Feature
Weaponising 'safety' harms racalised communities
Last Wednesday, 30th of July, the Allan Labor Government introduced yet another bill that will make it easier for Victoria to jail First Nations and other racialised people. In a media release announcing the Bail Further Amendment Bill 2025, Premier Jacinta Allan, Attorney-General Sonya Kilkenny and Police Minister Anthony Carbines proudly stated that "the number of bail revocations and people on remand has increased." They claimed this increase as a success, rather than yet another indicator of the Victorian Labor Government's shameful agenda of criminalising rather than resourcing communities whose lives are already marked by state violence, particularly First Nations and other racialised communities.
Let's call these laws what they are: not just an abandonment of racialised communities, but an active entrenchment of systemic racism. Rather than building more public housing, investing in First Nations-led legal services, or making genuine financial commitments to support the wellbeing of racialised communities, the Allan Government is tearing down the flats and widening the pipeline to prison. When Premier Allan employs the language of "safety" to introduce draconian bail measures, we know that it is not the safety of racialised communities she is concerned about.
The Centre Against Racial Profiling calls on the Allan Government to listen, really listen, to First Nations and other racialised communities, and to act on long-standing demands by organisations including the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, the Dhadjowa Foundation, and Flat Out. Premier Allan must properly resource decarceration and community wellbeing, diverting funding away from the police and prisons that terrorise racialised communities in this state. Anything less is a confirmation of the Victorian Labor Government's commitment to upholding racial injustice.
News
"Bail saves lives" - changes to Victoria's bail laws will take state backwards, Aboriginal Legal Service warns
A rally on the steps of Victorian Parliament has heard personal accounts of incarceration and fears for the future as the state government tabled further bail reforms inside on Wednesday.
National Indigenous Times has previously reported on the proposals, and already passed additions to the state's bail laws, amendments the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service have warned "will inevitably result in more Aboriginal deaths in custody".
Recommended reading
Practicing Emergent Strategies to Fight the Right and Resist Fascism
An excerpt from Andrea Ritchie’s new book Practicing New Worlds. This book examines the role of practicing emergent strategies toward abolition, or a just future without punishment, prisons, or violence in any form. Arguing that emergent strategies are the most effective way to create social change in today’s conditions, Ritchie explores how “visionary organizing” is used to resist racial capitalism and right-wing forces.
How Australia became a police state
Pro-Palestine protests and sustained years of climate activism have contributed to the recent flurry of legislation.