Second Reading – Justice Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2025

The ACTING SPEAKER (John Mullahy): Through the Chair.

Kim O’KEEFFE: Back to the bill. I rise to stand to make a contribution on the Justice Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous) Bill 2025. The bill amends a number of acts to support the courts and aims to improve the operation of the Victorian justice and legal system. It amends the Crimes Act 1958, the Criminal Procedure Act 2009, the Worker Screening Act 2020 and the Sentencing Act 1991, to name a few. The bill extends the forced commencement date of summary appeal reforms that were made in the Justice Legislation Amendment (Criminal Appeals) Act 2019 for three years to 21 July 2028.

In 2019 the Parliament of the time passed laws in relation to Victoria’s summary criminal appeal system. These laws will see the abolishment of summary appeals of criminal cases to the County Court and replace them with new processes that will seek to enhance the overall efficiency and reduce trauma for witnesses and victims, who will no longer have to reattend court and give evidence a second time on appeal. Currently an appeal from a criminal conviction in the Magistrates’ Court is done by way of a new hearing in the County Court, which process allows for new evidence to be admitted and new legal arguments to be made. The government has argued that these changes will lead to a more efficient appeals process and one that seeks to impose a lower burden on witnesses. Except in limited circumstances, the evidence given in the Magistrates’ Court will form the evidence considered by the County Court on appeal.

Whilst we on this side of the house do not oppose the changes, we do have some concerns. The 2019 amendments, which I already mentioned, were scheduled to come into force by no later than 3 July 2021.

The default commencement date was initially postponed to 1 January 2023. At the time the government argued that the court system required more time to prepare for the change as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the justice system. The default commencement date was then postponed to 5 July 2025. The government again blamed the effect of the pandemic and the need for additional resources into the courts, noting the ongoing effects of COVID-19 on the court system and the significant time and resources required to implement the reforms, making it necessary to further delay the commencement of de novo appeal reforms until July 2025. The bill that we are now debating seeks to delay the default commencement date of these changes for a third time – until 1 July 2028. This time around the government claims the impact of other criminal law reforms and resource requirements as driving their decisions, noting that in light of the significant time and resources required to implement the summary appeal reforms, on top of these other reforms, it is necessary to further delay their commencement. The bill before this house now seeks to further delay the commencement of these reforms to seven years after they were originally scheduled to commence. While the reforms to abolish de novo criminal appeals were designed to speed up processes in the County Court and relieve the burden on witnesses, a continual delay to these reforms by Labor suggests that either these benefits have been overstated or Labor’s funding cuts of the Victorian courts have been a higher priority than reforming criminal appeals.

The bill makes technical amendments to the Criminal Procedure Act and the Sentencing Act to allow the Magistrates’ Court to extend the use of its case management system in its criminal jurisdiction. The minister in the second-reading speech alluded to this amendment seeking to modernise registry services and improve the overall efficiency of court operations by enabling certain documents to be filed electronically.

Currently section 180 of the Crimes Act 1958, currently in force, makes it an indictable offence for a person to offer or give to a trustee, or for a trustee to receive or solicit for themselves or any other person, valuable consideration for the appointment of a new trustee in the trustee’s place without the consent of all trust beneficiaries or the Supreme Court. The bill will narrow the trustee secret commission offence by requiring the relevant conduct to have been done with a dishonest or otherwise corrupt purpose and remove the requirement for consent of beneficiaries or the Supreme Court. This offence was first introduced in 1905, more than 120 years ago, after the Royal Commission on the Butter Industry had found widespread bribery and corruption involving agents, including the receipt and payment of secret commissions. I know there has been quite a bit of discussion around the butter story. That was a long time ago, 1905, and I must say we had a very successful butter factory in Shepparton, which still has the heritage building used, as a cafe. So there is a long history when it comes to the butter industry across my electorate as well. I had to add some stories in there.

As a result it was later consolidated into the Crimes Act. Recent decisions made by the Supreme Court on the application of section 180 have held that a corrupt purpose is not an element of the offence. This has left trustees and other persons engaged in routine, good faith transactions relating to the replacement of an outgoing trustee at risk of serious criminal liability. Because of this it follows that the offence is no longer fit for purpose. The amendments made under the bill will seek to ensure that only conduct done for a dishonest or otherwise corrupt purpose will be captured by section 180 itself. Hopefully, through the amendments the bill makes to section 180 of the Crimes Act, it will save those involved, as well as the court, time and resources.

One brief amendment that I would like to mention is that the bill makes amendments to the Worker Screening Act 2020 to correct errors in cross-references in the act relating to the national disability insurance scheme and working with children checks. As previous speakers have mentioned, there are currently significant delays when it comes to both NDIS and working with children checks. This can cause significant restraints across the board. We need to have the right protections in place and processes that are efficient and effective. While the reforms to abolish de novo criminal appeals were designed to speed up the processes in the County Court and relieve the burden on witnesses, the continual delay to these reforms has been ongoing.

While the government claims that the implementation of these changes will require additional resources, the government is currently slashing funding, which has been raised in this house today. As it was revealed during the PAEC hearings after the release of last year’s budget, this government is cutting more than $77 million to the state’s justice system, with a $19.1 million hit to be in this financial year, followed by a massive $58 million cut in 2027–28. It is clearly inconsistent with the implementation of these reforms for the government to undertake a budget-slashing exercise at the very time they are now supposed to come into operation. Labor’s funding cuts to the Victorian courts have been a higher priority than reforming criminal appeal. It was also revealed during the hearings that the very successful County Court backlog reduction program has been axed by the government.

With already a two-year delay to VCAT’s digital transformation program and a dispute with IT contractors, it continues to hinder the modernisation of VCAT’s operations altogether. Victoria has the worst court backlogs in the country, and what we see is a slash to the budget significantly impacting the state’s justice system. Delaying access to and the lack of managing the state’s justice system is having a significant impact. We are all very aware of the delay in the VCAT system. This has been an ongoing issue where people who need to have their cases heard are having to wait for long periods of time, which can be very distressful.

The justice system across the board has so many issues. We know that crime in this state is out of control, and we are seeing the escalation right across the state. Bail has become weaker and weaker under this government time and time again, and every week we hear of criminal activity that is leaving communities feeling disillusioned and unsafe. We are in the midst of a youth crime and bail crisis, and our bail laws are weaker now than they have ever been before, all because of this government having their priorities all wrong.

Last week I met with Senior Inspector Simpson from the Shepparton police station, and we are currently organising a community crime forum. Crime is a huge topic and concern across the community, and bringing community together and ensuring they are informed and heard is so important during these times, as is making their safety a priority. People do feel frightened, and they also are really concerned about the increasing rates of crime. Inspector Simpson also raised his frustration with having to let reoffenders back out into the community time and time again. There is a significant breakdown in the justice system.

I also want to acknowledge that the police are doing their job. They are working as hard as they can. As my police officer noted to me last week in my office, he feels that he is doing the best he can, but he has very hard restraints. They are doing their best to keep their community safe. Victorians are paying the price for Labor’s broken bail laws, which are forever continuing to fuel a crime crisis across the state. We are seeing more and more cases where offenders who breach bail or reoffend whilst on bail are walking free onto the streets and youth offenders remain exempt from any penalty for ignoring their bail conditions. Serious crimes such as burglary and robbery are not even listed as serious offences under the Bail Act 1977 by this government.

The government should be condemned for its budget cuts to the Victorian justice system. Victorians expect a government that protects them, not one that neglects them and cuts critical resources from the state’s justice system.