DURING the last siting day of State Parliament, on Thursday, September 11, there was quite a to do about two 14-year-olds being released on bail at Mildura.

One was a 14-year-old-girl accused of home invasion, who had already been cautioned 14 times by police and the second, a 14-year-old boy who stole a woman’s car during a home invasion before hitting speeds of 140km/h while on bail.

Police and the magistrate acknowledged it was a “tragedy waiting to happen” but still bailed the alleged offender.

It prompted a series of questions to the Premier Jacinta Allan including from the Member for Mildura Jade Benham.

“The Premier says her government has made changes so that ‘community safety comes first in all bail-making decisions’. How was community safety put first in this case?” asked Ms Benham.

There have been such cases locally, involving young teenagers, released on bail multiple times, only to go out and reoffend time and time again. And a high-profile case last Friday in Melbourne where a 15-year-old, charged with five armed robberies, was released on bail so he could go on European holiday with his family.

“In answering the Member for Mildura’s question, I reiterate what I have said in previous answers, that this Parliament has passed tougher bail laws that have made it absolutely clear to all bail decision makers across the justice system that community safety must come first. Indeed, following that, I know that the Attorney has directly raised this requirement from the new legislation with the courts, and I will ask the Attorney to reiterate that position with the courts once again,” said Premier Allan.

Whatever the Opposition and the city media might say, Korumburra Magistrate Stephen Lee, at least, got the memo.

In making his decision last Thursday to refuse an application for bail by a local man who has already spent 68 days in custody, waiting for his family violence charges to be heard, he even referenced the recent changes to the Bail Act.

He said the changes, including that community safety must be a guiding principle of his decision, had “fundamentally rebalanced the responsibility of the magistrate” when assessing the merits of individual applications.

In the end, after a comprehensive assessment of the pros and cons, he said that while the applicant had provided compelling reasons why he should be released, pending the hearing of his case in February next year, Mr Lee could not lower the risks to an acceptable level, with bail conditions.

Therefore, he will not be released, he said, acknowledging that it would effectively mean the man would spend six months in jail, before his case was heard.

This was despite noting that the facts in the case were being hotly contested, the alleged victim didn’t want the prosecution to proceed and there were “holes in the police case”.

The shift to a community safety priority also removes the principle of remand as a “last resort" for youth offenders, allowing for more stringent measures against repeat youth offenders.

On the same day at Korumburra last Thursday, a local 14-year-old boy of slight build was led into the dock by police where he was remanded in custody for 11 days until a bail application can be heard, likely spending a difficult time in custody, according to police, in the Melbourne Youth Justice Centre (formerly known as ‘Turana’) in Parkville.

So, the new bail laws are starting to kick in.

“In answering those questions, I have gone to how the actions that we have taken as a government have strengthened and toughened the bail laws, which is making a difference. The number of people on remand has gone up by 26 per cent,” said the Premier in Parliament last month.

Independent data supports the Premier’s claims.

For the first time since March this year when the government introduced tougher bail laws via its Bail Amendment Act 2025 and in July when it strengthened them still further through its Bail Further Amendment Bill, the Crime Statistics Agency has released bail data for the financial year to June 30, 2025.

Despite only including a few months under the new tougher bail regime and likely due to the publicity given to offences committed on bail and the “revolving door” for youth offenders, there has been a marked shift in bail numbers.

• 1.4% reduction in bail granted down from 21,155 in 2023 and 17,961 in 2024 to 17,693 in 2025
• 32.3% increase in bail refused from 8557 in 2024 to 11,319 in 2025.
• 85% increase in bail revoked up from 3574 to 6612.
• 4.7% reduction in bail granted to 10-14-year-olds.
• 20.9% increase in bail refused (10-14-year-olds).
• 93.8% increase in bail revoke (10-14-year-olds).
• Highest increase: Bail refused to males aged 35-44 years up 40.8%.

If numbers on remand have already increased by 26%, as claimed by the Premier, it will be interesting to see what the numbers in custody will be after 12 months under the nation’s toughest bail regime described by the Federation of Community Legal Centres (Vic) as “extreme” even before the government’s Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025 was introduced into Parliament in July this year.

On top of the strengthened bail laws introduced in March, the latest changes include:

• A new bail test for people accused of repeat, serious offending to protect Victorian families and deal with repeat, high-harm offending, and
• A new second strike rule for people already on bail who are accused of further offending, making it harder for them to get bail.

The tough new test will apply to those on bail for and charged again with any of the following offences:

• Aggravated home invasion
• Aggravated carjacking
• Armed robbery
• Aggravated burglary
• Home invasion, and
• Carjacking.

New second strike rule: This involves uplifting the bail test for a person accused of repeat offending so that it is stricter than it would have been for a person accused of an offence for the first time.

The offences that will be subject to the new uplift provisions include:

• Burglary
• Motor vehicle theft
• Assaults
• Robbery
• Riot and affray
• *Firearms and controlled weapons offences
• Sex offences
• Serious drug offence
• Theft ($2500)
• Criminal damage (above $5000, or where damage is caused by fire).

“We said we needed to go further under our tough new bail laws to keep Victorians safe and that is what we are delivering,” said Premier Allan.

“Victorians are rightly disgusted with repeated, violent offending. Now, our bail laws are the toughest in the country, because community safety will always come first.”

Bail was refused last Thursday, by Korumburra Magistrate Stephen Lee, to a man accused of two incidents of extreme family violence, on one occasion allegedly punching his partner four times in the face while the pair were in the car, and on another occasion when he attacked the woman in her own home, while being subject to a full intervention order, bashing, strangling and kicking the woman to such an extent that she needed an MRI to rule out any back injury.

The man is a repeat offender, having been convicted of recklessly causing injury to a former partner in 2010, including threatening to kill her baby.

Magistrate Lee said the bail applicant was “fast becoming a recidivist family violence offender” and he couldn’t be sure that whatever bail conditions he applied including curfews, exclusion and reporting conditions that it would stop the man from breaching the intervention orders that were already in place.