The family of First Nations woman Veronica Nelson has urged the Victorian government to “listen to [her] cries for help” and go further with its proposed changes to bail laws, which will be debated in parliament this week.
Nelson died alone in a Melbourne prison cell while on remand in January 2020 after her calls for help went unanswered. The 37-year-old Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman had been arrested for shoplifting and refused bail before her death.
A damning coroner’s report on her death released in January described previous changes to Victoria’s bail laws as a “complete, unmitigated disaster”, prompting the government to embark on reform.
It introduced the bail amendment bill to parliament earlier this month, which if passed would ban people charged with specific low-level offences from being remanded, and repeal two bail offences introduced by the previous Coalition government.
But the changes fall short of a proposal by Nelson’s family, known as Poccum’s law, which is supported by 56 Indigenous, legal and human rights groups.
As the government’s bill is debated this week, Nelson’s partner, Uncle Percy Lovett, and mother, Aunty Donna Nelson, will be attending parliament to push MPs to implement their proposed changes.
“I am relieved that our lawmakers are finally changing bail laws. This is a positive step forward, but it doesn’t go far enough,” Aunty Donna told Guardian Australia.
“If the government is serious about protecting our people, they must implement Poccum’s law. Not just some of it, all of it.
“Our lawmakers must listen to Veronica’s cries for help, just as I hear her every night.”
She and Lovett maintain Nelson would still be alive if it were not for the state’s bail laws.
“Veronica should still be here. The system needs to change so that other people don’t go through the same thing,” Lovett said.
“We’re coming to parliament on Tuesday to ask the politicians to make the government’s proposal better. These changes are about saving lives and I reckon politicians should remember that.”
While the government’s bill will easily pass the lower house, it will need either the support of the crossbench or Coalition in the upper house to secure the reforms.
The Coalition is yet to form a position on the bill but has previously said it was willing to work constructively with the government on reform, while the Greens have indicated they will introduce their own amendments.
In his findings into Nelson’s death, the coroner Simon McGregor said two bail provisions introduced by the government after the Bourke Street massacre breached the charter of human rights and discriminated against Aboriginal people.
They are the “reverse onus” test, which requires defendants or their lawyer to show “compelling reasons” and “exceptional circumstances” to be granted bail, and a “double uplift” provision. The latter applies to people who have committed an offence while on bail, making them subject to the reverse onus test.
McGregor said within a year of the introduction of these provisions, imprisonment rates for all adults increased and the rate at which Aboriginal women were imprisoned nearly doubled.
The government is abolishing the double uplift provision and the reverse onus test for children and adults accused of bail-related offences. But all other offences captured by the test will remain.
Nerita Waight, the chief executive of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, said she was concerned the reforms would make the Bail Act “more complicated and lead to bad-decision making”.
“Police have enough on their plate without needing a PhD to decide if someone should get bail or not,” she said.
Waight is urging the government to implement Poccum’s law – named after Nelson’s childhood nickname – which would scrap the reverse onus test and introduce a presumption in favour of bail. If the government does not, she is calling for a review of the legislation 12 months after it is enacted.
“There have been three bail bills before this in the last decade and the government has admitted that there were mistakes in all of them,” she said. “We need an opportunity to take another look at these changes after they’ve been put in place.”
