A-G defends slow pace of reform to state bail laws

VICTORIAN Attorney-General Martin Pakula has defended the implementation of stricter bail laws, saying the Government won’t rush the “extremely complex” changes.

The Government has been accused of dragging its feet on enacting the bail reforms, scheduled to come into effect on July 1, after they passed parliament last June after the fatal Bourke Street rampage.

But Mr Pakula said the Andrews Government had good reasons for the timeline.

“These are the most profound bail changes in Victorian history and they’re extremely complex,” he said yesterday.

“They will lead to probably hundreds of additional people being remanded and the courts, the police, corrections, bail justices are all going to take some time to get these bail laws planned and readied.”

Victoria’s second instalment of bail laws will be debated when parliament resumes next week, the Attorney-General said. “All of the advice is that those two sets of bail laws should commence together,” he said.

The criticism of the reform rollout comes as a Melbourne magistrate made comments from the bench about the state’s bail law commencement date.

On Thursday, magistrate Ross Maxted was compelled to grant bail to an accused drugaffected driver who allegedly killed a Glen Waverley father in a high-speed crash in November.

Mr Maxted said he was “obliged” to release the defendant as the reforms weren’t yet gazetted and the prosecu- tion hadn’t proved he was an unacceptable risk to the community.

Mr Pakula said he was “very surprised” by the remarks. “It is unwise for magistrates to start dolling out advice to governments about when laws should commence,” he said.

Shadow attorney-general John Pesutto said the Government still hadn’t fixed the state’s broken bail system.