Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven AM. Traditionally,
Speaker 1: the idea of bail meant that someone accused of a
Speaker 1: crime had the right to be free until their trial,
Speaker 1: but over nearly fifty years that has shifted dramatically and
Speaker 1: bail is now used as a tool for crime prevention.
Speaker 1: Jurisdictions across Australia are all moving in the same direction,
Speaker 1: passing more punitive bail laws, with Victoria just passing what
Speaker 1: it calls the toughest laws in the country, but legal
Speaker 1: in human rights experts warner will put more children in custody,
Speaker 1: disproportionately affect First Nations people and potentially increase deaths. On
Speaker 1: romand Today, Legal academic professor Marilyn McMahon on how media
Speaker 1: pressure and politics are reshaping bail and what it means
Speaker 1: for justice. It's Thursday, March twenty seven. Marilyn. The Victorian
Speaker 1: government recently passed what it says are the toughest bail
Speaker 1: laws in the country. So can you tell me about
Speaker 1: these laws.
Speaker 2: Yes. The Premier certainly called them the toughest biale laws
Speaker 2: ever and said that the reforms will provide a jolt
Speaker 2: to the system.
Speaker 3: Hi everyone.
Speaker 4: I just thought i'd jump on here with some breaking
Speaker 4: news tonight from the Victorian Parliament.
Speaker 2: We've just passed the tough new bail laws, the toughest
Speaker 2: in the country. And what was introduced as part of
Speaker 2: those reforms was you had the principle of remand been
Speaker 2: a last resort for youth offenders was abandoned. People charged
Speaker 2: with some crimes including robbery, carjacking, home invasion and aggravated
Speaker 2: burglary will now find it harder to get bail, and
Speaker 2: the government has reintroduced the crimes of committing an indictable
Speaker 2: offense while on bail and breaching a bail condition. Now,
Speaker 2: I think what we saw was that the legislation was
Speaker 2: rushed through parliament.
Speaker 4: Tougher bail laws passed Victoria's Parliament in a marathon sitting
Speaker 4: that extended into the early hours of the morning.
Speaker 2: They come into effect in a state where we've already
Speaker 2: got tough bail laws, perhaps the toughest in the country already.
Speaker 2: It's part of a long term trend where we've seen
Speaker 2: bail being turned into a pivotal point for crime prevention. Traditionally,
Speaker 2: bail really operated as a mechanism to ensure people attended
Speaker 2: court for the hearing of their case. But bail bail
Speaker 2: decision making has become much more about the risk that
Speaker 2: a person who's applying for bail will commit an offense
Speaker 2: if released on bail into the community. That really means
Speaker 2: that bail has been politicized and it's now a key
Speaker 2: law and order issue for us, and it's likely I
Speaker 2: think that what we'll see in coming years is that
Speaker 2: more than half the prison population in Victoria will be
Speaker 2: people who'll be held on remand that is they haven't
Speaker 2: been convicted, they've been held prior to be hearing of
Speaker 2: their matter. Now that's I think a very disturbing statistic.
Speaker 5: The Premier has said that these laws are about reducing
Speaker 5: reoffending and making the community safe.
Speaker 3: But for how many decades have governments had reports and
Speaker 3: evidence on their desks about ways to do this that
Speaker 3: don't resort to police and prisons.
Speaker 1: And as these laws were being debated in the Victorian Parliament,
Speaker 1: there were protests outside. So can you talk to me
Speaker 1: about the opposition to this bill? What are people saying?
Speaker 2: You had strong opposition to the bill coming from a
Speaker 2: number of quarters, primarily from legal representatives and organizations human
Speaker 2: rights organizations and especially First Nations people and organizations. Lawyers
Speaker 2: and legal organizations emphasized the traditional concerns that bail should
Speaker 2: only be denied in exceptional circumstances because it breaches the
Speaker 2: right to liberty and also it breaches the presumption of innocence.
Speaker 2: Community organizations drew attention to the well known negative consequences
Speaker 2: if people are denied bail. People can lose their job,
Speaker 2: They'll be separated from their families, It causes mental distress.
Speaker 2: It also exposes people to the dangers and the stresses
Speaker 2: of a prison environment.
Speaker 4: Haven't we been here before?
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, sixty five percent of women were locked
Speaker 1: up for less than a month at release without a sentence.
Speaker 4: I am one of those women.
Speaker 2: You had very strong opposition coming from the Victorian Aboriginal
Speaker 2: Legal Service and other organizations representing First Nations people because
Speaker 2: they are so disproportionately affected by harsh bail laws. And
Speaker 2: we've seen this. The terrible case of Veronica and Nelson,
Speaker 2: a First Nations woman who died in custody after being
Speaker 2: denied bail for committing minor offenses, showed just how the
Speaker 2: escalation of a minor offense with a vulnerable individual could
Speaker 2: result in such a terrible consequence.
Speaker 3: Victorian Coroner Simon McGregor found today Miss Nelson had been
Speaker 3: treated in a cruel, inhumane and degrading way by corrections
Speaker 3: officers and medical staff in the thirty six hours she'd
Speaker 3: been in custody.
Speaker 2: There's research from the new South Wales Law Reform Commission
Speaker 2: that tells us there'll be a small portion of people
Speaker 2: who are denied bail who will ultimately be found not
Speaker 2: guilty of their offenses with which their charged. That means
Speaker 2: people will have been incarcerated and serve timed in prison
Speaker 2: for offenses for which they're found not guilty. That's wrong.
Speaker 2: I think we've also got very strong opposition coming from
Speaker 2: the Children's Commissioner in Victoria and other organizations representing youth. Basically,
Speaker 2: what they're pointing to is that we have a breach
Speaker 2: of our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the
Speaker 2: Rights of the Child, which specifies the detention should only
Speaker 2: be a measure of last resort for youth. What we've
Speaker 2: got now under these reforms is that young people will
Speaker 2: be treated like adults when fail decision makers have to
Speaker 2: decide whether to remand them or release them into custody.
Speaker 2: Very predictably. What will now be experiencing is a significant
Speaker 2: increase in the number of young people who have been
Speaker 2: detained in prisons youth centers in Victoria and.
Speaker 1: These laws, as Premier Senter Alan said, are the toughest
Speaker 1: in the country. But other states and territories are all
Speaker 1: moving in the same direction, are they not?
Speaker 2: They are, I think it's unfortunate, But what you see
Speaker 2: in other jurisdictions is the same trend towards increasing putting
Speaker 2: people on remand. Overall, in Australia there's about forty one
Speaker 2: percent of prisoners who are being held on remand and
Speaker 2: we've seen it in states not only like Victoria, New
Speaker 2: South Wales, South Australia. What's been driving it over a
Speaker 2: period of at least a decade now is concern about
Speaker 2: community safety. So where as say twenty years ago, you
Speaker 2: had only a small action of the prison population being
Speaker 2: those people who are being held on remand, today in
Speaker 2: some states like BacT for example, half the prison population
Speaker 2: is comprised of people being held on remand. In South Australia,
Speaker 2: the Northern Territory, in New South Wales, it's about forty
Speaker 2: five percent of the Prision population.
Speaker 1: After the break. How media panic has influenced by all.
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Speaker 3: From home invasions to stabbings, police pursuits in carjackings, child criminals,
Speaker 3: breaching bail every three hours.
Speaker 1: It's just out of control.
Speaker 3: Rodolfo Arena's jeep was allegedly stolen by teens who were
Speaker 3: already out on multiple counts of bail.
Speaker 1: Marown. You mentioned that these type of bail laws we're
Speaker 1: seeing in Australia have been influenced by media and political
Speaker 1: narratives around crime and a growing concern with community safety.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the pressures and narratives that have
Speaker 1: influenced the introduction of these baiol laws.
Speaker 2: Well, I think in Victoria we've seen there's been a
Speaker 2: recent increase in the crime rate and that has generated
Speaker 2: considerable concern. We've seen also that police have agitated in
Speaker 2: relation to young offenders and they've asked for harsher mail
Speaker 2: laws to deal with them. And we've also seen the
Speaker 2: Premiere introducing the notion of a review of mail laws
Speaker 2: just prior to the weerribe by election.
Speaker 4: Daily we get calls and messages from Melbournian's who are
Speaker 4: sick of not feeling safe in their own homes. Instead
Speaker 4: of action, we get empty words from our leaders. Enough
Speaker 4: is enough.
Speaker 2: And then you had a massive media campaign conducted by
Speaker 2: two radio personalities.
Speaker 4: Joined our campaign to petition the Victorian Parliament it's time
Speaker 4: for action. Bring about bail reform for repeat fenders that
Speaker 4: puts the community first and holds offenders accountable.
Speaker 1: So there it is.
Speaker 2: Then the Herald's son joined in and you've got Channel
Speaker 2: nine News which is also promoting fear of crime being
Speaker 2: committed by people who are on bail.
Speaker 3: Under pressure, the Premiere is talking task.
Speaker 2: The laws need to be changed and they will.
Speaker 3: But not quickly enough. The mother of two, Adele Andrew's
Speaker 3: left terrified after machette wielding thieves broke in while her
Speaker 3: family slept early Tuesday morning.
Speaker 2: Something's very very wrong and I don't know what it's
Speaker 2: going to take. That's a powerful conjunction of circumstances that
Speaker 2: favors the introduction of unity of bail laws.
Speaker 1: And this is not the first time that media attention
Speaker 1: has driven a tightening of bail laws in Australia, is it.
Speaker 2: No, you saw exactly the same thing from about twenty
Speaker 2: twelve to twenty fifteen. You had a couple of very
Speaker 2: high profile offenses being committed in Victoria. Adrian Bailey who
Speaker 2: killed Jill Maher, Sean Price who killed Massa New Kotch,
Speaker 2: and then you had James Garguzulis, who was responsible for
Speaker 2: the Burke Street killings. Those high profile crimes generated again
Speaker 2: enormous media concern, and that media concern drove the Coglan Inquiry,
Speaker 2: which in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen generated very harsh bail
Speaker 2: laws in Victoria. So again what you see is high
Speaker 2: profile but unrepresentative crimes driving law reform.
Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of reporting on youth crime
Speaker 1: in Victoria, in particular repeat use offenders, driving averizon crime.
Speaker 1: So what do the stats actually tell us at.
Speaker 2: The moment, Well, there's obviously been modeling done by the
Speaker 2: Victorian government, but they haven't released it, so we don't
Speaker 2: really know what's driving them. We do know that the
Speaker 2: police have told us that they are concerned about a
Speaker 2: small group of vocidivist youth offenders and that is driving
Speaker 2: their concern for harsher bail laws. What we've seen is
Speaker 2: an increase in youth crime in not only in Victoria
Speaker 2: but elsewhere, and I think that's been a potent driver
Speaker 2: of the bail reforms, in particular the abandonment of that
Speaker 2: principle that you only use imprisonment or remand as a
Speaker 2: last resort when you're dealing with the young offenders in bail.
Speaker 1: So there's a question here about the balance between ensuring
Speaker 1: community safety, which is a laudable goal, and protecting individual rights.
Speaker 1: So where do you think the balance sits?
Speaker 2: Well, I think we've lost any sense of balance in
Speaker 2: the current debate if we take a step back and
Speaker 2: get away from the headlines and be very emotionally driven
Speaker 2: mediate portrayals that we've seen in recent weeks. We have
Speaker 2: to remember, as a community, we have an interest in
Speaker 2: protecting people's rights much of the discussion in recent weeks
Speaker 2: has presumed that people on bail are guilty of their offenses.
Speaker 2: I think that's deeply troubling. So I think we need
Speaker 2: to take a step back and realize that once again,
Speaker 2: we are balancing different interests here. There's not only those
Speaker 2: members of the community who've been traumatized by violent crime,
Speaker 2: and they certainly need our attention. I think the second
Speaker 2: thing we need to remember is that much offending is
Speaker 2: related to mental health issues, drug and alcohol problems, family violence,
Speaker 2: and social disadvantage. Tackling those issues will really contribute to
Speaker 2: community safety as well, because they underlie a lot of
Speaker 2: the offending that we're seeing. But locking up people in
Speaker 2: prison is a short term solution. We know that people
Speaker 2: have gone to prison aren't deterred, and there's research from
Speaker 2: the United States that suggests if you put a person
Speaker 2: in jail, even for a short period of time we're
Speaker 2: talking maybe three or four days, you increase the likelihood
Speaker 2: that further down the track that person will have more
Speaker 2: contact with the criminal justice system. So I think we
Speaker 2: have a really unfortunate paradox now that is people who
Speaker 2: are demanding that we put more people in prison to
Speaker 2: protect the community may actually be giving us a short
Speaker 2: term solution, but a long term problem. We've got what
Speaker 2: I regard as a return to draconian type bail laws
Speaker 2: that will lock up lots of people who probably shouldn't
Speaker 2: be in jail. We're capturing a broad category of people.
Speaker 2: What we really need to do is make sure that
Speaker 2: we only remand those people who are a serious risk
Speaker 2: to the community, if at least on bail. That the
Speaker 2: very broad approach that's been adopted by the government is
Speaker 2: one that lacks consultation, that lacks adequate reflection, and therefore
Speaker 2: has all the hallmarks of a aggressive biol policy.
Speaker 1: Marilynd, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thanks Daniel.
Speaker 1: You can read Marilyn at Mahn's piece in this weekend's
Speaker 1: edition of The Saturday Paper at the Saturdaypaper dot com
Speaker 1: dot au. Also in the years, Labour surprise tax cuts
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Speaker 1: The Coalition opposed the tax cuts. In response, Prime Minister
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Speaker 1: been really after spending twenty four hours detained by the
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Speaker 1: a documentary about life under the Israeli occupation in the
Speaker 1: West Bank. On Monday, witnesses recorded Balal and two other
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Speaker 1: Balal's co director Basil Adra said, this might be revenge
Speaker 1: on us for making the movie you've been listening to
Speaker 1: seven Am. We'll be back tomorrow.