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Victoria Police now has the power to secretly access the financial records of anyone as part of investigations into all indictable crimes under a last-minute amendment passed by Parliament quietly last week.
The Victorian Parliament last week debated the Crimes Amendment (Recruitment of Children for Criminal Activity) Bill 2026, which introduces a new offence of recruiting children to engage in criminal activity.
After the lower house passed the bill, the state government quietly introduced an amendment to it handing “serious powers” to police to require banks and other financial institutions to hand over information on Australians, without needing to get a warrant.
Because this was included in an eleventh-hour amendment, the Labor government was not required to produce a statement of compatibility with the Charter of Human Rights for these significant new police powers, or an explanatory memorandum.
The amendment allows Victoria Police to issue production notices to financial institutions to produce information that they hold if they “believe on reasonable grounds that the financial institution possesses or controls information, or one or more documents, that may assist in the investigation or prosecution of an applicable offence”.
Banks and other institutions must comply with such an order or face a fine of about $250,000.
Under previous legislation, police would have to apply to a magistrate and obtain a warrant to access information held by banks.
In the brief parliamentary debate, Labor MP Jaclyn Symes said the reforms were needed to tackle organised crime, but the new police powers apply to the investigation of all indictable offences.
“We know organised crime is a root cause of the shocking violent crimes that we are seeing across our community and effectively organised crime runs on money,” Symes said in Parliament.
“Money is the whole point – it is why they recruit children in the first place – so if you follow the money, you find the people giving the orders.”
Symes said the current system is not fit-for-purpose in the digital age, particularly with the advent of cryptocurrency.
Victorian Greens Leader Ellen Sandell said the amendment introduced “major new coercive powers to secretly obtain private financial information”.
“If the bill passes today, we would like Victorians to understand that police will be able to authorise themselves across the entire field of indictable crime without a judicial warrant,” Sandell said.
Libertarian Party MP David Limbrick also rejected the new police powers.
“We do not accept the government’s position that because there are new types of crimes that require faster responses we should abandon the principles of Western civilisation,” Limbrick said.
State Parliament passed the bill, including the new amendment, with bipartisan support from Labor and the Coalition.
Federation of Community Legal Centres CEO Louisa Gibbs said the organisation was “deeply concerned” with the new powers.
“Handing police unchecked access to Victorians’ personal financial information should be a matter for serious debate,” Gibbs said.
“To introduce this proposal so late at night as an amendment to an unrelated bill is frightening.”
Sandell criticised the government for including the police powers in an “eleventh-hour amendment to an unrelated bill”, and for not releasing a statement of compatibility with human rights.
“They are getting around that and not subjecting it to the scrutiny that a significant expansion of police powers deserves, which is the scrutiny of Parliament and scrutiny against the Charter of Human Rights,” she said.
The Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) has also criticised the reforms and said that judicial oversight should be kept.
The new powers “raise serious human rights concerns” and may breach the right to privacy.
“The LIV considers that warrantless access to private banking information, particularly without notice to the individual concerned, risks disproportionately interfering with that right,” the LIV said in a statement.
Federation of Community Legal Centres CEO Louisa Gibbs said the organisation was “deeply concerned” with the new powers.
“Handing police unchecked access to Victorians’ personal financial information should be a matter for serious debate,” Gibbs said.
“To introduce this proposal so late at night as an amendment to an unrelated bill is frightening.”
Sandell criticised the government for including the police powers in an “eleventh-hour amendment to an unrelated bill”, and for not releasing a statement of compatibility with human rights.
“They are getting around that and not subjecting it to the scrutiny that a significant expansion of police powers deserves, which is the scrutiny of Parliament and scrutiny against the Charter of Human Rights,” she said.
The Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) has also criticised the reforms and said that judicial oversight should be kept.
The new powers “raise serious human rights concerns” and may breach the right to privacy.
“The LIV considers that warrantless access to private banking information, particularly without notice to the individual concerned, risks disproportionately interfering with that right,” the LIV said in a statement.
