What I will do, as I rise to speak on the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025, is make a call-out again in relation to machetes. People in my community, regardless of what your age is – whether you are a young person, whether you are an adult – you have an amnesty until 1 September. If you have a machete, if you have a knife – it might be at your friend’s, you might not have it at home; you might know of someone who has got them, but you do not want to dob them in – you have an opportunity to go to the disposal safety bins that are located in our community throughout the western suburbs. You have the opportunity to drop the knife and save a life. If you need another reminder about where they are, those safety disposal bins, they are in the safest place possible that machetes can be handed in: they are at the local cop shop. You can drop them off at Werribee police station. You can drop them off at the Sunshine police station or the Altona police station. Drop in your knife and save a life. I really wish that the opposition would get behind the message to drop machetes – regardless of the price that people have paid, member for Caulfield –into those locations, to get rid of them or face serious consequences come 1 September.

What I will say at the outset on this bill is I really regret – I am looking around at my whip here – I did not get the chance last sitting week to speak on our bill to criminalise post-and-boast offences, because this kind of stuff is just so important. Thanks to our government, Victoria has one of the strongest bail laws in this country. Despite what those opposite continue to say, the fact is we have one of the strongest bail laws in this country. We have taken action – real action – to make sure that community safety is at the forefront of our response to crime. I do not just want to say it is reactionary at the forefront of our response to crime. There is a power of work – and I had this conversation multiple times over the weekend – that is happening behind the scenes to actually prevent these crimes from happening in the first place. The prevention work that our government has implemented – not just in the last 12 months or 24 months but since we came to government in 2014 – to prevent crimes from happening in the first place has been unlike anything those opposite have ever attempted to put forward here in this house or go ahead and fund in their local communities.

I think it is really important when we are talking about bail, when we are talking about dropping in machetes and when we are talking about going to prison and facing serious consequences, that we do not want people, whether they are young people, whether they are adults – whoever they are, whatever background they are from – to commit crime in the first place. The power of work that is happening in that prevention space is something that needs to be talked about in this chamber by those opposite more often than not. Do you know what, it also needs to be put on the front page of newspapers like the Age and the Herald Sun just once in a while. They should go out and talk to the services and the organisations at the front line rolling out prevention work, working with people from all different backgrounds. Some people have stories of horrendous things happening to them and they are doing terrible things in our community, and we know they are most at risk. Just once I would like to see the front page of the Herald Sun thank those organisations and those workers for their tremendous work, their commitment, their dedication and their tireless work, particularly with young people and particularly with young people in the western suburbs. If any of those journalists are listening to this contribution, they should go and visit the Visy Cares Hub and see what some of those organisations are doing and the tireless work they do with youth across the western suburbs. They can start right there.

I want to get back to this bill, because there is some really good stuff in here. As I talked about, as of last week the number of remanded youth – and I know this has been talked about in this place – has increased by 26 per cent since this time last year. For remanded adults this has increased by 27 per cent. When we talk about the number of folks in remand increasing, it is not something to be proud or boastful about; it is one too many that have found themselves in a less than ideal situation, some of them doing horrendous things, that have now interacted with the justice system and are likely to end up in prison. But that is more people who are on remand and who are not out in the community, potentially committing all kinds of offences. That is something the community has been asking for, and that is something we have done. I know that in many ways my community are really happy to see that we are taking action and clamping down on these very serious criminal activities.

When we introduced to these tougher bail laws back in March this year, we said that a second piece of legislation would be coming and that we would continue to do the work, and it is now before the house. This bill is the second piece, the missing piece – a brand new bail test to apply to repeat offenders for the serious offences that we are trying to tackle and clamp down on. I will again make it clear: our government does not believe in a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to bail. We do not believe in punishing people for being poor. Yes, that does happen; we know it has happened in the past. It would be irresponsible for us to go down a pathway where we are punishing people for being poor, particularly in a cost-of-living crisis. We do not think that folks who are charged with stealing a loaf of bread – yes, that still does happen – should be held in remand for months with people accused of murder.

Of course this is not the only thing we have done in respect to tackling crime over the course of the past two months. I have just talked about our nation-leading – we forget that: nation-leading – machete amnesty program to get dangerous knives and machetes off the streets before the ban comes into effect. Just last sitting week, as I also alluded to, we passed legislation in this place to tackle performance crime, the post-and-boast penalties for those who commit horrendous kinds of offences. And yes, it has happened in my community. It is absolutely appalling. They go ahead and they brag about this kind of activity through social media. Well, I certainly do not want my kids seeing this on social media. I do not want to have to watch it on social media. We know that it has become a big motivator for a lot of young people, concerningly, and these changes ensure that this element carries a two-year imprisonment penalty. Just down at Werribee police station a couple of months ago the Wyndham MPs had a great conversation with our local police force. Yes, we on this side spend a lot of time talking to local cops in our community. They actually are out on the beat in our local streets and neighbourhoods. One of the things they talked to us about is the problem with social media and kids getting on social media recording themselves doing awful things to other people and it being normalised – it is normalisation of violence. That is not something that is new, it is not something that is unknown, and cracking down on these kinds of offences with a two-year imprisonment penalty is a really good thing. With this bill’s new test, the second-strike test for offenders on bail, we are making progress on stopping these crimes from happening and ensuring that our communities not only are safe in practice but feel safe as well. They are very much two different things – whether people are actually safe or they perceive themselves as being safe. I will always say that people need to actually be safe; that is more important than the perception.

I have no doubt that those opposite have had and will continue to have a lot to say on this bill. They will say it does not go far enough; we have heard that. They will say that we should just vote for the ad hoc legislation they try to shoehorn into our parliamentary business week after week. Better yet – and I am not sure if we have heard it yet, but I am sure it is coming – they will try to spruik their ‘break bail, face jail’ policy. My staff and I have had a laugh about that. We think it belongs on the back of a car as a bumper sticker. We have been very clear from the get-go about our bail reforms: they are firm but they are fair – and they must be fair. Those opposite seem to target the very worst and the most concerning of offences that Victorians are quite rightly worried about at the moment. Many of those offences do tend to happen in my local community in the western suburbs, whether it is in Wyndham or in Brimbank. But there is good news that I have been telling folks. Out on the weekend when I was doing two Saturday morning street stalls, we talked a lot about crime and we talked about a lot of the action that the Allan Labor government has taken and is continuing to take. I have to say it was received really well. People were really happy with the reforms that we are putting into place. I commend the minister for bringing this second but vital piece of legislation before the house, and I commend it.