Controversial new Victorian bail laws have passed Parliament, despite opposition from human rights, Indigenous and legal groups.
The laws, which the government admits will see a significant rise in the number of people held on remand - despite being a signatory to the Closing the Gap agreement - passed after a marathon sitting in Parliament on Thursday night.
The changes include scrapping the principle of remand only as a "last resort" for accused youth offenders. In its place, community safety will become the "overarching principle" for magistrates and judges when deciding on bail applications for children and adults.
It will also reintroduce "committing an indictable offence while on bail" and another offence, "breaching bail conditions". Both will add an extra three months of imprisonment to any other sentence already being served.
The previous bail laws led directly to the death of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri, and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson, who died in custody in 2020.
Advocacy from Veronica's family saw the laws changed in 2023, but Premier Allan says in retrospect, those alternations were "wrong".
It caused Veronica's mother, Aunty Donna Nelson, to say the government were "trampling on Veronica's grave".
"What happened to my daughter should never have happened," she said in a statement on Tuesday, via lawyer Ali Besiroglu.
"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."
The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS), the Human Rights Law Centre, the Federation of Community Legal Services Victoria (FCLSV) and Flat Out advocacy service issued a joint statement on Friday, warning the new bill would lead to more vulnerable individuals being "needlessly" incarcerated.
"Bail saves lives, but early this morning the Allan Government rammed through dangerous and discriminatory bail laws which will deeply harm Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and breach human rights," they said.
Speaking on Thursday, the Greens' Ellen Sandell said her party would oppose the "draconian" laws, arguing, "The last time we had laws like this in Victoria, we saw a doubling of First Nations women in our prisons for non-violent crimes".
An inquest into Veronica's death saw Coroner Simon McGregor describe the then-bail laws as an "unmitigated disaster" that had a "discriminatory impact on First Nations people, resulting in grossly disproportionate rates of [Indigenous people] remanded in custody".
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Despite using the terms "tough" or "tougher" more than 30 times in their initial press release, the government was forced to label the bill the 'Bail Amendment Bill' - stripping "tough" from its name - after the Coalition and the Greens teamed up to vote against it.
"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," Premier Jacinta Allan said on Friday.
"These laws send the strongest possible message to offenders – clean your act up or face the consequences."
VALS chief executive Nerita Waight said it was "sickening" to hear the government boast about the toughness of the new laws, especially after they "looked Aunty Donna Nelson in the eyes and apologised for her daughter Veronica's death".
She said countless experts, evidence and data proved the tightening of bail laws only exacerbated the pain on Aboriginal and other marginalised communities.
"There is still time for Premier Allan to show strong leadership by listening to the experts, taking an evidence-based approach and investing in what actually works – early intervention, preventative, community-based supports that address the underlying causes of offending behaviour," Ms Waight 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 rather had "capitulated to the tabloid media" by entrenching "dangerous bail laws that undermine people's right to liberty, worsen the mass incarceration of Aboriginal people, and condemn generations of children and adults to the damage and trauma of imprisonment".
The government has had to start a hiring campaign for more corrections staff as they admit the number of people detained will skyrocket.
Crime statistics released on Thursday revealed a 13.2 per cent increase in the crime rate - the highest level since 2016. Offences committed by children aged 10-17 at the highest rate since electronic records began in 1993.
However, the government says this is driven by repeat offenders, with the number of unique youth offenders falling by 3 per cent, with the number of repeat offenders increasing by 4.9 per cent.
