2018-05-23
Ms PENNICUIK (Southern Metropolitan) — I am a bit perplexed by the motion put forward by Mr O'Donohue, motion 538, which asks the house to note that since the election of the Andrews government there has been an increase in calls and referrals to the victims of crime helpline and an increase in victims assistance program cases, both related to non-family violence-related crime. I can sometimes be quite critical of the government not going as far as I would like to see it go in resourcing the justice system, in particular the area of crime prevention. Yesterday we spent quite a long time talking about the issue of access to justice and the funding of Victoria Legal Aid and the legal assistance program across the state. But this government has put some effort and resources towards family violence-related crime and prevention of that and assistance to victims of family violence. I do not think anybody in here could stand up and say that is not the case.
With regard to victims of crime assistance in this budget — and I heard Mr Leane referring to it — you can see in the budget papers there is some $6.2 million for assistance for victims of crime and nearly $3 million for the intermediary scheme to support victims in court, which was part of legislation that passed just recently. That is a very good program. There are already programs existing to assist victims of crime in the courts, as there should be. I myself have been a victim of crime. I know many people who have been victims of crime, as everybody in this chamber does. I know how traumatic it can be, particularly if it is a serious incident and involves personal assault or injury. Of course it is traumatic. It is traumatic to that person, it is traumatic to their families and friends, and it has a long-lasting effect on their life.
But I have to agree with Mr Leane that it is not correct for the opposition to come in here and maintain that there has been a massive increase in crime since the election of this government and that it has something to do with the election of this government. There have always been crimes. There have always been people who commit crimes. It is the job of the government, as I have said, to put more resources into crime prevention. That is the best way to keep the community safe, and it will mean that less people will become victims of crime. We need to focus a lot more than we do on crime prevention.
As I said yesterday, there are some tens of millions of dollars allocated to crime prevention programs, many of which are technological solutions such as CCTV, for example. I would not really class them as crime prevention programs. There are hundreds of millions of dollars put into the corrections system in terms of building prisons to keep people in prisons. Some people do need to be in prison, but an awful lot of people who are in prison would be better off if they were on community correction programs, as would the community, because it would assist in rehabilitating those people and reducing recidivism, which members of the opposition yesterday said was a problem. It is a problem. For the people who are actually incarcerated, particularly on remand — we have a growing number of people who are held on remand — it is not a good environment. We must always remember that a person held on remand is not a person convicted of any crime or sentenced to any sentence. They are just held until their particular matter arises in court.
Much of the discussion yesterday was about the pressure there has been on the court system — the Magistrates Court, the Supreme Court, the County Court — trying to deal with the increasing burden caused by sentencing changes, changes to bail and changes to parole. It is all well and good for those changes to be passed through the Parliament, but if the courts are not resourced to deal with them we end up with problems in the courts and problems in the prison system.
There are also programs that are run by the parole board to make sure victims of crime are kept in the loop with regard to parole decisions. There is a register and there are processes to keep people informed as to what is happening. The Greens and I have always supported those programs to make sure that victims of crime are fairly treated in the court system and the justice system and that everything is done, as I said, to prevent crime in the first place as much as it can be.
Mr Finn said before that we had never heard of things called carjackings or home invasions before. Well, that is just not true. I can remember that happening when I was a young person in the 1970s. I can remember what are called home invasions now by what they have always been called, aggravated burglaries, under the Crimes Act 1958 prior to now. I can remember those happening when I was growing up. I can remember people's car doors being opened when they were stopped at lights and the person being either forced out of their car or forced to drive somewhere in their car. I can remember those things happening when I was younger. It is not as if they were just invented three or four years ago and they had never occurred before then. Otherwise why would you have crimes listed in the Crimes Act called aggravated burglary and kidnapping? They were there because those crimes occurred. As horrific as they are and as traumatic as they will be to anybody who is a victim of them, it is not correct to somehow assert that they never existed before, as we just heard one member do. Of course they existed. I think I said once before that I remember when I first got my drivers licence my father saying to me, 'Make sure you always lock your doors'. Why was he saying that? Because those crimes did occur. That is why. They did not just start since the election of the Andrews government. It is a stupid notion that the opposition is bringing here.
We think, yes, there should always be more support for victims of crime to make sure their experience of court and the justice system is fair and with the least trauma that could add to the trauma they have already experienced. Many times people could look back through my contributions in this place to see me speaking up in support of crime prevention and victims of crime. The opposition has its suite of victims of crime policies that it has announced, which it has not put in its motion. It is one thing for the opposition to stand by the policies they have announced and be proud of them even, but it is another thing to then come into the chamber and expect everybody else to congratulate them for them when they may or may not agree with those policies or parts of those policies. The Greens will not be able to support the motion put forward by Mr O'Donohue.