Whilst this bill may not deliver major reforms or improvements, there are a number of time-sensitive changes and administrative improvements, which are always really important if you work in this sector and which need to be made in order to ensure that Victoria’s justice system is operating effectively. That is why time and time again here in this place we bring bills and legislation before the house to debate in relation to justice. We need it to be operating efficiently. We need it to meet modern-day standards and community expectations, which is why time and time again we have bills before the house. I would encourage those opposite, for the first time in their lives, to get behind these bills and to get behind what Victorians want to see. We bring them before the house because Victorians tell us that is what they want to see their government doing.

We need our legislation to be concise and clear, and that is always really important. That is what this bill is actually about. It is not about anything else. Indeed there are a number of massive changes that are coming to our courts this year, with our government having passed some of the toughest bail laws in the country. I cannot talk about courts without giving a big shout-out to just how fabulous the Wyndham law courts are looking at the moment. I was down not at the law courts but at Werribee police station with the member for Point Cook, the member for Tarneit and the member for Werribee to talk to the local police recently and to talk about some of the work that they are doing in youth crime. This is what local members in communities like ours in Wyndham do. We talk to folks on the streets. We are talking to victims of crime. We are talking to the local police about perpetrators of crime, perpetrators of youth crime and what we can do better. They cannot wait for these bail laws to come in place. They know that they will make a difference.

But the great thing in being there at that police station was that we also spoke about the tremendous work that the police are doing to work with young people that are interacting with the criminal justice system – whether they are perpetrators, victims or even missing persons – to find out what is going on in these people’s lives and what, if there is anything, the police can do with youth workers or the government or what it is they need in their lives to get on and find a pathway that diverts them away from the criminal justice system. This is just some of the great work that our local police are doing, and I have to give them a big shout-out and say thank you. The types of work that they are doing are quite often not the things that make the front pages of local newspapers and state and national newspapers. They are certainly never talked about by those opposite, who claim to be the best friends of Victoria Police and to know everything there is to know about Victoria Police. It was absolutely insightful and very much a rewarding experience to be there with my colleagues in Wyndham talking to our local cops about what is happening on the coalface.

We also have our government’s nation-first machete ban coming in, which the member for Caulfield was just talking about – well, misinterpreting, I do have to say – and we are going to do that in a third of the time that it took the United Kingdom to do that. There is always so much discussion about these measures in the media, but I do want to remind everyone listening that implementing a ban on objects such as machetes takes time; it cannot be done immediately.

We know that because we have actually been guided by Victoria Police on this and in banning them. If we were to make machetes illegal right now, starting today, then thousands upon thousands of Victorians who currently own machetes for appropriate reasons and not criminal reasons – including our farmers out in the regions, local Landcare groups or gardeners – would suddenly be in breach of the law. That is not the intention of bringing forward legislation in this place, passing it in this house and rolling it out in the local community – to suddenly be enforcing laws and fining locals who have no intention of breaching the law but who find themselves on the other side of it. There will be an amnesty scheme set up, and this will allow folks to do the right thing and dispose of these weapons, most importantly – what those opposite continually fail to recognise, time and time again – in a safe and secure manner. We have asked Victoria Police what that is, and we are following their guidance on this.

It is also worth noting in this debate that our government’s bail laws are already having an effect. Like I said, we are seeing more people having bail denied to them for offences that we have targeted with our bail laws. We know that it is working; the numbers for those on remand do not lie. I look forward to seeing what these rates look like 12 months from now. Sadly, those opposite, with their announcement last week, seem to want to go back in time to when folks were being thrown in remand for months for non-violent offences like petty shoplifting and left there. But this is diverting away from the bill at hand.

The changes that I have just talked about have already been made, and they are coming into effect. But this bill is about reducing administrative inefficiencies so that our courts, most importantly, can accommodate these changes. The first change off the bat is an amendment to the Crimes Act 1958, which deals with secret commissions of trustees. This change has been introduced as a result of recent Supreme Court decisions which have told us that the offence in its current form may inadvertently capture innocuous or good faith replacements of trustees. As a result of this, there is a likely chance that there will be more applications made to the Supreme Court for ordinary routine matters, because trustees who are doing the right thing will not want to run afoul of or break the law.

This will be a really significant administrative burden. What it will mean is that the court will be clogged with applications it may not actually need to hear. That is why this bill breaks down the single offence of commissioning a trustee in secret to five separate offences, which ultimately narrows the scope of each to better capture conduct that may be done dishonestly or with an otherwise corrupt purpose. It also means that there will not be a requirement anymore for trustees to obtain permission from the beneficiaries or the Supreme Court to appoint a trustee – for the purposes of these offences – which will have the benefit of streamlining routine transactions.

The Supreme Court already deal with a number of important matters and court cases, and this change would reduce their workload of approving trustee activities and give them more time to hear the cases that come before them. These changes would also, most importantly, bring us into line with New South Wales – we always like to think we are leading New South Wales with anything that happens here in this state – and the intention is to stamp out corrupt behaviour from trustees. Of course these changes will have appropriate safeguards as neither trust beneficiaries nor the court would consent to dishonest or corrupt conduct on the part of the trustee.

Another important change with this bill is the removal of several outdated requirements for criminal proceedings. I am talking about things like requiring certain applications to be made in person or by post, for example. In the digital age we know that all these requirements do is place further administrative burden on our courts. In this case we know that that burden is felt by the Magistrates’ Court. What these changes will do is allow the court to expand its case management system to automate many of its high-volume functions for criminal proceedings, such as the filing of applications or certain court documents.

As I have said, this bill does not deliver major transformational reforms. It may be more technical in the scope of some of its changes than in its substance. But these changes are still really important and necessary, and they need to come before the house if we want our courts to operate efficiently and effectively, which overall is ultimately this government’s objective. It means less time hearing administrative inquiries and applications and more time resolving cases and matters before the courts, which means that people spend, most importantly, less time waiting for their disputes to be resolved. Administrative efficiency and clearing backlogs are always important goals for our court system and this government, and this bill will help them in achieving exactly that. That is why I commend this bill wholeheartedly to the house.