Victoria’s new First Nations voice to parliament has made its first intervention on government policy under nation-leading treaty powers to call for a controversial bill that would deny prisoners at least one hour of open air daily to be scrapped.
The Labor government’s corrections amendment bill 2026, which is expected to pass parliament this week with Coalition support, would give authorities the ability to deny prisoners their daily hour of outdoor time “subject to operational considerations”.
During debate in the lower house last month, the Victorian government acknowledged that the bill was incompatible with the state’s Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities and partly incompatible with its new treaty with First Nations People.
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia emailIt also does not adhere with the United Nation’s Nelson Mandela rules, which set minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners, including one hour each day in the open air, weather permitting.
Despite outcry from legal, human rights and First Nations groups and the Victorian ombudsman – who wrote to the leaders of both major parties this month to express concern with the bill – the government will forge ahead with debate in the upper house on Thursday.
It has prompted an intervention from Gellung Warl, Victoria’s First Peoples’ representative body established as part of the treaty process.
For the first time, it has exercised its powers under the Statewide Treaty Act to call on the government to withdraw the bill.
In a letter to the minister for corrections, Ros Spence; the attorney general, Sonya Kilkenny; and the deputy premier and minister for First Peoples, Gabrielle Williams; Gellung Warl co-chairs Meriki Onus and Djaran Murray-Jackson said the bill was “inconsistent with the spirit and intent of Statewide Treaty”.
“This Bill seeks to deny the right of people in prison to spend one hour each day outside in the open air and sunlight. The vague excuse of ‘operational considerations’ should not be relied upon to erode the basic rights and conditions of all people in prison,” the letter reads.
Onus and Murray-Jackson said the bill would have a “disproportionate impact” on First Peoples as they were “significantly overrepresented” in the correctional system, including on remand.
They said they were “deeply concerned” the government has concluded the bill is in part incompatible with treaty.
“This acknowledgment is significant. It recognises that the Parliament is being asked to enact a law that is inconsistent with the commitments of Statewide Treaty. It undermines the renewed relationship between First Peoples and the State agreed to under Statewide Treaty,” Onus and Murray-Jackson said.
“The Assembly urgently calls on the Victorian Government to withdraw the Bill and to listen to the First Peoples and justice experts who strongly oppose the Bill.”
Under the Treaty Act, Spence must respond to the letter within 60 days.
A government spokesperson defended the bill, saying: “We will always ensure the safety, security, and good order of our prisons and the protection of our staff.”
“These changes are operational decisions to ensure access to open air can continue to be managed safely,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The Victorian Greens leader, Ellen Sandell, said it would be a “disgrace” for the bill to pass without consideration of Gellung Warl’s concerns.
“The whole point of treaty was to reset the relationship between the state, the government, and First Peoples in Victoria,” she told reporters on Wednesday.
“The Labor government can’t go out there and champion treaty on one day, and the next day completely ignore the principles of it.”
The Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe accused the government of treating treaty like a “photo opportunity”.
“Labor celebrated Treaty, took their selfies and filled their socials with how historic it was. But Treaty means nothing if the Government ignores First Peoples when they exercise the powers that Treaty gives them,” she said, adding that the new premier, Ben Carroll, should withdraw the bill and work with Gellung Warl in good faith.
The Greens, Legalise Cannabis, Animal Justice Party and the Libertarian MP David Limbrick have said they will oppose the bill.
“Surely the government can be tough on crime without violating human rights. Whatever they are thinking, this legislation should be an embarrassment to everyone involved,” Limbrick said.
It came after the Victorian supreme court in January ruled in favour of George Marrogi, a convicted murderer and drug trafficker serving a 38-year sentence in Barwon prison, who argued that the conditions of his custody were unlawful.
Judge Claire Harris, who visited Victorian prisons as part of the case, found that the heads of the department of justice, Barwon prison and the Metropolitan remand centre had denied Marrogi his legal right to be “in the open air.”
Marrogi referred to the Mandela rules as part of his case.
Legal advocates and human rights groups have planned to attend a rally against the bill outside the state’s parliament on Wednesday.
