Major Crime and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 – Second Reading Debate
Ms ADDISON (Wendouree) (12:27): I too rise to speak today in support of the Major Crime and Community Safety Legislation Amendment Bill 2022. I am very pleased to follow the contribution of my good friend the member for Tarneit, and I think that was an excellent contribution.
This bill is important because it delivers on commitments this government made to keep our community safe. I would really like to thank the Attorney-General, her ministerial office and the Department of Justice and Community Safety for the hard work they do every day as well as for working on this bill to bring it into the house. So thank you very much to you.
Before I begin to speak on this bill I want to say how pleased I am that we now have affirmative consent laws in Victoria. Our new affirmative consent laws are about respect and autonomy and will make our state safer and better. These have just passed the upper house, and this is brand new and so important.
With explicit, informed and voluntary agreement now enshrined in law we have shifted the focus from the victim and towards the accused and what actions they took to confirm consent. This law is another example of our government’s commitment to stopping all forms of violence against women and is legislation that I am incredibly proud of.
Also, as the sun sets on the 59th Parliament, I want to acknowledge the former Attorney-General, the member for Altona, for the contribution she has made to law reform in Victoria, including on industrial manslaughter, the decriminalisation of public drunkenness, wage theft and the banning of gay conversion therapy. Further, as health minister the member for Altona led landmark reforms, including the introduction of safe access zones for abortion clinics, assisted dying laws and nurse-to-patient ratios. Our state is indebted to her contributions, and we thank her for her courageous and compassionate work.
But back to the bill, prior to the introduction of this bill to the house, work was done to consult with a variety of stakeholders and organisations involved in policing, financial services and the justice system. As always consultation is key in shaping any proposed legislation, and I thank those people from the department and the ministerial office who were involved in the consultation and really allowed these stakeholders to have meaningful input and feedback on this bill. We know that that is important, and it is something that is very important to me.
As we recognise this important bill regarding major crime and community safety, I want to recognise the day-to-day work of all those involved in keeping our communities safe and in particular to thank my local police in the electorate of Wendouree and throughout Ballarat. It is tough and challenging work that takes a toll on members and their families. I thank you for the job you do every day to keep Ballarat safe, and I would really like to give a shout-out to two of my favourite Victoria Police members, Caroline Johnson and Amy Underwood, who are very, very good officers and exceptional people.
Further, it is my first opportunity to congratulate the member for Ivanhoe on his appointment as Minister for Police, and I look forward to welcoming him to Ballarat to visit the police assistance line and the Ballarat regional forensic hub, which I am very pleased was opened by the member for Frankston earlier during this term. It was great to have him in Ballarat. I cannot wait to show the new Minister for Police the great forensic work that is being done right in my electorate, in Winter Valley, and have him meet our hardworking and dedicated VicPol members.
It is integral that the work of VicPol is supported by a modern, thorough and continually improving legislative framework. This is why this government is delivering on our commitments made in the Community Safety Statement 2018–19 to strengthen Victoria’s asset confiscation scheme and improve search warrant and crime scene processes.
What will this bill do? This bill will deliver on these commitments. It makes a range of improvements to how proceeds of crime are confiscated in Victoria, including dealing with digital assets and improving procedural efficiencies, as well as updating and streaming search warrant processes. It also reforms how fingerprint information is kept and used, as well as how assumed identities are utilised online in criminal investigations. In doing so, this bill amends several bills, primarily the Confiscation Act 1997, the Crimes Act 1958 and the Crimes (Assumed Identities) Act 2004.
Under existing powers, digital assets are often difficult to confiscate as proceeds of crime, a fact that is increasingly being taken advantage of by organised crime groups. These amendments will disrupt the criminal activity by modernising the Confiscation Act to allow law enforcement to identify, to seize and to secure these assets. It also specifies, as the member for Tarneit explained, that digital currency exchanges are to be considered as financial institutions under the act, so they can be required to provide information and freeze cryptocurrency assets in the same way that banks are. Amendments to the Confiscation Act will also provide information gathering through creating examination notices, which will compel documents for use in an examination process by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The bill additionally removes limitations that can prevent police from obtaining information notices for some properties used in criminal offending. This is balanced by robust safeguards ensuring that information notices may only be issued to senior police officers, who must justify in writing their belief that a property is related to criminal offending. Annual reports on the use of information notices by VicPol will have to be tabled in this Parliament.
Several further amendments will improve the application of enforcement and the finalisation procedures for confiscating the proceeds of crime. Officers within the Department of Justice and Community Safety will be able to apply for warrants for the seizure of forfeited property on behalf of police, although executing these warrants will remain a police responsibility. The warrant period will also be lengthened from one month to six, better reflecting the time it can take to intercept vehicles on the road. Police will also be better empowered to access and secure seized digital assets, such as cryptocurrency wallets.
Additional legislative inconsistencies are also addressed to ensure that property effectively controlled by offenders, as well as property involved in serious drug offences, is liable for forfeiture. Improvements are also made to the process of enforcing restraining orders which are put in place to facilitate payment orders made against an offender. This includes that restraining orders will no longer be required when using forfeited property to compensate victims. These amendments and more will together ensure that confiscation procedures are fit for purpose and reflect the realities of modern policing.
The next area that I want to talk about is the search warrant reforms. This bill further delivers on search warrant reforms, enacting another commitment from the Community Safety Statement 2018–19. Search warrants are critical policing procedures regulated under the Crimes Act 1958, and the practical application of these regulations must keep up with the times. This bill allows for experts, such as IT or firearms specialists, to assist in seizing evidence when required without these assistants needing to be named in advance. Police will also be permitted to break open locked safes when reasonably necessary. And, bringing Victoria into line with other Australian jurisdictions, police will be required to lodge a comprehensive report of seized assets instead of bringing those items back to court, and they will be able to display these items to the media where appropriate to publicise the outcome of investigations into serious crimes. Under these procedural improvements, search warrants will be safer, more efficient and more effective.
We are also going to look at issues regarding fingerprints, and the amendments to the Crimes Act 1958 also reform how police fingerprint information is kept and used by Victoria Police. They reduce undue administrative burdens on police concerning when fingerprint retention periods overlap and end, and they also facilitate the retention of fingerprint information for people who have passed away for use as evidence in solving and closing cases. Police will be empowered to identify seriously injured and deceased people based on fingerprints to then disclose their identity to medical practitioners and coroners. These are commonsense amendments that will streamline police processes and provide benefits to our community.
Finally, this bill also makes regulatory changes to how assumed identities can be used in criminal investigations. These acknowledge the changing reality of where and how these investigations take place, and the Crimes (Assumed Identities) Act 2004 was introduced at a time when assumed identities were primarily used in person by undercover operatives. We are making sure that some robust safeguards that are within the current act remain and that they are applied.
Taken as a whole, the important amendments in this bill will modernise regulations that would otherwise delay or compromise essential policing work. I commend the bill to the house.
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