Bill: Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025

BILL:

CRIMES AMENDMENT (PERFORMANCE CRIME) BILL 2025.

Tuesday, 30 July 2025.

James NEWBURY (Brighton) (12:49):

I rise to speak on the Crimes Amendment (Performance Crime) Bill 2025.

I would like to make a number of comments about this Bill. As the previous speaker, the Member for Eildon, quite eloquently said, the community does not feel safe because the community is not safe. It is not just that they do not feel safe – they are not safe.

When you look at this Bill, which is intended to deal with post and boast issues, you can see as you look around Australia that this Government has realised that it is behind the rest of the country when it comes to these types of very aggravated crimes. We have a crime problem; there is no doubt. I do not think anyone questions there being a crime problem. But what this Bill tries to do is deal with the aggravated nature of some of these most vicious crimes that are not only occurring, but people are then boasting about them afterwards, they are posting on their social media with joy and with glee the damage they are causing people, the hurt they are causing people.

I know that the Member for Eildon spoke about the incident of the poor man on the pier who could not swim and who was pushed off that pier; that video was shared many, many times, not just by the offender, which was obviously shocking, a shocking case, but then the media – rightly, to expose the damage of the weak laws – posted it again, completely understandably, to make the case. But the poor victim. I mean, you can just imagine what he went through knowing that everyone he knew would have seen that video. He would have known that almost every Victorian would have seen that video. Of course, we understand the media was trying to make the point that we need action. But what I think it reinforced was that we did not have action in Victoria. We did not have protections. But more than that, what this Bill does not do is help him.

This Bill at its core exhaustively lists the types of crimes that are captured by this Bill; it specifically lists at proposed Section 195U, the crimes that are included – crimes like robbery, armed robbery, burglary, aggravated burglary, home invasion. You hear from the Government that it should not be every single crime, it does not need to be every crime. But what has been forgotten is assault. Assault, you would argue, would probably be one of the most common causes of crime in relation to post and boast. When post and boast occurs, you would imagine that in many of the circumstances an assault has occurred. Not every case, but in many; I would argue that potentially even in most cases assault would have occurred – enough that it is wrong for it to not be in this Bill.

I will acknowledge the Greens spoke before about a matter that I would like to raise and have spoken about in media interviews recently, the incidents of gay men, members of the rainbow community, who have been bashed – lured through social media and assaulted, to use the legal term that we were just speaking about. In fact, since October last year 35 arrests have taken place where a young person, in most cases, has been lured and then attacked, assaulted – and that is not covered
by this bill. How could it not be? We know that 35 arrests have occurred where gay people have been lured and bashed, and there has been a boasting on social media about that crime – and that crime is not covered by this Bill. ‘How could that be?’, I say to the Government. I have spoken directly to police about this issue, and they have said to me what they are hoping to do is work out a way, when that occurs, to use affray, which is listed in the Bill – to somehow use affray to work around the loophole in the Bill.

Why should police on the job be trying to find a workaround because of a loophole in a Bill?

The Member for Malvern, the Shadow Attorney, as he does with every Bill, has looked at this closely and in this case developed a very, very strong set of Amendments. I would say to the Government: look at the Member for Malvern’s Amendments, because they are very, very clever Amendments. They enhance the bill. Clearly the Attorney does not have enough time to commit 100 per cent of her focus to the drafting of a good and proper Bill, so use the Amendments that the Member for Malvern, on behalf of the Coalition, has come up with. They include the inclusion of assault in the Bill to ensure that the list is more robust, and things like causing serious injury intentionally in circumstances of gross violence – clearly the type of crime we know has occurred in relation to post and boast – and destroying or damaging property.

The Member has put forward a number of very important suggestions, just as he has also proposed the deletion of the one-person-sharing rule. Under this Bill, if a criminal passes the video to another person and asks them to post it, they have not committed any offence. Straightaway they have got a loophole out of this Bill. If you commit assault, we know that this Bill is not going to touch you, and we know that if you share it one to one, guess what? You are out again. This Bill is full of loopholes.

The third proposition put forward by the Member for Malvern is to ensure that any penalty in relation to this crime is served differently than the core crime in
and of itself. Why does that make sense? Of course it makes sense, and there will be arguments as to whether or not the judiciary should have capacity to consider these issues, but we know that when you post and boast you are committing an aggravating offence. You are not only in many cases hurting someone; you are
then deciding to take a video and aggravate that crime by boasting about it on social media, so it only makes sense that that different crime be dealt with differently and that a punishment be attached to that behaviour. That is the problem in this State: we do not have proper consequences for crimes, and that is why crimes are increasing.

We heard the Government today talking about extending the implementation of the new bail Bill they introduced this week and not operating it before the end of March next year. Imagine introducing a Bill in July and saying, ‘I’m not going to bring it in until April the year after.’ What a joke. There must be some 15 sitting weeks until then, so we know that the bail Bill is nothing more than a stunt. But the point I am trying to make is that we need to do more than introduce Bills that do not fix problems.

Though we are not opposing this Bill, we are saying strongly to the Government: consider the Coalition’s Amendments. The Member for Malvern has done a power of work, and the Amendments he has proposed will not allow the loopholes that clearly exist and will ensure that consequences are delivered to the people who are committing these most aggravating crimes and that a message is sent out to those criminals that it is not good enough and they are going to be punished for their behaviour.