Victorian informant bill stalls as Greens flag concerns

Controversial reforms to overhaul Victoria Police's use of police informants after the Lawyer X scandal have stalled in state parliament's upper house. 

Victoria's Legislative Council was scheduled to debate the Human Source Management Bill on Thursday ahead of an expected final vote.

But the Greens still held concerns over the bill and would not support it, despite Labor drafting changes to raise the threshold for police to use lawyers as informants.

"The Greens share many of the concerns raised by legal experts including the lack of adequate protections for children who may be registered as reportable human sources," the party's justice spokeswoman Katherine Copsey said.

"We're also concerned about the lack of effective independent oversight or power to limit the recruitment of certain individuals being registered as reportable human sources."

They want more time to continue negotiations and the government has agreed.

Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes said Labor would bring the bill back before the upper house during the next sitting week in May.

"This bill proposes the most robust police informant management system of anywhere in Australia- and it acquits the recommendations of the royal commission," she said in a statement.

"Victorians deserve nothing less to ensure what happened with Ms Gobbo cannot happen again."

The bill acts on 25 recommendations from the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants, which investigated Victoria Police's handling of former gangland lawyer-turned-police informant Nicola Gobbo.

But it would still give police discretion to register children, lawyers, journalists, doctors, priests, parliamentarians and judges as human sources, raising red flags for various legal groups.

Commissioner Margaret McMurdo found the use of Ms Gobbo as a secret informer was a "systemic failure" and police should have disclosed her status as a human source.

Ms Symes said former justice McMurdo was happy with the proposed additional safeguards after speaking with the government on Monday.

Under the changes, the police commissioner would have to be satisfied there is an "imminent risk" to a person's or community safety to register a lawyer as a human source and the Supreme Court would have to approve it.

Ms McMurdo's final report recommended the police boss be legally obligated to consider formal legal advice before registering a human source with the intention to obtain or disseminate confidential or privileged information from that person.

Law Institute of Victoria president Tania Wolff said the bill that passes must properly respond to the reasons for the royal commission, without creating a framework for lawyers to be used to inform on their clients.

"This is an important piece of legislation. It is important for the community that we get it right," she said in a statement after the bill stalled.

The opposition plans to move amendments to completely outlaw a lawyer informing against one of their clients when the bill returns for debate.

It would still allow lawyers to provide information about criminal activities not related to clients.

"Our view is that any bill that allows the Lawyer X scandal to happen again is a bad bill, and we won't be supporting it," shadow attorney-general Michael O'Brien said.

Without the backing of the coalition, Labor will need the support of at least six crossbenchers for the bill to pass the upper house.