Victorian government commits to rewriting sentencing act

Victoria’s sentencing laws will be rewritten to be more in line with community expectations and to protect good Samaritans, the state government has announced.

Ahead of the state budget, which will be handed down on Tuesday afternoon, the attorney-general Sonya Kilkenny has announced $3m in funding will go to the Sentencing Advisory Council to conduct an independent review into the Sentencing Act.

The council will be asked to consider current sentencing issues affecting Victorians, including outcomes for offences against people who are trying to intervene to stop violence – known as “good Samaritan” laws.

Both experts and the public will be able to provide feedback throughout the review. Based on its recommendations, the government commits to rewriting the act, which it said hasn’t had a comprehensive review since 1991.

Kilkenny said:

Sentencing absolutely needs to reflect community expectations – but the Act hasn’t been reviewed with that aim in mind since 1991. It’s no wonder many Victorians think sentencing doesn’t reflect our modern challenges. We’ll rewrite the Act following the advice from experts, police and the public, because under Labor, community safety comes first.

This work is in addition to the government announcement last week of a Victorian Law Reform Commission review into the state’s emergency worker harm laws, following an attack on a paramedic in uniform.

Advocacy body for people experiencing homelessness, Homelessness Australia, has called for change after a newborn baby was found dead in a tent in a homeless encampment in Wagga yesterday.

You can read more on the background to this story here:

Homelessness Australia’s chief executive Kate Colvin said the organisation “expressed deep sorrow” following the death and extended its condolences to the child’s mother and family.

Colvin said:

This is a devastating tragedy and our thoughts are with the mother of this baby and everyone affected.

The uncomfortable truth is that tragedies like this don’t come out of nowhere. They are the result of a housing system that has broken to the point that there is no safe housing or adequate support available, even for a mother with a newborn baby.

It is completely unacceptable a family that has welcomed a new baby cannot immediately access a home, but rentals are unaffordable and social housing is unavailable. Even where families are in touch with homelessness services, people in desperate need miss out every day because there is not enough social housing or homelessness support …

Without change, we will keep seeing tragedies like this, each one heartbreaking, avoidable, and a reminder people are being failed long before crisis hits.

Thanks so much to Martin Farrer for kicking us off this morning. I’m Stephanie Convery and I’ll be bringing you all the live news until mid-afternoon today.

Mortgage holders are set to be hundreds of dollars worse off per month than they were at the start of the year as the Reserve Bank prepares to unload a third consecutive interest rate hike on borrowers, Australian Associated Press reports.

Financial markets were pricing in the chance the Reserve Bank would lift the cash rate by 25 basis points today at more than two-thirds, after headline inflation surged to 4.6% in March.

Rising fuel prices caused by the US-Israeli war with Iran have amplified the central bank’s inflation headache.

Price growth was already well above target before the conflict broke out and sent global energy markets into chaos.

Economists at the Commonwealth Bank, NAB, ANZ, Westpac, AMP, Deutsche Bank, Challenger, JP Morgan, HSBC and Citi all predict Reserve Bank governor Michele Bullock to announce a hike.

That would bring the cash rate back to the peak of 4.35% before the Reserve Bank’s short-lived cutting cycle in 2025.

For an average borrower with a $600,000 mortgage, the three consecutive hikes since February will cumulatively add more than $270 a month in interest repayments.

Read our analysis here:

Victoria’s treasurer, Jaclyn Symes, will today hand down a state budget which will deliver an operating surplus and which will forecast another next financial year.

It will show the state recorded a $700m surplus in 2025-26, largely in line with December’s pre-budget update of $710m and an improvement on the $611m forecast last May.

Read the full story here:

Three die in northern NSW boat tragedy

Three people have died in a boating tragedy off the coast of northern NSW last night.

According to police, a yacht got into trouble off the South Ballina break wall about 6.15pm.

A crew from Marine Rescue went to their aid but their own vessel rolled while crossing the Ballina Bar in heavy conditions.

As of 10pm last night, three people were confirmed to have died and another four managed to make it to shore. It was unclear how many people were on the yacht.

The four who made it to shore were treated by paramedics and none had life-threatening injuries. The yacht has now sunk.

Water police attended the scene and Marine Area Command were coordinating a search and rescue operation.

Malarndirri McCarthy calls for ‘peace’ after Kumanjayi Little Baby’s death

Australia’s minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy has called for “peace” after Kumanjayi Little Baby’s death, saying there will be time for “conversations later on.”

Northern Territory police over the weekend charged Jefferson Lewis with murder over the death of Kumanjayi Little Baby, 5. The Warlpiri girl went missing on Saturday 25 April from her bed in a town camp near Alice Springs,

Speaking to the ABC’s 7.30 program on Monday night, McCarthy said:

What we need now is to just have some peace, to be able to bury this little girl, and there’ll be times for conversations later on.

The national commissioner for Indigenous children, Sue Hunter, on Monday, wrote in The Australian newspaper that, while grieving should be respected, sorry business “does not silence the questions this loss demands we ask”.

McCarthy said Hunter’s comments were “appropriate” and stressed that the Albanese government established the commissioner’s role due to concern for the care for “our children across the country”.