Victorian rapists could face life imprisonment under new reforms proposed by the state Labor government, which also seeks to limit prosecuting lawyers’ ability to subject victims to humiliating questioning in court. Announced on Sunday by Premier Ben Carroll, the package of pre-election commitments aims to strengthen legal protections for victims of family and sexual violence.
The reforms include introducing a new manslaughter offence for cases in which a person takes their own life due to family violence, as well as a separate crime criminalizing the abandonment of victims in need of medical care. Officials say these measures will close existing legal loopholes that allow perpetrators to evade accountability.
“I’m sick of Victoria’s courts and defence barristers putting victims on trial,” Carroll said, highlighting the planned restriction on invasive line of questioning often experienced by victim-survivors during trials. The government will also amend laws to permit courts to consider patterns of sexual abuse as evidence, providing greater context in prosecutions.
In addition to these changes, Labor intends to increase the maximum penalty for rape from 25 years to life imprisonment. Other serious sexual offences will carry sentences lengthened by five years, while penalties for persistent breaches of family violence intervention orders could double from five to ten years. The standard sentence for the murder of a current or former partner would rise from 25 to 30 years.
The proposed offence addressing victim abandonment follows cases reviewed by state coroner Liberty Sanger, who investigated the deaths of Belinda Jones and Narelle Simmons. Jones died in July 2023 after her partner left her unattended on the floor of their Maryborough home despite her deteriorating condition from untreated bacterial infections and sepsis. Her partner was not charged in relation to her death.
Simmons was found dead nine days after sustaining multiple assaults from her partner in Cranbourne in October 2021. Her partner, who had a history of 18 previous family violence victims, was convicted of common assault and failing to report a reportable death, receiving a five-month prison sentence and a community corrections order. Coroner Sanger characterized abandonment of a victim requiring medical care as an act of family violence reinforcing control and fear.
The announcement coincides with a series of crime-related election pledges from Carroll’s government in recent days, including the establishment of a new police training facility in Melbourne’s western suburbs and Jack’s Law, which would authorize police and protective services officers to use handheld metal detectors to stop and search individuals for knives.
“I’m a tough-on-crime premier — and that means being tough on family and sexual violence,” Carroll said ahead of Sunday’s announcement. He emphasized the urgency of action, noting that a Victorian woman dies from violence approximately every two weeks.
The Coalition opposition has also signaled tough crime policies, pledging to introduce Jack’s Law along with measures to expand adult sentencing for youth offenders, increase police numbers, and restructure the court of appeal if elected in November.