Bill Speech: Spent Convictions Bill 2020

Ms SPENCE (Yuroke—Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Community Sport, Minister for Youth)

I am very pleased to add my support to the Spent Convictions Bill 2020, which will support the rehabilitation and reintegration of members of our community who have been in contact with the justice system.

Because we shouldn’t be raising barriers to opportunity for those who are committed to learning and making a positive contribution to society.

As the former Attorney-General said in her second-reading speech, “the Spent Convictions Bill 2020 embodies a simple idea: people who have worked hard to turn their lives around deserve the opportunity to move on from minor historical offending”.

One of the most important roles of our justice system is to support a change of behaviour in an individual who has been convicted to help minimise the chance of reoffending.

And depending on their circumstances, that individual should be given a second chance to return to their community and prove that they are capable of not reoffending.

More often than not, people who resort to crime have experienced disadvantage in their past—whether it be poverty, racism, family violence or trauma.

When they leave the justice system, not only do they return to these same challenges, but they are faced with additional stigmatic barriers associated with their conviction that prevent them from getting their lives back on track.

Currently anyone with a criminal record is forced to disclose their conviction when they undergo a police check.

Their conviction follows them, and each time their past is revealed and they are perceived as a criminal, another major barrier rises: barriers to securing work, barriers to pursuing educational opportunities, barriers to accessing safe and appropriate housing.

These additional barriers can further entrench the disadvantage they already face.

And lead them again towards offending.

To prevent recidivism, our systems should be designed to support people to rehabilitate—not to hinder their chances of reintegration.

This bill will do just that—give Victorians who have had experience with the justice system the best possible opportunity to turn their lives around.

The bill will legislate for convictions for eligible offences to be ‘spent’ so they’re not disclosed on a person’s criminal record.

This will mean that someone can seize an opportunity for employment, seek secure housing and apply for study or to volunteer without their past standing in their way.

Currently Victoria is the only jurisdiction in Australia which does not have this legislation.

So naturally it’s time to do what the Andrews Labor government does best and make change for good.

There are certain groups of people that become significantly worse off when historic and minor convictions appear on their criminal records—some of whom I represent both as a local member and a minister.

Young people are among these groups—a cohort who are easily influenced and at risk of making choices without fully comprehending the consequences.

We’ve all done things in our youth that we aren’t proud of—but unfortunately for some, that extends to engaging in unlawful behaviour.

We know there are many reasons why a young person might turn to crime.

And we also know that young people have their whole lives ahead of them.

If the bad decisions that are made early on continue to haunt them by locking them out of opportunities, there is little hope for their reintegration or rehabilitation—and they are much more likely to reoffend.

These young members of our community are often the most vulnerable—and they need support to build their capacity and to help them make the right choices to be the best they can be.

I’ve heard this firsthand.

As part of the consultation process to inform the development of a new youth strategy for Victoria, we spoke to young people engaged in the justice system.

And we heard from a group of young people who had a powerful ability to reflect not only on how they came into contact with the justice system, but why they did the things they did at the time, what we as a government can do to better support kids like them and what they need to work on themselves to ensure they never end up in the justice system again.

That takes an enormous amount of courage and commitment. And I firmly believe that these young people will go on to be outstanding citizens.

But they need to be a part of a community that supports them and doesn’t stigmatise them—which is why this bill is so important.

Because under this new legislation, any conviction recorded against a child aged 10 to 14 will be spent immediately—and convictions with a sentence of 30 months or less will be automatically spent following a crime-free period, which for juveniles is three to five years.

Once they have completed the crime-free period, those under the age of 21 will be able to apply for a spent convictions order.

Also among those who will benefit from this bill are cohorts who are sadly over-represented in the justice system.

Aboriginal Victorians and people from multicultural backgrounds face many other layers of disadvantage which lead them to offending in the first place and then prevent them from rehabilitating once they’ve left the justice system.

These groups are more likely to be impacted by historic convictions due to the compounded stigma they face, and in turn they are much more likely to reoffend when society pushes them further towards its fringes.

For our culturally and linguistically diverse Victorians—including our First Nations people—this bill will help to address the over-representation of their communities in the justice system.

It will ensure that their past isn’t held over their head, that they have an equal chance at accessing the supports, services and opportunities they need to get back on their feet.

The provisions in this bill will make a substantial difference to enabling young people and others over-represented in the justice system to leave this period in their lives behind them and not have this as a barrier to accessing housing, employment, training or other opportunities that assist in reintegration or rehabilitation.

It is also important to note that some offences will be ineligible to be spent under any circumstance—including sexual offences and serious violent crimes that result in imprisonment.

For each case, the risk to community safety will be balanced against the benefits of rehabilitation.

But importantly, once a conviction becomes spent, there will be no requirement for a person to disclose it for any purpose—and consent will be required before someone else can disclose it.

Because if we truly want to reduce the risk of reoffending and if we want to better support some of our youngest and most marginalised communities, the law needs to change.

I congratulate the former Attorney-General for bringing this bill to the Parliament and all involved with the inquiry into a legislated spent convictions scheme undertaken by the Legal and Social Issues Committee of the Legislative Council in August 2019, which recommended that the government should introduce a legislated spent convictions scheme.

People who have worked hard to turn their lives around deserve the opportunity to move on from minor historical offending, and this bill will provide the mechanism to do that.

I commend the bill to the house.