The Prime Minister has supported the new bail laws in Victoria, despite his government routinely supporting Closing the Gap.

The new bail changes introduced last week have been condemned by human rights, Indigenous and legal groups will see more people held in prison on remand, according to Premier Jacinta Allan.

The changes include scrapping 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.

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.

Melbourne-based radio station Fox 101.9 launched a petition calling for the bail change laws, garnering 120,000 signatures. There were also extensive campaigns from the conservative tabloid The Herald Sun, the police union, and social media influencers.

Speaking on Fox 101.9 on Tuesday morning before the budget, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese congratulated the hosts for the petition, before offering his support for Jacinta Allan for "responding to what was necessary".

"I support the changes that she has brought in very strongly," he said. "Every Australian has the right to feel safe in their local community."

He added: "So, whenever the Australian Federal Police or our security agencies have asked for more resources or new technology or changes to the law to help them do their job, my answer is just one word, which is 'yes'."

Despite Victorian being a signatory to the Agreement on Closing the Gap, Ms Allan says she expects the number of people on remand to increase. Nearly half of the people currently incarcerated in Victoria have yet to be sentenced.

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.

The federal government has routinely criticised states and territories for introducing laws that will see more Indigenous people incarcerated, but this is the first time they have explicitly endorsed policies condemned by Indigenous organisations as contrary to Closing the Gap.

Opponents of the changes, which were only introduced 18 months ago, say they will do nothing to improve community safety and are only a "knee-jerk" reaction by the government in response to poor polling and a concerted media effort for change.

An open letter last week to the government by the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS), along with 91 representatives of Aboriginal Community-Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), community services, family violence and legal sectors, said the new laws would "lead to greater criminalisation of Aboriginal communities and other marginalised communities".

Aunty Donna Nelson, whose daughter Veronica's death in custody in 2020 led to the eventual changing of the laws 18 months ago, said, "Returning to discriminatory legislation towards our people will undoubtedly result in another mother losing their child".

Last week, VALS' chief executive Nerita Waight said it was a "sad day in the colony to have to yet again advocate for Victoria's bail laws to be safer and not discriminate against our community".

Addressing the Premier, she added: "Your proposed bail laws will mark a dark stain in Victoria's history, where you clearly haven't learnt from past mistakes and instead seek to entrench and criminalise our people."