Juliana ADDISON (Wendouree) (11:46): I am very pleased to rise today to speak in support of the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill 2025, which proposes a number of improvements to our justice system. Together these improvements will ensure processes within our justice system can function as intended and that safety is prioritised in our prisons and, importantly, in our communities.

I would like to recognise and thank the Minister for Corrections in the other place, his ministerial office and the Department of Justice and Community Safety for developing this proposed legislation. As chair of the Women’s Correctional Services Advisory Committee, I work closely with the minister, and I want to thank him for his strong support of WCSAC and the work that we do as a committee. I would also like to acknowledge the work of Ross Porter and thank him for the support and advice that he provides. We have two women’s correctional facilities in Victoria, the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre in Deer Park and Tarrengower in Maldon. Through my role I have had the opportunity to visit these prisons on a number of occasions, meeting with staff and women in custody. I want to thank the corrections staff for the work they do, their professionalism and their dedication.

Just this week WCSAC visited the Werribee justice centre to learn more about supervised court orders, community correction orders and drug treatment orders. A special thankyou to Patti, who shared her lived experience with the committee as a woman who has served time in custody and is now doing great advocacy work on the outside, as well as senior parole officers, court practice workers and advanced practitioners, who provided insights into the work that they do, why these orders are important, how they are implemented and, most importantly, how they are keeping our community safe. It was a really worthwhile visit, and I do just want to thank the great members of WCSAC for the work that they do as important stakeholders in providing advice to the minister about women in the corrections system and in custody across Victoria.

In terms of the Corrections Legislation Amendment Bill, which is before us today, there has been significant consultation, and I would like to recognise all the stakeholders who have contributed to the development of this bill, including Corrections Victoria, the Office of Public Prosecutions, Victoria Police, the Aboriginal Justice Caucus, the Department of Health and the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing. They are really important stakeholders, because when we are talking about corrections we really do need a whole-of-government approach.

The Department of Justice and Community Safety also briefed the Community and Public Sector Union on staff assault reform. I know from my firsthand experience of visiting prisons that prisons by their very nature are dynamic environments and corrections staff do an incredible job every day. We have heard the safety concerns, and we are ensuring that corrections staff have the option to use handcuffs and other strategies and tools to keep themselves safe.

Whether they work in corrections in Victoria or whether they work in any business, every worker in Victoria deserves a safe workplace and occupational health and safety rights. We know that this government is a champion of workers and a champion of occupational health and safety, and that is why it has supported workplace manslaughter laws and why it works every day with unions and respects unions. To be lectured about unions, as a former national official of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, is a little bit rich. We will continue to implement measures that support and protect our hardworking staff and our union members, and once again I thank them for the work they do.

The Victorian government is dedicated to making our community safer and making our justice system stronger, and in the most recent budget, this government committed $2 billion towards the criminal justice system, courts and emergency services. $727 million it has invested in improving capacity at prisons and youth justice centres, providing beds and more staff. But I would also like to highlight some of the funding in this year’s state budget that is targeting recidivism and integration. Examples of these include employment hubs at prisons as well as assessment and transition coordinators and Aboriginal wellbeing officers, who assist with the transition into and out of custody.

With regard to what is before us, the Serious Offenders Act 2018 was introduced in 2018 and addresses the management of offenders who still pose an unacceptable and serious risk upon the completion of their prison sentence. A five-year review was required under this legislation and was completed by the department in 2023, offering 13 recommendations. Several of these recommendations require legislative changes, which is what the bill before us provides. It also improves the function of our justice system through a number of related provisions. Altogether this bill proposes amendments primarily to the Serious Offenders Act 2018, the Sex Offenders Registration Act 2004 and the Corrections Act 1986, with additional consequential amendments made to three further acts.

I would like to really highlight some of the changes proposed to the Corrections Act. Firstly, this bill will better protect the thousands of corrections workers in our prisons by ensuring real consequences for any prisoners who cause injury to them. This bill does so by broadening the stated definition of ‘prison offence’ to include special offences against custodial workers on duty, which includes governors, prison officers, escort officers and others fulfilling the same functions. Prison offences come with jail time that is cumulative, not concurrent, and therefore all prisoners convicted of injuring a corrections worker will face real additional time added to their sentence – a real consequence for their behaviour and their actions.

Another amendment to the Corrections Act will make sure that ‘no body, no parole’ provisions can function as truly intended. ‘No body, no parole’ requires a person in prison for murder or manslaughter to cooperate with police in locating a victim’s remains in order to be considered for parole. We know this provides deep and emotional significance for victims’ families and loved ones and ongoing trauma. Families are often left in a painful limbo. The proposed amendments clarify this provision, relating specifically to situations where there is no body, and that is to say, only in situations when a victim’s remains are still missing. ‘No body, no parole’ is intended to address a narrow, agonising set of circumstances. This amendment better conveys that intent.

The final substantive change to the Corrections Act allows for a more responsive approach to the automatic cancellation of parole. This currently occurs if a person on parole is sentenced to a separate term of imprisonment, no matter how short. The proposed amendment makes it clear that the Adult Parole Board of Victoria, if they see fit, may revoke these automatic parole cancellations. Used judiciously, these revocations will help to avoid additional, unnecessary, lengthy and expensive parole reapplications. It also allows the board the discretion to reverse potentially unjust parole cancellations ‍– for example, when a very short sentence is imposed for a nonviolent offence. Reinstating parole, where appropriate, also allows for monitoring and support during the transition back into community. Together these improvements will work to ensure that the Corrections Act can function as intended, keeping our prisons and our communities safe.

This bill will also make amendments to the Serious Offenders Act to implement several recommendations from its recent review. In particular I would like to highlight the amendments designed specifically to better support the experience of victims. This bill clarifies that relevant persons on the victims register should be appropriately notified regarding an offender’s involvement in the post-sentence scheme. They may also make submissions regarding the offender’s management, but significantly these amendments will allow the Post Sentence Authority to use more discretion when deciding what matters require notifications so that victims can be kept sufficiently informed while not being inundated with unnecessary and potentially traumatic notifications.

Further improvements that are proposed in this bill include clarifying the role of the authority in the courts with regard to directions about living arrangements as well as electronic monitoring orders. They include specifying that police may remand in custody, release on bail or release unconditionally persons arrested for contravening supervision orders so that police can respond appropriately to specific situations, and they include allowing the court that places the suppression order to be the court that deals with any potential breaches.

There are a number of other improvements that we are making to the Post Sentence Authority too: increasing it from 10 to 13 and including at least one member identifying as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. This is an important bill. I commend it to the house.

You can take a look at more of my contributions to Parliament here.