Victoria’s banning notice provisions: parliamentary, procedural and individual vulnerabilities

Abstract

Purpose Alcohol-related disorder in Australia’s night-time economy has precipitated an expanding regulatory and legislative framework. A key feature is the growth of police-imposed discretionary justice, one example of which are Victoria’s banning provisions. Banning notices are imposed on-the-spot, may be issued pre-emptively, but permit no right of independent appeal. However, there has been little analysis of the enactment, implementation or use of police-imposed banning provisions. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws upon a detailed examination of the record of parliamentary debate of the banning notice legislation to document how the provisions, and their embedded procedural vulnerabilities, were legitimised. In addition, an analysis of Victoria Police data informs consideration of the ongoing scrutiny of the police power to ban. Findings The absolute discretion afforded to police officers, and a lack of effective oversight, has created the potential for the disproportionate and discriminatory implementation of Victoria’s banning notice powers. The findings highlight procedural vulnerabilities within the provisions, and concern regarding the particular risk of banning notices for vulnerable recipients. Research limitations/implications The nature of Victoria’s banning provisions created the circumstances for their inequitable imposition, but public scrutiny of their use and effect is limited. Omissions and deficiencies in the published data restricts meaningful analysis of how banning works in practice. Originality/value The research underpinning this paper was the first detailed examination of the implementation and ongoing scrutiny of Victoria’s banning notice provisions. The findings presented in this paper highlight key procedural vulnerabilities resulting from the passage of the legislation and the absence of effective oversight.

How long should a patron ban be: an examination of police-imposed barring notice records in Western Australia

“…In a number of respects, WA currently acts as an exemplar for the use of police-initiated patron banning provisions: barring notices can only be imposed following consideration of all available evidence by WA Police's centralised LEU. This mitigates a key concern that has been identified regarding the use of patron banning in other jurisdictions: that their permissible on-the-spot imposition, determined by the subjective decision of an individual officer, sometimes for pre-emptive reasons, can create procedural and operational unfairness; are generally not subject to independent review; and, potentially, lead to a disproportionate focus on identifiable individuals and/or groups (Farmer, 2016(Farmer, , 2018(Farmer, , 2019. The variable permissible length of barring notices enables WA Police to customise the period of exclusion to suit the circumstances of the incident.…”

The steady proliferation of Australia’s discretionary police-imposed patron banning powers: An unsubstantiated cycle of assertion and presumption

“…In Victoria, an Annual Report tabled in the Victorian Parliament should document banning notice numbers, locations and reasons, and include specific details by age and indigeneity. However, recent analysis has revealed that many of the Victorian data are incomplete and there is no evidence of their use to inform official understanding of how and why banning is used (Farmer, 2017a(Farmer, , 2016. In Queensland, a database of banning-related data is maintained, but it is not publicly available.…”

“… 4. Such as Victoria’s police-imposed banning notices (Farmer, 2017a, 2016, 2017b), the Prohibited Behaviour Orders which can be imposed in Western Australia for a range of behaviours not necessarily related to alcohol consumption (Crofts, 2010; Crofts and Mitchell, 2011) or zonal exclusion more generally (Palmer and Warren, 2014). …”