reasons for law reform

• Changes in beliefs, values and attitudes.

  Legalising Same Sex Marriage

  • In 2017, a postal survey was conducted in Australia to gauge the community’s support for legalising same-sex marriage. 
  • While not compulsory, 82% of the population participated and approximately 62% of people were in favour of changing the law. 
  • While not all in favour of the change, the government could not ignore that the reform had the support from the majority of Australians, which lead to an update to the Marriage Act.
• Changes in international conditions.

  Strengthening Counter-Terrorism Laws

  • In 2021, the Cwth parliament passed the Counter Terrorism Legislation Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Act to create a ‘extended supervision scheme’. 
  • This scheme aims to ensure that terrorist offenders who are released from prison after serving their sentence can be closely monitored depending on the security risk.  
• Advances in technology.

  Tougher penalties for data security breaches. 

  • Recent high-profile data breaches, such as those involving Optus and Medibank, exposed the personal information of millions of Australians. 
  • This highlighted vulnerabilities in existing privacy protections. 
  • Hence, this promoted the Cwth parliament to update the law by passing the Privacy Legislation Amendment (Enforcement and Other Measures) Act 2022 to increase penalties for repeated breaches. 
  • This aims to encourage companies to improve their data security. 
• A greater need for protection in the community

  Protecting Victorian Farmers from Animal Activists. 

  • The Livestock Management Amendment Act 2021 was created by the Vic parliament to ban animal activists from trespassing on victorian farms to protest or conduct demonstrations. 
  • The bill was introduced in response to several incidents of farm trespass by animal activists, including at the Gippy Goat Cafe in Yarragon. 
  • ‘It was very threatening to have 70 people in black shirts turn up on the same day’