Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

Attempts by this government to politicise the judicial system and police enforcement in this country are becoming a disgracefully common occurrence. I am shocked and disappointed that the member for Goldstein has chosen to continue the degradation of our democratic principles in his pathetically dishonest motion today. He should have learned from the example of the three senior ministers of this government found themselves in court last week.

We gain nothing, absolutely nothing, from attacking either state or federal jurisdictions with spurious allegations that they are somehow soft on crime. It is an insult to our hardworking and incredibly brave police officers, to our independent judges and courts and, indeed, to the state and territory attorneys-general to suggest that they are focused on anything other than keeping Australians safe while upholding the values and freedoms that Australians hold dear.

The member for Goldstein makes a series of sweeping statements in this motion. He has made a few more here this evening. On what basis does he say that:

Victorians increasingly feel unsafe in their homes and on their streets …

How dare he make such a generalisation, which can only be designed to whip up fear and division in Victoria. The exploitation of fear to try to gain some partisan political advantage, as this motion is clearly intended to do, shows just what kind of politician the member for Goldstein is.

The member for Goldstein also makes a number of incorrect statements. In fact, they are ridiculous statements. It is blatantly untrue—and again I quote—that 'the Victorian government has lost control of the Victorian justice system' or that 'Victoria has the most lenient bail laws in the country'. Victoria's bail laws are already tough, and, in the wake of the Bourke Street tragedy, state Attorney General Martin Pakula announced a series of reforms which will make Victoria one of the toughest states to get bail in in the country. A report by Justice Coghlan earlier this year found:

The number of people received into adult prison on remand in 2015-16 was 70% higher than in 2010-11 …

He continued:

The data also shows that bail is refused more often now than five years ago.

That is right: five years ago, when there was a Liberal state government in Victoria. The report found that Victoria's bail system is already arguably 'the most onerous in Australia'—that is a direct quote. Nevertheless, the Andrews government has chosen to embark on some further important reforms.

Let me help the member for Goldstein with some other facts—though, having received his training at the institute for paid advocacy, it is no surprise that he seems to have very little interest in them. The Victorian government announced the single largest investment in police in the force's history in the 2017-18 budget—that is just last month—including a funding injection of $2 billion which will pay for more than 3,000 new sworn police officers. This is part of an effort to roll back the rising crime trend that began under the former Liberal state government. The crime rate rose each year under the previous coalition state government, following 11 years of a declining crime rate under Labor. Turning around a long-term crime trend does not happen overnight, but the Victorian government is committed to reducing crime and protecting the community.

But there is a larger issue here. Politicians conducting a slanging match over community safety are the last thing that Australians want to hear when they feel they are under threat. Honestly, what does the member for Goldstein wish to achieve in moving this motion today? If the member for Goldstein has something positive to offer in the fight against crime, he is welcome to put it forward, but baseless accusations of the type that he has made today do not serve the people of Victoria any more than they serve anyone anywhere else in Australia.

I was shocked by the swiftness with which the Prime Minister tried to attack the Victorian government in the aftermath of the recent Brighton terror attack. The name of the innocent victim had not even been released before Mr Turnbull took a cheap shot at Premier Daniel Andrews. There is a time for politics, and there is a time when politics should be put to one side. The fight against terror is clearly a time when politics should be put to one side. The Australian community gains absolutely nothing in these sorts of partisan political attacks. The member for Goldstein should be ashamed of himself for putting forward this motion, and perhaps next time he speaks in this parliament on this subject he will actually have some constructive proposition to put forward.

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