Submitted by Liberty Victoria on Tue, 24/03/2020 - 09:25
In light of the developing COVID-19 pandemic, Liberty Victoria supports calls from more than 370 lawyers, academics and advocates to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 in the Australian criminal justice system, especially prisons and youth detention centres (see
This Human Rights and Technology Discussion Paper submission is made jointly by the Australian Privacy Foundation, the Queensland Council for Civil Liberties, Liberty Victoria, Electronic Frontiers Australia and the New South Wales Council for Civil Liberties.
With the context of the Previous Submissions and at the outset, we consider that the following recommendations were not addressed in the Discussion Paper and remain relevant to the project:
Submitted by Liberty Victoria on Tue, 03/03/2020 - 11:16
"There is a genuine risk of innocent people being convicted of crimes they have not committed."
Liberty Victoria strongly opposes the Victorian Government’s recently announced reforms to the law of tendency and coincidence evidence, which it has announced will be based on a Bill before the New South Wales Parliament - the Evidence Amendment (Tendency and Coincidence) Bill 2020 (NSW).
Those reforms, if enacted, would amongst other things:
Submitted by Liberty Victoria on Tue, 03/03/2020 - 10:36
Liberty Victoria welcomes the Victorian government’s announcement that it is committed to introducing a legislated spent convictions scheme. Once a scheme is legislated, this will bring Victoria in line with every other Australian state and territory, including Queensland, which has had a legislated scheme since 1986.
A Victorian spent convictions scheme will transform the lives of many Victorians and put them on an equal footing with citizens of other states and territories.
Submitted by Liberty Victoria on Tue, 11/02/2020 - 16:07
Liberty Victoria welcomes the High Court’s decision handed down today, which recognises
that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people cannot be considered “aliens” under the
Australian Constitution.
Liberty Victoria calls for the immediate release of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Australians currently held in immigration detention, and for constitutional recognition of
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Although this proposed Bill may have started as a stock-standard anti-discrimination bill for the attribute of religious belief or activity (as has long been a part of the Victorian Equal Opportunity Act, for example) it has developed a number of cancerous excrescences which made it unsupportable in the first version, and make it even less supportable in the second. It can only be saved, if at all, by radical surgery such as an optimistic surgeon might attempt for late stage metastatic cancer.
This submission will focus upon the impact of vilification on people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual,
trans and gender diverse, queer, and people born with variation in sex characteristics (LGBTIQ).
There is a wealth of information – in the form of both studies and anecdotal evidence – to
demonstrate that LGBTIQ people experience a significant and unacceptable level of vilification and
abuse in their daily lives. The examples shared with us by members of the LGBTIQ community and
In earlier remarks on the planned, now Exposure Draft, Bill (“the EDB”) the Attorney-General appeared to contemplate an ordinary anti-discrimination law along the lines of existing federal (and State/Territory) legislation. In a consultation meeting in Melbourne on Wednesday 4 September he appeared to confirm this intention, and downplayed the significance of the EDB’s departure from that “stock standard” model.
For the following reasons, Liberty Victoria recommends the Bill not be passed, and the current automatic citizenship loss provisions be repealed. a. Citizenship loss provisions, both discretionary and automatic, are not an effective response to the threat of terrorism and also risk undermining efforts to combat radicalisation. b. The citizenship loss current and proposed provisions and the operation of the Citizenship Loss Board represent a threat to the rule of law and basic civil liberties. c. The legal threshold for Ministerial decision risks manifestly disproportionate consequences.
