Victoria to impose life sentences for rape, restrict victim cross-examination

In the shadow of two women's preventable deaths, Victoria's government has proposed a reckoning with the limits of its own legal architecture — raising the ceiling on rape sentences to life imprisonment, shielding victims from courtroom re-traumatisation, and creating new offences for those who abandon the vulnerable to die alone. The reforms, announced by Premier Ben Carroll ahead of a November election, reflect a growing recognition that justice systems can themselves become instruments of harm when they treat survivors as suspects and perpetrators as beneficiaries of procedural silence.