Latest news with #bail laws
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Bec Judd slams ex-Premier Daniel Andrews as she continues crusade against crime: 'I've banded Victorians together'
Rebecca Judd has slammed former Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews as she continues to rail against crime in her home state. The AFL WAG, 42, has been a flag-bearer for fighting Victoria's spiralling crime crisis and weak bail laws for several years. She appeared on Triple M's Friday Huddle this week and wasted no time in taking aim at the former Premier. Bec listened to Andrews' blunt response to her 2022 video, in which she first voiced her concerns about feeling 'unsafe'. Andrews shot down Judd's claims that not enough was being done to combat crime in her upmarket suburb of Brighton. From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop. 'I'm not interested in having an argument with Ms Judd,' he said at the time. 'I'm also obliged to point out though, I think there are more than 70 additional police in the Bayside area. The most recent crime statistics released by an independent agency would not support those sweeping assessments about patterns of crime.' After listening to the throwback clip, Judd slammed the former Premier as a 'liar'. 'Actually a pretty good actor isn't he?' she said. 'That was a flat out lie about the data and the extra police officers... a lie which has been proven. '[He is] probably the biggest liar Victoria has ever seen.' Judd added while she was initially trolled for her outspoken stance on Melbourne crime, Victorians have started to rally behind the influencer. 'There's a lot of: "how dare you have an opinion because you live in that suburb". I always get: "white privileged woman from Brighton", so therefore I'm not entitled to an opinion. 'There was a heck of a lot of trolling, just go and spend some more on private security and shut up.' 'Actually a pretty good actor isn't he?' she said. 'That was a flat out lie about the data and the extra police officers... a lie which has been proven. '[He is] probably the biggest liar Victoria has ever seen' She said that her continued efforts to highlight what she described as a 'huge problem' throughout the state have resulted in the trolls vanishing. 'All of a sudden the trolling has disappeared – I would say 100 per cent of my DMs are now: "you were right, keep speaking up about it,"' she said. 'The support has been insane – I don't think I get blowback from anyone now. I've had people apologise to me, I've had people say: "I was against you and now I'm not". Even people who didn't like me for whatever reason.' 'I feel like I've really banded Victorians together,' she said. 'The fact of the matter is we have a huge problem and this is killing our state.' It comes after Judd took aim at Andrews back in March, saying he could've saved lives if he fixed Melbourne's crime scourge while in power. She called Andrews 'the Dictator' in a social media post to her 750,000-plus Instagram followers after current Premier Jacinta Allan announced the government would implement harsher bail laws. 'Gee, this aged well,' Judd posted on Instagram with an accompanying image of a 2022 story in which she warned Melbourne has a crime crisis. 'Imagine the lives that could've been saved. Imagine the terror experienced by so many Victorians that could've been stopped if the Dictator had acted when I called this out. 'Today Jacinta Allan has announced the toughest bail laws in the country. Yes it is too late for so many but it is a start. 'And mark my words, if the government stuffs this up again, I will continue to let everyone know about it. 'I am a mum and proud Victorian who just wants my beloved Melbourne to go back to being the best city in the world where everybody feels safe to live their lives.'
ABC News
6 days ago
- Politics
- ABC News
Federal government under pressure to intervene in NT incarceration 'crisis'
One of Australia's largest Aboriginal legal services is calling on the federal government to intervene in what it is calling an incarceration "crisis" in the Northern Territory. The NT's prison population has soared to unprecedented levels in recent months, with prisoners locked up inside police watch houses for days on end due to a lack of beds at correctional facilities. In one recent incident, an 11-year-old Aboriginal girl who was initially denied bail was detained overnight inside Palmerston's overcrowded police watch house, where the lights remain on 24 hours a day. The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency's (NAAJA) acting chief executive, Anthony Beven, has called on the federal government to suspend Commonwealth funding for remote policing and other justice-related operations until the NT government changes its hardline approach to crime. Since the Country Liberal Party came to power last year, the NT government has lowered the age of criminal responsibility from 12 back to 10 and introduced tougher bail laws for both adults and children. Mr Beven said the measures were not working to reduce crime and were leading to large numbers of Aboriginal people being incarcerated. "One of the unique things we have here in the Northern Territory is that the Commonwealth actually funds the Northern Territory police for remote policing and other options," Mr Beven said. The NT Police Force was budgeted to receive about $50 million in Commonwealth funding in 2024-25. Mr Beven also said NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro had so far refused to meet with NAAJA and other Aboriginal leaders to discuss strategies aimed at reducing crime. In a statement, Federal Indigenous Australians Minister Marndirri McCarthy said: "There is something very wrong with the Northern Territory justice system when an 11-year-old girl is held in an adult police watch house for two days and one night." "It is primarily Northern Territory bail laws that are driving this issue," she said. Ms McCarthy said the NT government had previously committed to reducing the incarceration rates of First Nations people under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. NT Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby slammed Mr Beven's comments as "utterly absurd". "Threatening to cut essential funding to remote policing is counterproductive, dangerous, and undermines community confidence," Ms Boothby said in a statement. "There is no alternative: those who break the law will be arrested. "Corrections will continue to expand capacity to ensure those who are remanded or sentenced have a bed, because that's what the community expects." Ms Boothby said the adult prison in Berrimah, on Darwin's outskirts, would be expanded to accommodate an extra 238 prison beds by mid-August. Ms Finocchiaro has been contacted for comment. The situation in the Northern Territory comes amid growing international concern about youth justice in Australia. In a letter to the federal government in May, the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Edwards, and the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Albert K Barume, singled out the NT's record on human rights. "Several states and the Northern Territory are announcing new 'tougher' criminal legislation, which seem to give little regard to international human rights standards," they wrote. The letter said there was an "ongoing pattern" of First Nations children being disproportionately incarcerated, noting that in the Northern Territory, Indigenous children are 32 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-Indigenous children. It also said the NT government's decision to reduce the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10 was "a step backwards", and criticised the lifting of a ban on spit hoods being used on children. "Spit hoods … are considered inherently in violation of the prohibition of torture and/or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," they wrote. The federal government has not responded to the letter in the requested 60-day timeframe.
