Second Reading
Danny O’BRIEN (Gippsland South) (15:35): I think I said in the debate on the Human Source Management Bill 2023 last year that this was putting to bed the sorry saga of the Lawyer X scandal. Sadly, I was wrong, because here we are again addressing an issue that has brought great shame on the state of Victoria and, sadly, on Victoria Police, who I have the utmost respect for in every other sense. Now we have this extraordinary piece of legislation, and you can tell by the number of speakers, the time allocated for speaking on this legislation and the lack of interjections by those opposite that this government’s heart is not in this bill at all. This government is very embarrassed about this, as it should be. The government is introducing this legislation to take away people’s rights before the courts. I quote from the Attorney-General’s press release, which says:
… the Bill will protect taxpayers from further costs associated with this appalling chapter of police informant misuse.
I could sum up my response to this bill and possibly that of many of us on this side as: now you care about taxpayers dollars. It is extraordinary that the government is now introducing this virtually unprecedented legislation on the basis that it cares about saving taxpayers dollars. We have seen 10 years of complete disrespect for taxpayers and their dollars time and time and time again, whether it is the issues that the member for Malvern highlighted – the $1.3 billion spent to not build a road, the east–west link; the $600 million so far that it has cost this government not to hold the Commonwealth Games; or the $40 billion in cost overruns on the Big Build projects, in part thanks to the government’s friends in the CFMEU. I mean, it is simply extraordinary now for the government to say, ‘We care about taxpayers dollars, and as a result we’re going to introduce legislation that removes the legal rights of a certain class of citizen irrespective of what the background of those citizens might be.’
Those of us on this side believe in the principle of equality before the law, and it is very clear that this government have decided to try and put to bed a political issue. I actually think they will not do that anyway. Despite the headline of the Attorney-General’s media release about drawing a line under the royal commission into police informant spending, the very clear likelihood, as evidenced also by the briefing provided by the government, is that this will end up in the High Court as well and quite possibly will be struck out.
As the member for Malvern has also indicated, it is likely to happen again because the government not only is trying to draw a line under the Lawyer X scandal but also has actually legislated to allow it to happen again – to allow conduct to occur again that the High Court described as ‘reprehensible’. And yet the government sits there and says, ‘Oh, we’re going to draw a line under it.’ This is an extraordinary piece of legislation, so it is no surprise that this legislation is friendless at the moment – that the Australian Lawyers Alliance is opposed to it, that the Law Institute of Victoria is opposed to it and that the Victorian Bar has indicated it is ‘unprecedented in this country’, let alone in Victoria. It is quite extraordinary that the government is going to these ends.
As the member for Malvern indicated, some of the people involved in this scandal are not people that we necessarily would be usually supporting. I think I said in the Human Source Management Bill discussion that there will be some people in the public who will say, ‘Well, whatever means to put the crooks behind bars; whatever means it takes for the police to do that.’ They might also be thinking the same with this: ‘Ah well, they were crooks. They were part of the criminal underworld, and so they shouldn’t have any rights to sue the state.’ To that I say to the public and to the government: imagine it was you. Imagine you had been convicted and spent 12 years in jail for a crime that the High Court said you should never have been convicted of, and now, having spent that time in jail, you have no recompense because the Parliament of Victoria has passed legislation to specifically preclude you and anyone else in the same circumstances, involving just two people, from taking action against the government. That is a misuse of state power, and that is a fundamental breach of the democratic norms that we have in this state and the right to a fair go in particular in Australia.
I want to go to in particular the hypocrisy that this bill reveals in this government, because they are saying, ‘This is costing us too much, it’s inconvenient and so we need to remove people’s rights,’ yet we saw this government sit idly by for 10 years while green activists took legal action after legal action against VicForests. The Labor government failed to act on that, and not only failed to act on it when it could have done so but actually agreed and legislated to shut down the sustainable native timber industry in the face of lawfare. I go to that point because when we asked the former Premier Mr Andrews about this last year, I asked him why he would not act to codify aspects of the timber harvesting model, and the Premier then said, ‘We have got Victorian government solicitor advice, senior counsel advice, that we cannot do so.’ He said it was not legally certain or legally safe. We have already been told that this is not legally certain or safe and that it is more than likely to end up going to the High Court. When I asked the former Premier ‘Will you provide that legal advice to the public?’, because timber workers were saying ‘Well, you could have done something; you could have legislated the timber harvesting situation to ensure that that industry could continue in the face of legal threats,’ he said, ‘No. We will not provide that advice.’ So on the one hand the government failed to support for 10 long years a sustainable, job-creating industry in regional areas when it could have acted to provide some certainty in the face of legal challenges, and on the other hand we have the government shutting down something completely embarrassing to this government simply for political purposes. The hypocrisy is just astounding in this.
I am extremely concerned at the actions of this government in this legislation. I think it is extraordinarily misleading that the government’s line in this, the quote from the Attorney-General in her media release, is that:
We haven’t shied away from confronting the difficult truths that arose from the Royal Commission.
Yes, they are. They are shying away within this legislation. They are shutting down any legal opportunity for those affected by this. It is exactly what the government is doing. They are shying away – that is what this legislation is all about.
As the member for Malvern highlighted, the aspects of this legislation that are in contravention of the charter of human rights just beggar belief. From the lecturing that we heard – I was not here at the time, member for Malvern, but I do remember the former Attorney-General going on about it. Mr Hulls went on for decades about the importance of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. When it does not suit the Labor Party, they just dump it. They absolutely just dump it, to the extent that the second-reading speech from the minister says:
The exceptional circumstance warranting a charter override is the need to promote finality in relation to causes of action related to the royal commission and protect Victorian taxpayers and the state from further royal commission related expenditure.
What is exceptional about that? Those things happen all the time. This is just a crock from this government. The government does not have its heart in it. I have not had a single interjection and the member for Malvern did not have a single interjection because those opposite clearly are embarrassed about this legislation, as they should be. They should be embarrassed about this.
I know we are going to hear from the Greens shortly on this legislation. I strongly urge them also to oppose this legislation. The Liberals and Nationals will be opposing this legislation. I urge those in the other place to also oppose this legislation. It is undemocratic, and it should not pass this Parliament.