - everyone for being at the protest, "honouring my daughter's legacy and fighting for justice".

"Today is Veronica's birthday. I wish my Poccum [Veronica's childhood nickname] was here with me," Aunty Donna said.

"I lost my daughter because of harsh, discriminatory bail laws. Without her life, the bail reforms would never have happened."

Veronica, a Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri, and Yorta Yorta woman, died in custody in 2020 in a "vomit-ridden" prison cell from a rare gastrointestinal condition. She had been arrested and denied bail for alleged shoplifting.

An inquest into her death heard Coroner Simon McGregor describe the then-bail laws as an "unmitigated disaster".

The laws were changed less than 18 months ago after years of campaigning by the Nelson family, as well as legal, Indigenous and community groups, but last week Premier Allan said the changes, in hindsight, were "wrong".

This, despite National Indigenous Times revealing last week former Police Commissioner Shane Patton told Aunty Donna the old bail laws contributed to her daughter being incarcerated, which ultimately led to her death.

Aunty Donna said the comments from the Premier were an "insult" to her daughter's memory, arguing both the government and the Victorian police had "lied" to her face.

"Their promises mean nothing. They are trampling on Veronica's grave," she said.

About 200 people rallied on Tuesday, urging the government to not go ahead with the proposed bail laws, which have already passed the lower house, arguing the changes will harm "generations of Victorian children".

"The government says they're the toughest bail laws in the country," Maggie Munn from the Human Rights Law Centre told the crowd.

"Imagine being proud of that?"

In response, the crowd yelled "shame", whilst chants of "bail saves lives" also took place throughout the protest.

Legal experts, human rights groups, and Indigenous organisations have argued the Labor government has caved in to pressure from some sections of the media, the opposition, and the powerful police union at the behest of restorative justice.

The laws will see the scrapping of the principle of remand only as a "last resort" for accused youth offenders - a tenet of the United Nations Conventions of the Rights of the Child, which Australia has ratified, as well as a recommendation from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC).

In its place, community safety will become the "overarching principle" for magistrates and judges when deciding on bail applications for children and adults.

Mr Besiroglu, now the head of legal services at the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS), said the same politicians who met Aunty Donna and "apologised to her face and shed crocodile tears" had turned their backs on her less.

Wearing a shirt emblazoned with "justice" and a photo of Veronica, he said it was "madness" to think the state could jail its way out of a crisis of its own making.

"Out of a broken child welfare system; a crisis in mental health, housing and addiction supports; a lack of education, mentoring and intensive bail programs; a failure to invest in men's behavioural change programs," Mr Besiroglu said.

On the government, Mr Besiroglu didn't hold back.

"Black deaths in custody will continue to happen. Women will be disproportionately represented in prison, and now they're on notice," he said.

Many of the people National Indigenous Times spoke to on the steps of Parliament had been intimately involved in the bail change campaign.

The sense of relief and achievement in 2023 has been overtaken by one of exhaustion, sadness, and anger.

"I just can't believe we are back here," one lawyer said. "I thought it would at least be from some big event, rather than a media fear campaign."

For Aunty Donna, the loss of her daughter should have brought real change to everyone - including Aboriginal people - in Victoria. Instead, a government "backflip" will now see more people incarcerated and the real chance of further deaths.

"What happened to my daughter should never have happened," she said.

"And now, this government is giving police and courts even more power to lock up our people, knowing that our people will continue to die in custody."