After hearing first hand about the role of a Bail Justice (BJ) and the system that volunteers such as our incoming District Goveror Murray Wilson work in, you can’t help but admire the work that Murray and the other 85 BJs here in Victoria do. What a remarkable group of people, who go through rigorous and continuous training to give their time, more often than not when we are sleeping, to protect us all.
Murray explained that BJs’ work mainly centres around conducting remand hearings in respect of Children, Aborigines and Adults with disabilties who are held in police custody, as well as completing applications for Interim Accommodation Orders under the Children, Youth and Families Act 2005.
Bail Justice volunteers are appointed by the Governor in Council and they tend to operate from10:00pm to 6:00am on weekdays, with extended times on weekends and public holidays. None of us were surprised to hear that Friday nights are their busiest night.
One positive result of COVID is that Murray and other BJs can do the majority of their work remotely now, which means Murray can conduct a number of remand hearings on the one evening, without having time wasted travelling to different locations around Victoria.
It is pleasing to see that there has been a shift in the focus with major changes in 2025 ensuring:
- Community safety comes first on all bail decisions
- The reintroduction of the offence of ‘committing an indictable offence while on bail’
- Machetes have been declared prohibited weapons in Victoria, to crack down on knife crime
- And anyone charged with aggravated home invasion, home invasion, aggravated burglary, aggravated carjacking, carjacking or armed robbery, will mean it is extremely difficult for them to get bail.
We were all extremely impressed with the work that Murray is doing as a BJ and the many questions that were asked of him at the end of his presentation left no time for us to hear about his plans as incoming DG…something we’ll attempt to get Murray to share with us before he commences his busy year in July 2027.
Don’t forget, our Tree Planting Day on 30th August, is approaching fast! Make sure you book yourself and any guests in, as soon as you can, so we can ensure we have enough food for you all. The booking for this event is already open on our website and it is great to see we already have a number of our Rotaractor friends booked in to assist with the planting. Thank you for your support!
We have our EFPOST machine up and running, thanks to the work that Treasurer Terry has been doing over the last few weeks. This will come in really useful when we begin using our BBQ each month at the Berwick Farmers’ Market.
Ken Mirams and his wife Shirley will be joining our meeting this week. Not only is Ken Wendy Moseley’s brother, he is also District 9815’s Protection Officer, and he will be sharing with us all what we need to have in place to protect the Rotary Brand, to protect our Club and to protect each one of our members or anyone else taking part in a project or event that we run.
Hope to see you all on Wednesday.
Have a fantastic week.
