Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Decriminalisation of Possession and use of Drugs of Dependence) Bill 2022
We can reduce harm and save lives.
We can reduce costs to the criminal justice system and in acute health care.
We can reduce stigma.
We can intervene early to change the trajectory of a person’s life.
We can do this by treating drug use as a health issue with a health solution, not a criminal one.
That is what this bill will achieve by one simple mechanism.
Of drug arrests in Victoria, 93.5 per cent are consumer arrests, as compared to 6.5 per cent supplier arrests.
Of the 32 860 drug arrests in Victoria last year, 26 195, or just on 80 per cent, were for the offences of drug use or possession only. Seventy-two Victorians are arrested every day for drug use or possession and most of them young people.
Possession or attempted possession of a drug of dependence is around the third most common charge heard in the Magistrates Court of Victoria. 21 263 charges for this offence were finalised in the Magistrates Court in the 2018–19 financial year, when the court last reported this data.
Despite the existence of drug diversion programs intended to divert people away from the criminal justice system, the majority of people charged with drug use or possession do not escape it.
This is a drain on police resources, which could be much better focused on serious crime, as we know they want to be. The Victoria Police Drug Strategy 2020–2025 makes this clear. This strategy states that ‘Victoria Police recognises that drug problems are first and foremost health issues’. It goes on to say that ‘Victoria Police has an important role … in … connecting people who need help into treatment by diverting and referring them to services that support them to recover and be active members of society’ including ‘supporting health-led prevention-first approaches’. Their operational focus is disrupting and reducing supply at the mid-tier and high-tier levels—on organised crime and traffickers. But the law as it stands today is constraining and it means that extensive police resources continue to be tied up in policing minor drug offending—something that police acknowledge is a health issue, not a criminal one.
This bill will change that.
Under my proposal, Victoria Police will issue a drug education or treatment notice that refers a person to drug education or treatment if that person is believed on reasonable grounds to have used a drug of dependence or possessed a small quantity of a drug of dependence.
Compliance with a drug education or treatment notice will result in no finding of guilt and no recorded criminal outcome. More importantly, it will result in a health intervention, and an early one at that.
This is a concise mechanism to treat drug use and possession as a health issue with a health solution.
In many respects, this is not a big paradigm shift. Cautioning and diversion programs currently exist to achieve this exact end, and have done for decades, but they have huge gaps. Diversion is typically reserved for low-level and first-time offenders. Strict eligibility requirements, inconsistent service delivery and a reliance on the exercise of police discretion limit access to many. Aboriginal Victorians are disproportionately affected. Large numbers of people continue to fall through these gaps and are instead policed and sanctioned.
The evidence is clear: there is a better way.
It fits entirely within this government’s crime prevention strategy, which focuses on early intervention, with the distinct goals of ensuring that fewer Victorians come into contact with the criminal justice system and that more people at risk of offending are connected earlier with more effective support.
There is strong public support in Victoria and Australia for decriminalisation approaches.
Many countries around the world have already decriminalised drug use and possession in various ways.
The World Health Organization has recommended the decriminalisation of injecting and other drug use, in partnership with the United Nations.
The Global Commission on Drug Policy has long supported such an approach and has advocated that ‘there must be no penalty whatsoever imposed for low-level possession and/or consumption offenses.’
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians have stated that governments ‘need to move away from the dominant paradigm of criminality’ and increase focus on health and wellbeing through the removal and replacement of criminal penalties with health interventions to target ‘an individual’s use of a drug where no serious harm is caused to others’.
It stands to reason, and that is what this bill will achieve.
Turning to the detail, the primary purpose of the bill is to amend the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 to provide for the offences of using and possessing a drug of dependence in a small quantity to be dealt with by way of a drug education or treatment notice.
The bill nominally commences on 1 July 2022, if not proclaimed earlier.
The bill creates a distinction between possessing a drug of dependence in a small quantity and possessing a drug of dependence in more than a small quantity.
Schedule 11 of the principal act, which sets out the small quantities of any given drug, is unaffected by this bill.
For possession of a small quantity, the bill creates a new summary offence, fixes a maximum penalty of 1 penalty unit for that offence and provides that where a person is believed on reasonable grounds to have committed the offence, they must be served with a drug education and treatment notice.
Likewise, the maximum penalty for use of a drug of dependence is reduced to 1 penalty unit. That offence becomes a summary offence, and the same framework is applied with respect to the service of an education or treatment notice.
The bill sets out what a drug education and treatment notice is and what it is must contain. A drug education and treatment notice will direct a person to engage with services or programs in order to address the person’s use of drugs of dependence for a specified period of not more than 12 months.
The specifics, including approved drug education programs and providers, will be determined via regulation.
Compliance with a drug education or treatment notice will mean that no proceeding may be commenced and no admission of guilt or conviction recorded.
Matters can still proceed to court if a person elects to do so or in circumstances where there is a failure to comply with a drug education or treatment notice.
The bill makes consequential amendments to the circumstances where adjourned bonds are to be given.
Importantly, police search and seizure powers are unaffected.
Finally, I would like to quote again from the police drug strategy: ‘Drug users could be our children, members of our family, our friends or people who have lost their way. When we see the human, we will see the way forward’.
This is intelligent change based firmly on evidence and has the overwhelming support of the community.
I commend the bill.
Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (21:15): I am very pleased to speak somewhat briefly and somewhat specifically to the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021, which as we have heard from Ms Bath just now, is an omnibus bill with lots of features and tendrils to it. But I would like to focus my attention on part 19. Two years ago I introduced the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Out of Home Care Age) Bill 2020. Back then in Victoria exit care planning for kids in foster and state care began at 15 years of age, and every child must have left the nest by their 18th birthday. As many as 800 young people were leaving care in Victoria every year. In Victoria somewhere around 11 000 children are unable to live with their parents at any given time and find themselves in the statutory care of the state—that is, their legal guardian or parent is the government. Most of these children are living in foster or kinship care, but around 6 per cent live in residential or group homes. Now, this may be the result of violence in the home or issues with their parents’ drug use or mental health. There is a plethora of reasons why children can no longer live in their homes.
When we think about who these children are and the trauma that these children may already have experienced in their young lives, there is no doubt many will remain vulnerable. While 85 per cent of 18- to 21-year-olds in Australia are still living at home with one or both parents—and I know many of us would have experienced having adult children still living at home with one or both parents—we were expecting, until this bill, our vulnerable care leavers to fend for themselves at age 18. It was quite simply a recipe for disaster, and the statistics have borne that out. Care and support, financial and emotional, is withdrawn by the state. It is abrupt, and it is no surprise that within 12 months of leaving care 50 per cent of our care leavers were homeless, in jail or unemployed—50 per cent. For those reasons, countries like the USA, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany and Portugal extended care to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds with, not surprisingly, incredible results. And that is why I introduced a bill some time ago to do the same here in Victoria, because it simply stood to reason. In Leeds, England, the year after they extended their leaving-care age, only one young care leaver ended up in custody, as compared to 102 in the year before implementation. So it went from 100 kids ending up in custody to just one—just by this simple model.
Deloitte Access Economics estimated that continuing care in Australia to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds would almost halve homelessness, reduce hospitalisation by one-third, reduce mental illness by over 40 per cent, increase engagement in education, significantly decrease arrests and massively decrease alcohol and drug dependence for this cohort. So this amendment—part 19 of this bill—is really a no-brainer, and I am pleased that we got there. And I have to say I am pleased that we were able to nudge the government in that direction. It is very good evidence-based policy. It is a platform of the Reason Party. It is why we brought the issue to this place. To the government’s credit, they acted almost immediately to extend the Home Stretch program administratively in 2020, but legislating this change just guarantees that reform.
Today we see lasting legislative reform being locked into our statutes. This will save and change lives. Ms Maxwell and I have been working on the justice inquiry and we have seen the effect of—you would not even almost call this ‘early intervention’ at 18—providing safety and security to our young people, the impact that will have on their lives in the future and the impact that will have on our justice system, on our homelessness system, on so many other factors in our society.
This bill will expand the secretary’s responsibilities to provide services to assist young people under the age of 21 who are transitioning from out-of-home care to adulthood to include young people who have grown up in permanent care. I think all of us can think of that 18-year-old, and the thought of just closing the door, changing the locks and saying ‘You’re on your own now’ when some of them may be still trying to finish year 12 and some of them are just still trying to find their way—most of us cannot even conceive of doing that with our children.
The bill also creates a legal obligation for the secretary to provide a transition to adulthood allowance for all eligible care leavers. The allowance will contribute to the costs of accommodation and support for young people who have left care as they transition to adulthood where the young person is living independently or where they are remaining with their existing home-based carer. This is how the wonderful Home Stretch program will be delivered, via this reform, to the 500 or 600 young people who leave care this year and in years to come. I congratulate the government for listening and for acting on this really important policy.
I did not write this section, but I think this is how having a crossbench does impact in here. It does enable us to nudge on policy. I do not want to take credit for this because I know there are the Home Stretch campaigners and there have been so many people campaigning for this change. But sometimes it takes someone to bring it into the house, to just push it that little bit further and push it over the hill so it gets onto the legislative agenda of the government, and I will take some credit for doing that. But this is very pragmatic change, as I just would like to reiterate—change that has been campaigned for by many organisations. I certainly would like to congratulate all of them, and I know that all of them are feeling really good in the knowledge that we are legislating for these changes.
As I said, this is an omnibus bill, and I only wanted to touch on that part specifically, but I would like to make the point that I recognise the issues that stakeholders, including the Law Institute of Victoria, Women’s Legal Service Victoria and the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, have raised with respect to time frames for emergency applications, care of a suitable person, reunification time frames and other matters. I look forward to discussing more of those in the committee process, and I will certainly support amendments in this house that go to those matters.
Dr Ratnam’s out-of-scope amendments are around increasing the age of criminal responsibility. That is an issue that I also am passionate about, and I will be very interested to see how we go in the committee process for that. It is certainly a Reason Party policy as well. Kids should be treated as kids, not criminalised before their young minds have even developed, not thrust into a criminal justice pathway that they cannot escape. We know the younger a child enters into the criminal justice system the more likely they are to stay in it. One of the facts that a number of us on the Legal and Social Issues Committee heard is that 44 per cent of the crimes are committed by 6 per cent of people, and of those 6 per cent almost all of them started hitting the justice system at around the age of 10, so increasing that age of criminal responsibility could have a dramatic impact on our crime stats, on our prisons, on our justice system.
To return to my principal point, I am so glad to increase the care-leaving age in this state to give some of our most vulnerable Victorians a much better chance, and that is the reason I commend the bill to the house.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Second reading speech 10/2/22
Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (14:46): I am pleased to speak to the Sex Work Decriminalisation Bill 2021—2021. We first started fighting for the decriminalisation of sex work in Victoria in the 1980s, so it has been nearly 40 years in the making. We have gone through many iterations. We have had two steps forward, a couple of steps back—forward, back—but I hope today we will finally see a bill that decriminalises sex work in Victoria passed.
I have been around since the 1980s in this debate, and I have seen a lot of this debate from a lot of areas, so it is interesting to see this culmination in this chamber. Certainly when I was sitting in the Prostitutes Collective of Victoria in Grey Street, in a ridiculously smoke-filled room, talking about decriminalisation, talking about how we were going to get changes, I do not think I ever expected to be in this place talking about the legislation from this side of the chamber. So I am proud to be part of this campaign.
This bill is for everyone. It is for everyone who has been working under these draconian laws that have not protected us. They have not protected sex workers; they have not protected the community. They have not protected the people in the industry—the sex workers, the brothel owners, the managers, the receptionists. Fundamentally the current legislation is not fit for purpose. I will talk later about this, but I do want to acknowledge that Victoria has actually made progressive steps in the past, and this is another progressive step for Victoria in this area. But I really want to acknowledge all of the people who have probably knocked on your doors, who have probably written submissions to you all, who have been fighting for this for decades. I acknowledge the sex worker organisations, the sex workers, the advocates and our allies—so many countless individuals, hundreds of people, since, as I say, the early 1980s. Actually I think the Australian Prostitutes Collective started in 1975, so we have had a sex worker voice since the 1970s in Australia, and that is actually quite unique around the world. There are so many giants of this industry, so many passionate people in this industry. I am not going to name people because there are too many to name and some of them are no longer with us, sadly, but right now this is a very proud moment for all of us and it is a very momentous occasion for all of us.
The other reason I cannot mention everyone’s names is that still we live double lives. Still sex workers act under pseudonyms. Still sex workers cannot tell their family what they do and cannot tell their lecturer what they do. Still we turn up at Parliament in wigs, we turn up with masks—we turn up in disguise because we are still fearful of being outed. We are still fearful of speaking about being a sex worker.
I remember the time I was outed. It was a fairly spectacular outing; it was on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. It was before the internet, thankfully, but my parents did have a fax machine, so my parents’ friends in Sydney were delighted to send them the article that made the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald. Now, it was a conversation that probably should have happened long before, but we were able to have that conversation, I had a very supportive family and we worked through it. There may have been some tears at times, but we worked through it. But for many people it is not as easy, and coming out as a sex worker is not easy, And for many it is still impossible. This legislation will help change that because it decriminalises sex work. It decriminalises consenting sex acts between consenting adults. It is pretty simple. It is just that.
But it is more than that, because that sex, as we have heard today—and I know some of it is joking. I know when Mr Finn gets up and tells us a couple of jokes and writes down for the speakers list that it is the hookers and knocking shop bill, it is done in humour. I understand that, but it still hurts, it still has an impact and it still stigmatises people who work in this industry. Right now we have legislation that has created two tiers. We have legislation that has created illegal brothels and has meant that sex workers have had to work illegally, which has put them at risk. It has made it very difficult for them when a crime might be committed and they want to report a crime to report that as someone who is committing a crime at the same time. That law has made our sex workers vulnerable to violence and vulnerable to coercion, so decriminalising it will do just the opposite. It will help prevent coercion, it will help prevent violence against sex workers.
And I hope it changes the stigma, changes the view. Mr Finn was saying: what is wrong with having sex? Well, there is nothing wrong with it, but for some reason if you get paid for it, you are somehow a victim. You somehow never wanted to do that. You somehow would only do that because you were absolutely desperate and had no other way of supporting your family and had no other way of putting yourself through school. This is not the case, but this is the stigma and this is the rhetoric that sits around sex workers. I hope that this bill when it passes will change some of that rhetoric. And I do not think I am alone in that—I know I am not alone in that. I have listened to some great people speaking about that today, but even those that have not spoken in favour of this bill have also pointed out the failings of the existing legislation, so I think if there is one thing we can all agree on in this chamber it is that what we have got now is not working. What we got now is not fit for purpose.
Much has been made about things like sex workers possibly having alcohol at work and having a drink with sex. This bill is not about me, but I have to say I may have been guilty of having a drink and possibly getting cosy with my partner afterwards. It reminds me I have been reading this great book, The Women of Little Lon. It was written by Barbara Minchinton, and I really commend it to the house. It is a terrific read. It is a book written by a historian and an archaeologist, and they looked at this precinct and the history of sex work in this precinct, which pretty much started with this precinct. When Melbourne was first settled sex workers came. It is a romp of a read and it is brilliant.
But it reminded me of John Pascoe Fawkner, who we all know was one of the founding fathers of Melbourne. Much of Melbourne is named after John Fawkner. Interestingly, he was a teetotaller, but he was also the publisher of the Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser. He was scathing of brothels—they set people off dancing in the streets, they were a disgrace, they were disgusting. When you dig a little deeper, the other thing that we know about Mr Fawkner is that he was also a publican, and what he did not like about the brothels was that they sold alcohol. That was what he really did not like about them. And what he also did not like about them was that they sold good alcohol—they sold absinthe, they sold champagne. He was quite often stuck with just colonial wine—I think ‘wine’ is probably a big stretch for what you would call that drink.
So we have had sex work and we have had brothels around this area. I think Mr Limbrick mentioned the missing mace from Parliament. There was a very brilliant building on Little Lonsdale Street called the Boccaccio, and that is apparently where it found its home. The Duke of Edinburgh, when he came to Parliament, did not stay at the Governor-General’s house—I do not think the Governor-General’s house was there then. He stayed at Mrs Fraser’s on Stephen Street, which was a brothel. He had a woman he was very keen on there, so he stayed there. In fact some wag actually put up the Duke’s coat of arms outside the front of the brothel. It is also reported, as I mentioned, that there were lots of debates about criminalising sex work and lots of debates about, ‘We must close this industry down; it’s terrible, it’s terrible, it’s terrible’. However, we never did, and in fact what was found and what has been discovered is that many of the landlords of those actual brothels that many of the women rented were elected representatives of this house. While I know I quite cheekily in my inaugural speech said I may have been the first sex worker to stand in this place, many clients had come before me, and it would appear landlords of brothels have also had a seat in this place.
There is this concern about what will happen if sex workers have alcohol and what will happen if we change the mandatory sexual health requirements—it will mean that somehow sex workers will become vectors of disease and will go out there and infect the hapless clients. It is just not true, and it further perpetuates this idea that sex work is immoral, that it cannot be trusted, that sex workers are untrustworthy. You could not possibly think that a sex worker could have alcohol and still look after themselves—that they could offer a client a glass of wine and that they could look after their own health without being told by the government to do so. I would just like to remind everyone that in the 1980s, when HIV landed on our shores, sex workers were the first to start acting on it, the first to be buying condoms in bulk, the first to be insisting on condom use. And may I also note that that was long before any form of sexual health was mandated. It was long before many of those brothels and places where they worked were legal. They were working illegally, and surprise, surprise—no, not a surprise at all—they were looking after their own health.
A lot of people have been concerned that there are going to be sex workers on every corner of the street, that their lovely neighbourhood is going to have sex workers in it, that in some of the apartment buildings around the city there may be sex workers. I am sorry to break it to you: they are there now. While back in the 1800s there was a lot of dancing in the street, there was a lot of live music and there were a lot of folk whooping up a good time, the industry is a lot more discreet these days. I have not met a client or heard of a client wanting to make a big song and dance about going in to pay for sex; it is not something that necessarily they want to share with the world.
So it is a discreet industry, which is why you are already living next door to a sex worker. You are already living next door to a client. You may be living with a client for all you know. Like Ms Lovell’s story: there was her constituent’s son, who was a client of a sex worker. She was happy for her son to be a client of a sex worker; she was not happy for the sex worker to be there. This is what I hope this legislation changes, this attitude around sex work.
Just to, I guess, allay the fears of everyone, sex work has been decriminalised in a number of other jurisdictions and nothing happened. It was really boring. We expected some explosion on the streets. We expected something monumental in Mosman and up in Palm Beach. We were expecting something quite extraordinary when they decriminalised sex work in New South Wales. It was a real let-down. Not much happened. Sex worked continued.
I go back to the 1980s. There was not a single case of HIV transmission between a sex worker and a client ever—not in Victoria, not anywhere in Australia—because sex workers look after their health whether it is legal or illegal. Decriminalisation will not change that and has not changed that. It did not change it in New Zealand, it did not change it in New South Wales, it did not change it in the ACT, it did not change it in the Northern Territory and it will not change it here. So I hope that I can allay some of those fears. Full decriminalisation of this business will do nothing more than regulate this business in the same way as other businesses are regulated—in the same way.
In New South Wales I used to speak to Sydney city council a lot about sex work matters, and more recently while preparing for today I got an update. I said, ‘Look, how many complaints are you getting about the brothels or sex on premises or people working?’. They said, ‘None. We actually don’t get complaints about sex workers’. In one particular building they were telling me that there was a sex worker in the building, but the complaint was not about the sex worker, it was about the music teacher teaching piano and, sadly, trombone. Now, that did cause a complaint, but again we have body corporate rules and we have all of these rules that mandate and act around these types of planning policies. This will continue in this piece of legislation. There will still be planning controls, there will still be health and safety controls, and there will be greater WorkCover care controls. I envisage a much better industry, a much safer industry, an industry where people do not have to be scared of saying what they do.
This decriminalisation is supported by Amnesty International. It is supported by the World Health Organization. It is supported by Human Rights Watch. It is supported by Anti-slavery International because decriminalising sex work does not make it legal to traffic people. It does not make it legal to stealth someone. That still remains illegal—absolutely illegal—and it is in the Crimes Act 1958, where it should be. So we are not talking about somehow allowing people to be exploited or trafficked or harmed in any way. We are just saying that sex workers will be treated equally under the law and sex work businesses will be treated equally under the law.
As you know, I could probably talk for a long time about all of this; however, I think just the part I really am pleased about is the changes to the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. This is really important, and I hope that one day we do not need it. I hope that one day the stigma and discrimination that sex workers experience disappears, because I hope actually that we are having a conversation about what consenting adults do and that somehow this actually might change some of our attitudes around sex and sexuality. I hope that this actually helps. I think of Ms Lovell’s constituent talking about her son with disability, and I think about talking to a sex worker just the other day who has a masters in sex therapy.
She would love to offer her services through the NDIS, but she does not want to tell the NDIS that she is a sex worker. I hope that this legislation will change that. I hope that what we pass today—and I hope we pass it today—will change that. I hope that sex workers can talk to their mothers group about the trials and tribulations of their work. I hope that sex work businesses are not ostracised and kicked out of Rotary clubs, as we have seen in the past, because of the moral judgement on this industry. I hope that changes.
I do not think we will use the charter’s new protected attributes of trade, calling or occupation often, but when it was introduced in the ACT in 1992 or 1993—around then—there was a claim. The first claim that came out was directly to the Canberra Times, because the Canberra Times used to charge sex workers $15 a line in the classifieds and plumbers $3 a line in the classifieds. It was completely discriminatory, it was completely unfair and it has changed. The most recent case—and I think it goes to Mr Rich-Phillips’s contribution—that has been heard in the ACT under this protected attribute of occupation, trade or calling is by a crypto trader who has had his bank accounts closed. He is challenging that closure on the grounds that it was discrimination on the grounds of his occupation, trade and calling, and it looks like he will be successful. So yes, this legislation and this new protected attribute may actually protect other people. It may actually protect other businesses, and I see no harm in that.
What I do know is that this will reduce harm to sex workers. It will reduce harm to the families of sex workers. I know this will change people’s lives. I do not know whether people are going to say, ‘When I grow up I want to be a sex worker’. Who knows? I did not say, ‘When I grow up I want to be a waitress’. Actually I did not grow up saying I wanted to be a politician either, but here I am. This will enable us to have those conversations. This will enable us to ensure that there are good work practices at all levels, that the industry is protected, that sex workers are protected and that their families are protected.
I did not want to mention this, but this idea that somehow I did a deal to get this legislation up is not only insulting to me, it is insulting to every single person who has fought for decades for this legislation. We fought for this. In 2019 the government said, ‘Let’s look at ways to decriminalise sex work’—in 2019. Now, I am not even sure COVID was a twinkle in anyone’s eye then. It was in 2019 that I was asked to look at how we would decriminalise sex work. So to say that I sold myself on pandemic legislation for this—and let us just make a point. The government did not want pandemic legislation, actually. We pushed them into pandemic legislation. So I do not know how they would say, ‘We’ll give you this if you support pandemic legislation’, when the government did not support pandemic legislation until we really pushed the point that we would not support continued states of emergency and we wanted to see specific legislation. So I just make that point.
I look forward to the committee process, and I will speak about the amendments, of which there are many, during the committee process. But I am so proud, and I am grateful, and on behalf of all the sex workers and all of the people who have worked so hard to get this bill to where it is, I commend this bill to the house.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member of Northern Metropolitan
Second reading speech 10/2/22
Ombudsman referral
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (16:31): I am not sure I am pleased to speak on this motion, but I must say I have listened to this with interest. I am sure Mr Somyurek has too. This has certainly been quite a change from the chorus that he normally would have got from that side of the house. This road to Damascus that Mr Somyurek has found has obviously profoundly affected many of the members in here—Mr Finn in particular, it would seem.
This motion has been described to the media numerous times—in fact even as late as this afternoon—as this being the Parliament referring issues to IBAC. It is not. Let us remember that: it is not. We cannot, we do not have that power and it is not what this motion does. This motion refers a wide range of issues, many that have already been investigated by the Ombudsman, back to the Ombudsman. I have heard as I listened closely to this debate how much faith we hold in the Ombudsman—except not now, except when we do not think that she did her job properly and we are asking her to go back and look at her homework and do it again. That is effectively what we are saying here. We are saying that she did not do enough, that she let people off the hook, that she investigated this and said, ‘No, I can’t see this’. We are also asking in this motion to direct her. We are directing her to share information with IBAC. That is what this motion says. That is ultra vires; we cannot do that, yet everyone seems to have looked over that.
I would say that both IBAC and the Ombudsman are independently fierce, and prior to this debate I thought there was unanimous support for that notion and for that position—that we thought our Ombudsman was fierce, she was formidable. She certainly has not appeared to be a friend of this government, and I speak to her regularly. I speak to her regularly, as I am sure many of you do as well. We know that she could be investigating this. We know that Mr Somyurek could be providing this information to IBAC and to the Ombudsman. I hope, with this road to Damascus moment that he has had during the 18 months that he has not been in this chamber and that time that he has had to reflect on what he has done, he has come back to this chamber having reflected and seen the errors of his ways and he is going to provide this saviour for us all to bring back faith and trust in this Parliament—to bring back faith and trust in the politicians like Mr Finn, who says that people at his milk bar say they do not trust him.
I believe in IBAC and I believe in the Ombudsman, and I think this is a jaded exercise. I believe that—
Members interjecting.
Ms PATTEN: This is why we have an Ombudsman. She is independent. The office of the Ombudsman and the office of IBAC are absolutely independent. If we believe that there is more corruption for the Ombudsman to investigate, then write to the Ombudsman. Send her that information. She is open to hear it.
Mr Davis interjected.
The PRESIDENT: Order! Mr Davis, please, from your place, and please, no more interjections.
Ms PATTEN: I—
Mr Davis interjected.
The PRESIDENT: Did you hear me? Please!
Ms PATTEN: I have sat in silence throughout this. I have been respectful. I have listened, and I have been actually quite surprised by the lack of faith that we have in our fiercely independent organisations. I am not supporting this motion. I am also troubled that we would say that our independent organisations are not good enough, that we have to direct them, that it is up to us as politicians to direct those independent organisations. The Ombudsman can self-refer. IBAC is still investigating this; this is a live investigation with IBAC. So I am not going to support this motion. I do not believe that Mr Somyurek is the saviour; he may have been described as a naughty little boy, if I am going to badly misquote the Life of Brian. But I do not think that this motion goes anywhere near this. This motion to me seems to be absolutely self-serving. This has given the opportunity for a chamber that I cannot say had much nice to say about Mr Somyurek in previous months or previous years—look, I think it is good that Mr Somyurek is finding friends in here and that this motion is supported by some people here, but I do not support this motion.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Motion by Mr Somyurek 9/2/22
Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Bill 2021
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (14:18): I am just so pleased and it is such a pleasure to rise to speak to the Equal Opportunity (Religious Exceptions) Amendment Bill 2021. I have to say I feel like we are all on the same page. I mean, everyone is saying, ‘No, we love everyone! We don’t want to discriminate against anyone. We don’t discriminate against anyone. Everything is fine’. In that case, what is the problem? Why maintain this exception if we do not need it, as I hear from people who for some almost undisclosed reason are opposing this bill? We are all talking about love, we are all talking about equality, we are all talking about fairness and freedom, and yet people are opposing this bill.
Just as an aside, before I speak to the bill, in my lunch hour I went to the opening of a powder room. This was a delightful thing to do in my lunchtime—
Mr Ondarchie interjected.
Ms PATTEN: Yes, Mr Ondarchie, it was the opening of a powder room. It was at a club, the Kelvin Club, which was the first club to accept women as members, and that was 26 years ago almost to the day.
This powder room actually had significance in that club because there had never been a female toilet in the Kelvin Club until 26 years ago when they first accepted female members. That was because they could discriminate against women, and many clubs still do this. It shows the changing nature of our society that it would seem absolutely daft that you would have a club without a women’s bathroom, because they had no women coming to that club. Twenty-six years ago they changed that, and this is also an important change. This bill narrows that outdated carve-out that actually does cause harm.
I note that many people were saying it does not. Well, it does. It does cause harm. It causes real harm, particularly to our LGBTIQ+ community and particularly to women and to girls. As we have heard from everyone in this chamber, for or against this bill, every person deserves fair and respectful treatment when they go to school and work and when they are seeking support services. These carve-outs as they stand today allow faith-based schools and organisations to discriminate against people on the grounds of their sex, their sexual orientation, their gender identity, their marital status and their parental status. Really? In 2021 we want the right to do that? I was surprised that anyone would oppose this. I thought that we would have been home by now, because it just seems bizarre in 2021 that people would want that right.
I have been listening to Mr Finn, Mr Ondarchie, Ms Bath all talking about respect and agreement. In fact at one point I think some of the previous speakers were saying, ‘There’s no problem. We don’t use it anyway, so why should we change it?’. Well, why have it? Why have a carve-out that says that some people are less worthy than others? Because that is what this carve-out does. This carve-out says that it is acceptable and that these people—these others—do not have the same rights. ‘They do not have the same freedoms as I do’. In fact, ‘I should have this innate freedom to discriminate against them. I should. It is my belief, it is my freedom, and I should be allowed to discriminate against people’.
Well, no. Actually, no. In fact it goes both ways. We have protection from discrimination on the grounds of religion, and this bill enshrines that as well. Our equal opportunity bill enshrines that. This bill will limit religious exceptions under the Equal Opportunity Act 2010, and it reintroduces that inherent requirement. I would say this is extremely sensible. This is extremely balanced. Currently the Equal Opportunity Act has broad exceptions permitting religious bodies to discriminate on the basis, as I said, of religious belief, sex, sexual orientation et cetera. This bill will narrow—not actually close—the ability to discriminate. It will just narrow how you can discriminate and how you can treat others differently.
It will narrow the ability of religious bodies and schools to discriminate in employment. It also narrows the exceptions for religious bodies that are state government funded. Let us remember, this is talking about government-funded organisations who want to have an exception from the Equal Opportunity Act. They are happy to accept the taxpayers money, but they would like to refuse services and they would like to refuse employment for some taxpayers. I find it quite extraordinary that anyone would want to defend that right.
I know that we have all received many emails asking us to support this or asking us to oppose this. I have received many from religious organisations saying, ‘I don’t know why—we’ve never used it. Why would we have this? We don’t need this exception. In fact we don’t think it’s right. In fact we don’t think it’s Christian. We do not think it’s fair and it’s not what our doctrines, what our beliefs, say. Our beliefs say “treat everyone equally”, our beliefs say “treat everyone kindly”, “treat everyone with respect” so why would we want this exception to treat some people without that same respect?’. But apparently we do.
Well, I do not. I want that to change, and so does the Brotherhood of St Laurence. They are a magnificent organisation. They wrote to the Attorney-General, and I was fortunate to be cc’ed in. The acting executive director, Dr Lucia Boxelaar, said:
We strongly support this bill. This bill ensures that religious freedoms that allow people to practice their faith are balanced with the rights of all people. We therefore urge all members of Parliament to support the proposed reforms to the Equal Opportunity Act.
Well said. Why would we have an equal opportunity act that actually carves people out, that says that some people are more equal than others, some people should have more freedom than others? When I have been listening—and I have been listening to the contributions from everyone today—I keep nodding my head and saying, ‘Yes, I totally agree with you. Love is love. We should be allowed to love anyone. We should not discriminate’. So why are you defending this right to discriminate?
Let us be clear: this is not, as Mr Finn might say, about closing schools, about banning religion, about the end of religion as we know it. This bill finds a balance, and it is a balance that I am reluctantly comfortable with. Religious bodies will still be able to discriminate on the basis of religious belief in schools, workplaces and service delivery as long as it is reasonable and proportionate. Why would you want anything else? Why would you want anything more than being allowed to discriminate on the grounds that it is reasonable and proportionate, and in the case of employment, that it is an inherent part of the job? Religious bodies will still be exempt from discrimination laws when training, educating, ordaining or appointing religious leaders or members or when selecting or appointing people to participate in religious observance or practice. Now, that seems incredibly balanced. That seems to be finding a balance.
I do not think this bill is perfect. But this is the last day of sitting, so I am not going to try and change this bill now because that would delay the passage of this very important piece of legislation. But the Human Rights Law Centre, Dr Luke Beck, Equality Australia and many others have said that this bill could be strengthened by ensuring that students cannot be discriminated against on the basis of religion after admission to a school. It could also be improved by removing the distinction between government and non-government-funded services, and that is actually quite a key point in this—this exemption still applies if you are not government funded. Religious organisations, religious charities, still have the right to discriminate and be bigoted and treat other people less equally if they are doing it on their own dollar—their own tax-free dollar that is, the dollar that they do not have to pay tax on.
As I say, there could be improvements, but today is not the day for that. I certainly support Dr Ratnam’s amendments, but I would like to take on the motto that so many of us have had to, probably the motto that I probably say most days in this job: don’t let the perfect get in the way of the good. And this is good.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan
Second reading speech 3/12/21
Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2021
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:47): I am pleased to rise to speak to the Casino and Gambling Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. As some will recall, a couple of years ago I did bring a motion of urgent public importance to this chamber in relation to Crown. Now, it may not have been successful then—in fact it absolutely was not successful then—but it was clear at the time that there was insufficient oversight of Melbourne’s casino and it was not free from criminal influence. There was no doubt about that. It was questionable whether gaming was being conducted honestly, and it was very questionable whether problem gamblers were being protected as the act required them to be. It has taken some time since then—well, it has taken a royal commission here, but I think that was certainly instigated by the inquiry in New South Wales—and it has taken effort from people in this chamber and many others outside this chamber. I would also like to make note of the federal member for Clark, Mr Andrew Wilkie, who has been quite tireless in fighting and in advocating for better regulation of gambling, not just in Victoria but around the country. So I am pleased to stand here and speak in this context.
The bill responds to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into the Casino Operator and Licence. It strengthens the regulatory oversight of the casino by establishing the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission. The bill provides for oversight arrangements via the appointment of a special manager to oversee the casino and for the cost of the oversight to be recovered from Crown Melbourne. The bill provides for the automatic cancellation of that licence at the end of the special manager oversight period, unless the regulator determines Crown has become clearly suitable to hold the licence. I suspect there are many of us in this chamber and in this state that would possibly be surprised if Crown ever was suitable to hold that licence. However, this bill sets out a way to regulate that and a way for that decision to be made.
It also strengthens the powers of the regulator and the obligations on the casino operator to reduce the risk of wrongdoing. In so doing the bill acquits the first nine of the 33 recommendations of the royal commission. It is a very good start, but still we are hopeful that we will see the rest of those recommendations acquitted through legislation very early in the new year.
When I spoke to the Alliance for Gambling Reform, they too were of the view that this legislation adequately responds to those nine of the 33 recommendations. However, like me, they are acutely aware of that until the second round of legislation is put in front of the Parliament next year not a great deal will change to assist problem gambling and the harm that that causes not just those people but their families and the community at large. So in my mind, as I say again, it is crucial that the legislation due in the new year is presented swiftly and effectively, particularly in regard to things like mandatory precommitment.
In the meantime—and again I would like to thank the alliance for their advice—Minister Horne can and should overwrite the existing responsible service of gambling code of conduct to decrease the number of hours people can use a poker machine uninterrupted and do so via ministerial directions. This could be done now. This could be done in the interim while we wait for that legislation to pass the Parliament next year. Put simply, this would decrease the harm at the casino whilst the remaining legislation is under development. I think is a very simple and elegant solution that would assist us right now in reducing the harm that gambling causes many people and many families in our community.
As I have said previously in this place, this is something it has been of great interest to me for a number of years. It is why I brought on debate. It is why I released the whistleblower video testimony with Andrew Wilkie the year before last, and that was quite a unique collaboration between state and federal Independents. Certainly we are starting to see more of that, and I welcome the collaboration of Independents and small parties working across parliaments, across state jurisdictions but also working within federal and state.
The public needs to have confidence, and right now it does not. Now, I do not know, but I suspect Crown is probably speaking to any number of entities, or maybe just one entity, that may be interested in taking over that licence going forward. But when—as we keep hearing, and we keep hearing it because it is true—Crown is the largest employer in our state, we have an obligation to ensure that it is acting and operating ethically, morally and legally.
I am not sure that we can get there. I am not sure when you are talking about a monopoly on such a large business that that can ever be perfectly right. I quipped outside one day that maybe we need two licences. Maybe that is the way to bring Crown into better regulation, by having more casinos, which seems incredibly and completely counterintuitive. But I think we should be considering, when we provide a monopoly to one business, the impact that that does have and the difficulty that we have seen to date in ensuring that that business acts ethically, morally and legally.
I would also like to note that I will not be supporting the Liberal amendments to this bill. I did consider them in great detail. If I thought that they improved the regulation of the casino—if I thought that that was the intent of them—then they would have had my support. But it seems that they are still considering the special manager that this bill introduces as an administrator, and it is not. It is a manager. It is there for oversight; it is not an administrator.
A member: It’s not?
Ms PATTEN: Sorry, the special manager is an administrator, not an investigator—pardon me.
This idea that we are reporting—it is not an investigator’s report. It is not an investigation that they are doing. They are administrating. They are administrating the casino. I certainly understand that neither does the special manager, Stephen O’Bryan, QC, support the Liberals’ amendment. But anyway, give it your best shot.
Mr Ondarchie: So you don’t want Parliament to know about it. You don’t want accountability.
Ms PATTEN: I would prefer—
Mr Ondarchie: The candidate for Pascoe Vale does not want accountability.
Ms PATTEN: This is not about accountability, this is actually about—
Members interjecting.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Order! Ms Patten is entitled to be heard in silence.
Ms PATTEN: The Liberals’ amendment does nothing for accountability. It does nothing for better scrutiny. It flips the process. It does not enable the special manager, in fact it detracts from the special manager’s job. It detracts from the special manager’s job, which is why the special manager does not support these amendments. But it appears that those shouting to my right are ignoring the special manager’s expert opinion on this. They apparently know better, and this would not—
Mr Ondarchie interjected.
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Order! Mr Ondarchie, it has been a long week. I am not allowed to have coffee here. Can we keep it down a little bit, please.
Ms PATTEN: Acting President, I understand that the standing orders still allow you to ask others to go and have a cup of coffee. But that may not help you in your coffee deprivation.
Look, I support this bill. It certainly goes to nine out of the 33 recommendations that were made. There is a lot more work to be done. As I have also said, I would encourage and I will advocate to the minister that she also considers the gambling code and amends it herself—she can overwrite that gambling code of conduct—to ensure that we start to protect problem gamblers at this gambling behemoth in the middle of our city.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan
Second reading speech 2/12/21
Windfall Gains Tax and State Taxation and Other Acts Further Amendment Bill 2021
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (14:52): I am pleased to rise—I will try and make it brief—to speak on the Windfall Gains Tax and State Taxation and Other Acts Further Amendment Bill 2021. As we know, the bill does several things, but I think one of the areas that probably I was most interested in and the Reason Party was most interested in, because it has been a policy of ours, was really working out ways to encourage build-to-rent programs in Victoria. This bill goes towards that. Build-to-rent along with build-to-buy schemes are innovative policy solutions, and I am seeing a number of these types of projects occurring in my electorate of Northern Metropolitan. It closes the gap between people who can afford to rent but cannot save the amount to get a deposit. Build to rent refers to, as the bill states, residential developments in which all apartments are owned by one entity, often a managed investment trust, and then leased out to tenants. This is different, obviously, to the most common build-to-sell method, where a developer builds a residential development and then sells the apartments.
We have seen some really innovative work done in this area and some really good designs, designs that are also designed to create some social cohesion in these spaces. I commend a company in my electorate, Assemble, which is operated by a great guy called Kris Daff. When you look at the way they design some of their buildings, they really look at some of the issues that I was going to yesterday around loneliness: when people come in, they will see their neighbours; there are lots of common spaces; it is expected that you might share tools to fix your bike or that you might share workspaces. It is around creating communities, and in build-to-rent models these are things that can be done effectively and, I think, very well. So I am pleased that we are seeing those tax concessions there.
Probably where the government could have gone further—and certainly Mr Daff mentions this—is in encouraging that from a social housing perspective, so really looking at increasing those concessions when social housing is a proportion of that. Sadly, I think the Greens with their amendment possibly go too far at 90 per cent.
I would have liked to see 40 to 50 per cent, but it is something that I will continue to explore with the government going forward, how we can do that.
The bill, as Ms Lovell and Mr Davis mentioned, removes the charitable exemption for men-only clubs or for single-gender clubs. As Mr Davis mentioned, I am a member of a private club, but it has men and women as members. Apparently it was very progressive in 1996, but it seems a number of the men’s clubs still do not see that that is the way to go.
Of course I brought a bill to this chamber last term to remove other charitable exemptions on land that was owned by religious organisations but used for commercial purposes and certainly land that was used just for the advancement of religion. I think Sanitarium is a great example of this. Here is an extremely profitable company that competes in the open market against other companies like Kellogg’s, Kraft and Nestlé. They do not have to pay land tax because they are a religious organisation and the money, they say, goes to advancing religion. Now, if you were using that money to solve homelessness or to help the disadvantaged or to set up hospitals or for health, then that I get, but not when it is used for this very loosely described intention of ‘advancing religion’. I understand Weet-Bix do not advance religion of course, although I think Kellogg did have some very bizarre ideas about what breakfast cereal could do. However, the fact that those profits go to some, as I say, loose term of ‘advancing religion’ I do not think should qualify those companies for land tax exemptions. Certainly where you worship should remain protected and those who, as I said, reduce poverty and protect health. I will continue to fight for changes around the types of exemptions that we provide.
But the thrust of this bill is to introduce a windfall gains tax on the uplift in land value resulting from planning scheme amendments that change the zoning of land. I certainly did meet with the Housing Industry Association, I met with many of the building industry groups—in fact I have had a number of meetings—and certainly when I met with them last year about this what they were facing was very different to what this bill is now. There have been some significant concessions. Certainly I know the Property Council of Australia acknowledged that, that there had been delays in the start of this, and much to probably the criticism of other organisations that said, ‘No, let’s start it now’. But obviously this proposal does not begin until 2023.
And let us remember that you do not work for a windfall. It is not like you grow something and then the land is rezoned. This is something you are given. This is effectively almost a gift. No goods are exchanged so there is literally nothing to be done. And we know that people buy land to speculate on it. We know that there are rent-seekers out there that purchase land on the hope that there will be a windfall, that there will be a rezoning. Or they go further than hope and they start campaigning and lobbying for that rezoning. It was not that long ago in this house that the City of Casey came under quite a bit of review and speculation. In fact the City of Casey has gone into administration for this exact reason—because it was found that they were being lobbied via paper bags of money for rezoning and other development favours. Given that the government is the one who makes the decision about the rezoning, I think it seems reasonable that it should get a cut of the profits to reinvest into the local community and across the state.
It is about sharing that sometimes absolute motza that people can make from a planning decision. This can be a win for the developers. I mean, the developers are the ones who actually do the hard work. They are the ones that actually plan it. They put the infrastructure in. They do the hard work. Those that are possibly just speculating on the land, the cowboy rent seekers, now will not be able to take all the cream and leave the site with very little money. So when you see that huge gain from the landowner, it really shrinks what the developer can invest in that property. So I think this means that rather than profits going to overseas companies, property share portfolios, those funds will be reinvested into roads, plumbing and the environment.
I am certainly happy to say that, as I said, I believe that the property council has made very good points to the government, and I understand that the government has listened to those. I know the property council and others would like to see further changes, but I think this actually finds a very good balance.
In fact I was actually somewhat surprised about this, because I had a meeting with a developer just yesterday, Mr Tom Roe, who is down in the Geelong area—a big developer, passionate about growth. In fact he was the chair of the Urban Development Institute of Australia for the Geelong branch for some years. He could not spruik windfall land tax more. He is an absolute advocate, and when I put to him the property council’s arguments that they had to put to me, he whacked every single one of them away—and he knows a lot more about it than I do. So he was meeting with me to convince me to support this, and he said it actually would help developers. He said and I think the UDIA said—and I certainly think some of the opposition’s amendments go to this—it is somehow creating a growth areas infrastructure contribution that covers everywhere. So rather than just a GAIC for the growth areas, we would have one that covered the whole state.
Now, Mr Roe is not that keen on a GAIC. He thinks that is actually really bad policy, so he thought it would be even worse policy to expand that idea. He argued—I thought very, very well—that this type of tax is actually the fairest one and that it will not lead to a change in housing prices, it will not lead to a change in a reduction in development. All of the fears that have been placed up here, he says that that will not happen. And this was reiterated by the Grattan Institute and by Prosper Australia, who again made some really good points and went through a lot of the points that the property council raised with me. They are saying it is very unlikely that taxes will lead to higher house prices, and this was also confirmed by, as I say, Mr Roe, and also confirmed by Prosper, who again, does not have a dog in the race, unlike the UDIA and the property council, where a number of their members could be described as property speculators.
So this is just one of those pieces of policy where there is a simple solution to the problem, and this probably could have been done many years ago. It makes a lot of sense. We know that the ACT did this, and I know the ACT is still going through a housing boom and there are still properties being developed, because the land is being released by the government.
I am not going to stand here and stand in the way of this. I have listened to the industry. I have listened to Grattan, I have listened to Prosper and I have listened to property developers, as I say, such as Mr Roe, such as Robert Pradolin, and they have all said that this is actually the correct way forward. This is the way to ensure this.
I would just make one note. There is one area that I do think we should be considering, and this is because having done the homelessness inquiry we know that that transitional housing that people need when they are experiencing homelessness is desperately needed and we just do not have it. People are leaving hospital into homelessness. People are leaving prison into homelessness. People are leaving mental health facilities into homelessness. We cannot allow this to happen in this rich state. This must change.
Property developers are getting behind this idea. They want to retrofit their vacant properties while they are going through the planning process to provide transitional housing with wraparound services for people experiencing homelessness, for people escaping family violence, for people coming out of prisons and for people coming out of hospitals. And they are suggesting that a land tax concession in those circumstances would encourage more developers to do this. So rather than looking around the city and looking at those empty buildings that are getting ready for development—we know that planning can take five years at least for big developments—rather than those buildings just sitting empty while people are sleeping in the doorways of them, we could be encouraging more developers to take on retrofitting and putting transitional housing into those buildings while those people get on their feet to get into the private market, while we are building more social homes and also while those buildings remain empty. I will leave my comments on this at that.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Second reading speech 18/11/21
Loneliness
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:33): I rise to move my motion 654:
That this house notes that:
(1) loneliness has emerged as one of the most serious public health challenges being faced around the world;
(2) loneliness is a better predictor of premature death than physical inactivity, obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day;
(3) lonely Australians have significantly worse health status than Australians who do not experience loneliness;
(4) according to the 2018 Australian Loneliness Report, amongst Australian adults, one in four are lonely, nearly 30 per cent rarely or never feel part of a group of friends and 22 per cent rarely or never feel like they have someone to talk to;
(5) the 2019 Young Australians Loneliness Survey found that more than half of young Australians felt lonely sometimes or always;
(6) loneliness was a growing health challenge before COVID-19, but has been exacerbated by it;
(7) one in two Australian residents reported feeling lonelier since 2019, with those who reported feeling more lonely also reporting more depression and higher social anxiety;
(8) addressing loneliness is integral to Victoria’s COVID-19 recovery;
(9) in 2018 the United Kingdom government appointed a dedicated Minister for Loneliness and published the world’s first loneliness strategy;
(10) in January 2020, the first loneliness annual report outlined progress in the United Kingdom as a result of 60 commitments made in 2018 in establishing that ministry;
and calls on the Victorian government to create a dedicated ministerial portfolio for loneliness.
This is a motion around loneliness. It is a motion about an issue that quite often we know, we sometimes feel, but we do not understand. We are only just starting to understand the true impact of loneliness on our society. It has been called an epidemic in other areas, and it is why I am calling today for the Victorian government to take on this issue and to take it on at the level it needs to be taken on at—and that is as a portfolio in this government.
It is a killer. It is a killer, and its costs us millions and millions of dollars. We know the evidence; we know the evidence that it kills people and that it costs us millions and millions of dollars, particularly in our health system but also in our justice system. By addressing it—this carries on from some of the conversations we were having in Ms Maxwell’s motion—if we can look at early intervention, if we can look at prevention, if we can look at treating this, this will relieve the burden on our health system, a health system that is heavily weighed down at the moment.
So this motion, while relatively simple in its ask, actually could be profound. It is something that has already happened in the UK and in Japan, and it is something now that the World Health Organization will be recommending to all governments across the world. They have come out with this now, and they will be developing more information about this. So I think now is the right time for Victoria to do this.
Loneliness is killing us. Lonely Australians have a significantly worse health status than Australians who do not experience loneliness. According to the 2018 Australian Loneliness Report one in four Australians is lonely. This is not social isolation. Loneliness can affect people who are married. They can be surrounded by people, but that sense of loneliness is profound, it is stigmatising and it is something that people cannot talk about. I think particularly for young people, when they are looking at the curated best lives of their friends and people in their age group on their social media channels, they are seeing these wonderful, beautiful lives, and that is not their life. Their desire for social interaction is just not being met, and that creates a vicious circle, because they are anxious about seeking that social interaction. Then when they are socially interacting, they become anxious, and then that makes it worse.
We know that loneliness is a significant precursor to a lot of mental health issues, particularly anxiety and depression. In 2019 the Young Australian Loneliness Survey found that more than half of young Australians felt lonely sometimes or always. I think this is really important because when I first started looking at loneliness, probably in 2016, as an issue, I was seeing this emerge in the UK, I was seeing the talk happening over there, and I imagined it was someone like my dad. When my mum died he had no tour director for his life and he did not quite know how to get out there and make a life. But it is not just that older person whose significant other has left them or passed away. It is not just that person. It can be a person who is married. It can be a person surrounded by people, as I mentioned.
Loneliness has emerged as one of the most serious health challenges being faced around the world. Research finds that loneliness is a better predictor of premature death than physical inactivity, obesity or smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It is a better predictor of premature death. I find that smoking statistic incredibly significant and incredibly important, because you think about what we do to stop people smoking—the work, the public awareness campaigns, the packaging, the funds invested in Quit campaigns. Yet in contrast here we have a health problem of similar gravity that has just slid under the radar until now.
This motion comes, as I mentioned, as other developed nations around the world legislate dedicated resources to address the rates of loneliness. As I mentioned, in 2018 Britain announced the world’s first Minister for Loneliness through the appointment of Tracey Crouch. More recently, in 2020, Japan appointed Tetsushi Sakamoto into the same role. Japan did this because they could see the mental health impact of loneliness. They could see what it was doing. They actually linked their increase in suicide rates to loneliness, and that was what the research told them.
I think in Victoria if we had a portfolio such as this it would work to ensure that adequate resources and funding effectively addressed loneliness here. I think this is particularly relevant right now, where we are in the pandemic.
If we look at the UK, where the most work has been done in this area, they estimated that the total cost of loneliness to their health and justice systems was £32 billion a year—£32 billion. So imagine, just putting in some resources, the payback that you can get there. And that is what predicated the United Kingdom’s government—and I note at that time it was a conservative government—appointment of a dedicated minister for loneliness. In fact they published the world’s first loneliness strategy. By 2020 their first loneliness annual report outlined significant progress as a result of the over 60 commitments they made to establishing a ministry. We can and we should do the same here.
I want to acknowledge Dr Michelle Lim and congratulate her on the extraordinary work she has been doing on the Ending Loneliness Together campaign. This is coming out of Monash University. She is a world leader in this area. When you are looking at different research documents you see her name in most of them. The Ending Loneliness Together in Australia white paper is compelling reading. It is factual and it covers everything. It traverses the stigma of loneliness in its various contexts. I would really implore anyone listening today to look up the ending loneliness white paper.
Globally, the World Health Organization has already published relatively extensively on this issue, particularly in respect to social isolation and loneliness in older people. But they are currently broadening that work and they are looking at the wider population.
We know—and the evidence that has come out of the UK is—that lonely people attend doctors more regularly. They do not go there for health; they go there because they are experiencing loneliness. I know it is not right to bring the personal in, but I will because I think of my father, and his diary was filled with doctors appointments and health appointments. He went to the dietitian I do not know how many times. I mean, he never lost a pound out of it; he never followed any of the instructions he was given by that dietitian or the podiatrist or whoever he went to. But he had a diary full of health appointments, and I am not sure that he needed them, but he needed that context.
This is why it costs us so much. We were hearing from a group called the Victorian Advocacy League for Individuals with Disability, which represents people with an intellectual disability, and they were telling us that some of their members would feel this sense of loneliness to such an extent that they would call an ambulance in the middle of the night, because that was all they could do. It was the only way they could think of fixing this, of saving their own lives.
WHO have confirmed that social isolation and loneliness impose a heavy financial burden on society, and they have declared 2021–30 that policy window to address this issue, identifying increasing the political priority of the issue as the first of its three-point strategies. Dr Etienne Krug, the director of the World Health Organization’s Department of Social Determinants of Health, said:
Social isolation and loneliness have recently moved up the public policy and public health agenda in several countries … WHO calls on all governments to give social isolation and loneliness the political priority and resources that they deserve, to ensure that all people benefit from a shared spirit of friendship and solidarity.
And I would have to say that if there was ever a day to be talking about this, if there was ever a time to be talking about social cohesion and bringing our community back and extending friendship and solidarity, well, it is right now.
I would just like to quickly, in finishing, also recognise Benjamin McDonald, who was an intern in my office who prepared a really compelling intern report on this issue.
He made some recommendations in that from the work that he had done, and that includes social prescribing. So this is about looking at when people attend to see their health practitioners, that they can prescribe social activities, that they can prescribe something other than medicine. And we know that we are seeing so many people experiencing loneliness being given Valium because of their perceived anxiety, when in actual fact that is not what they need. What they need is connection. What they need is assistance to connect. What they need is a stigma-free way to do that.
And there are already organisations in our community. We know them—neighbourhood houses, the men’s sheds, and I think one of my favourites is a group called the Kindred Clubhouse, which is for people with mental health issues. They have this sort of clubhouse, a drop-in style of approach, and it is beautiful, and it is run by its members. I know that in fact they have been funded federally and by the state here in Victoria, and it is something that came out of New York decades ago. In Poland they are setting up little chairs where people can sit, saying ‘Happy to have a chat’, ‘Would love to have a chat’. These are small things that we can do, but I think these are really important things that we need to do to improve the social cohesion of our community. And I think this is just such a significant issue, and it has been made more urgent around the world by COVID—around the world. This is not just something that is happening in Victoria. This is happening around the world, and that is why I think we should address it now.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Motion moved 17/11/21
Family violence
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (15:06): I am pleased to rise to make a short contribution to Ms Maxwell’s motion. From the outset I would like to acknowledge Lee, Michelle and Jana, who I have seen wandering around the Parliament today, and I certainly saw them outside this morning. I am pleased that they actually can be here today to hear us speak, probably all so passionately, about this incredibly difficult and important issue.
As we know, coercive and controlling behaviour is sadly a prominent feature in almost all family violence, but it is one of the hardest things to identify. It is one of the hardest things, even for people who are experiencing it, to fully articulate what is happening to them—‘It’s just that he loves me so much, that he cares about me so much’. I am very fortunate to be chairing the inquiry into criminal justice, a referral that came from Ms Maxwell, and I do not think it should come as any surprise that the witnesses that we have heard from, the submissions that we have received, all talk about family violence and coercive behaviour. So I am really pleased that Ms Maxwell has brought this issue to the chamber, and I am happy to lend my encouragement to the government to do something on this.
I think it is interesting to note that in the most recent National Summit on Women’s Safety, which was held just one or two months ago, it was seen as one of the most complex and urgent issues. That was how it was described in the paper that followed that summit. We have seen several Victorian organisations, including Respect Victoria, united—
Ms Maxwell: On a point of order, Acting President, I am sitting very close to Ms Patten and it is difficult to hear her, and I just think particularly given the topic we are discussing, which goes along the lines of respect, could we just have a little bit less noise?
The ACTING PRESIDENT (Mr Bourman): Fair point. Could we keep it down so we can hear Ms Patten, please?
Ms PATTEN: Thank you, Ms Maxwell, and thank you, Acting President. As I was saying, there have been a number of organisations who have really come to the fore and are speaking loudly about this—Respect Victoria, Domestic Violence Victoria and Djirra in particular.
I think they have all looked at this. And I know that Ms Maxwell is passionate about prevention and early intervention, and this is another area where this is so crucial, because the criminal justice system, as we know, currently fails so many victims. And it is sometimes a blunt instrument, and what we need to be doing is stopping this from happening, but we know that that is not easy. This involves cultural change. This involves education. This involves change and equality, gender equality, and it goes into so many different areas. So prevention in this context is complicated, but it has to be something that we focus on.
As I say, legislating can have that effect and it can shift norms and it can shift attitudes, but we need to shift those norms and those attitudes and those behaviours before they turn into what they are turning into. It is interesting—and I do not know whether it is because of the work we are doing in the criminal justice system—that I am seeing coercive control being discussed, being dramatised, being seen in mainstream media. You know, Netflix has a really excellent program called Maid. It is a US drama that looks at coercive control, and it goes through the various stages of that control with the main character in it. Over recent weeks I have not been listening to it but, when I was able to walk home from work in the evenings and was comfortable doing it, I would listen to the Trap by Jess Hill, another extraordinary podcast, an extraordinary detailed story. Well, it is not a story, it is a whole podcast focusing on coercive control—how it affects the children, how it affects the families, and also it goes to how we can try and find some solutions. But, as I said, it is addressing those underlying attitudes, which is what we need to do, but again it will be one of the most complicated things that we do.
I was just looking at some of the press releases that came out following that national summit, and certainly what we have been hearing during the criminal justice inquiry is that we need to be looking at broadening the scope of how we address this. And I note—and I use this quote because sadly Djirra, which is an extraordinary Aboriginal women’s advocacy organisation, was not able to appear before the committee at our last public hearing—that Antoinette Braybrook said that the conversation around coercive control had to be broadened:
Instead of putting money into the criminal justice system, invest in Aboriginal Community Controlled, self-determined solutions that we know work for our women, families and communities.
Executive director of the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health, Dr Adele Murdolo, who did appear before our committee, also went on to say:
Migrant and refugee women and their communities are already leading the way in preventing violence, and it’s time to listen and learn from them. Whole of community and tailored approaches are needed, to ensure that we address the structural inequalities that enable violence against migrant and refugee women.
We know the impact that this has on women. As Ms Maxwell and I am certain Ms Crozier raised, family violence is still the leading contributor to death for women 15 to 44—the leading contributor. It is not breast cancer. It is not smoking. It is not heart disease. It is family violence. It is also the leading contributor to women experiencing homelessness. It is the leading contributor to women being imprisoned. Almost every woman currently in our Victorian prison is a victim—a victim-survivor.
During our inquiry we have heard harrowing stories from women who have been in the prison system. The fact that they had experienced extraordinary coercive control or violence just never kind of made it to the top. It was never really heard when they were being sentenced to prison, and that is what we need to be doing.
Part of Ms Maxwell’s call to the government is looking at building up this evidence base for the types and appearances of this type of behaviour—who perpetrates it and what drives them—and community education initiatives to increase public understanding of these behaviours and their unacceptability. Again I would commend Jess Hill’s podcast as well as the drama that I saw called Maid. Both go to increasing this public understanding. And working with organisations to ensure that they do not tacitly or overtly condone or foster attitudes and social norms that fuel coercive control—we have heard that today and we have heard that during the inquiry. It is not for people wanting to ignore and knowingly ignoring these issues; it is just that they do not understand. On behalf of Victorian women, we deserve better, and we in this chamber should be leading this change, driving this change in community attitudes to women.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Ms Maxwell’s motion 17/11/21
Read the motion here.
Pairing arrangements
Ms PATTEN (Northern Metropolitan) (11:55): I too would like to speak to Dr Ratnam’s motion on pairing. This is something that has been missing in this chamber—the ability for the crossbench to have a pairing process—and it became so apparent last year during COVID when we were all at risk of not being able to be in the chamber.
While we introduced, and I welcomed, the ability to contribute remotely, it still cut us out of any pairing arrangement or any way to have our position on a motion or on a bill recorded in this house. I note that that has never been a problem for the two major parties—they have always had a pairing arrangement amongst each other. Okay, it has been fraught, I understand that, and we have certainly seen that. Fraught may be an understatement there. But for the crossbench that has not been an option, and this has really weighed heavily on our minds, as I say, particularly during this pandemic when through no fault of our own we could have been in a supermarket that became an infection spot and we would not have been able to be in the chamber and we would not have been able to contribute, nor could we have had our opinion on a position recorded.
This is a really simple, sensible motion. It is largely a motion that just supports what the crossbench will be doing amongst each other, but it also opens up the opportunity for us to reach a pairing arrangement with any party here, including both major parties. I would commend—
A member interjected.
Ms PATTEN: Yes, I would just bring it to a vote. I support this motion.
Fiona Patten MP
Leader of Reason
Member for Northern Metropolitan Region
Ms Ratnam’s motion 17/11/21