Basically we lost our home.
It's not just a house, it's a home, it's dad's heart.
And it means so much to us.
We live like a poor life. We cannot afford to do anything.
We had second-hand clothes which was the best ever.
You saw the little shack that we grew up in.
It had one bedroom. With no electricity.
No hot water.
It's heartbreaking.
It's a strange feeling, I drive past it every day.
I see the signs, it still feels like it's the Moloney household.
I'd like to see it go back to them.
This is the simple mud brick house that Robert Moloney spent more than 25 years building.
It was once a vibrant family home
but now it sits vacant and overgrown.
I've been in Nirranda all my life.
Me mother's family have been here since the 1880s.
And me father moved down here as a farmer.
And has been a farmer down here for 50 years.
I've always had a lot to do with this community.
I don't think there's too many people in this community who think
that this was a fair and just thing that happened to me.
I know that they don't.
I know him, I see him have a few drinks
when we're at the bar at Boggy Creek
every now and then over the years.
And Robert's Robert.
But he's 100% not a criminal.
That's where I had the marijuana growing, in there.
Right next to that tap, right next to the apple tree.
No fence, nothing around it.
You could see it driving up the road, I never tried hiding it.
You drive up the road and see it growing.
I've seen these cases where
people grow five plants, with no intention ever of having
ever to traffic any of that cannabis.
And I think in those situations
if they're convicted of cultivating a commercial quality of cannabis
then the consequence of losing their home is entirely disproportionate.
In the rural Victorian town of Nirranda, just outside Warrnambool, Robert has been growing marijuana
for personal use for most of his life.
Something that was largely ignored by local authorities for years.
I've always been a smoker, you know I've always smoked marijuana.
A lot of people around here smoke marijuana.
We always have.
But in 2008, the police knocked on his door
and charged Robert with cultivating and trafficking a commercial quantity of cannabis.
Nah, never sold none of it.
And the police went through all of this.
There was no drug paraphernalia when it comes to selling it.
There was no text messages.
There was no proceeds of crime.
There was no unexplained wealth.
There was no cash.
The police found no evidence that Robert was dealing drugs
and dropped the trafficking charges.
While the police admitted that Robert was not selling marijuana
he was still charged with cultivating a commercial amount.
A charge that allowed the State to take Robert's home.
I'm sure the average person
who's got more than the commercial quantity of marijuana
and as I say, in Warrnambool you put your feet on the ground
and marijuana will grow out your ears.
They will have no idea whatsoever
that their home, in many cases will be
the subject of removal from them, automatically.
It's an essential problem with the law.
There's no doubt.
Fran O'Brien QC has been a barrister for nearly 30 years.
She took on Robert's case pro-bono.
She says the State never should have been able to seize Robert's home.
The Confiscation Act is fine and it's good legislation
if it does what the parliamentary speakers say that it's intended to do.
That is: to rrequisition the goods of serious, serial offenders in the drug industry.
The facts are such that Mr. Moloney was not in the 'drugs industry'.
He was a small-time user of cannabis
He and all of his family have been dramatically affected
by the confiscation of a very humble home, and means of making a living.
Oh wow, there's actually a bunch of bananas.
Well the Confiscation Act was brought in, no doubt to get the Mr. Bigs.
The Tony Mokbel's of the world.
And it was for big time criminals.
People who make profit out of crime should not be able to keep those profits.
State MP John Vogel went in to bat for Robert in Parliament, calling his case
"a miscarriage of justice."
In Robert Moloney's case, it went completely out of kilter because
he was a small-time, growing a few marijuana plants
and somehow got caught up in this legislation, which he never should have.
Fran O'Brien fought the state for nearly two years to help Robert get his house back.
But ultimately, they were unsuccessful.
I think it's a profoundly wrong ruling.
But the law is an extremely blunt instrument in this area.
The only thing I thought they could ever lose your place if you've got the proceeds of crime
and you got caught trafficking.
Seizing Robert Moloney's house has made the state no money.
They've spent thousands of man hours pursuing the house, a house that couldn't even be sold at auction.
All I know is, which I did say in the parliament whenever I raised it
this will probably cost half a million dollars that the taxpayer will end up footing the bill for
because Robert was never able to pay the legal fees
if he lost, no way.
He hasn't got any money, and secondly the property it turns out is not sellable.
Robert is now homeless, moving between friends' houses.
At one stage, Robbie was living in one of the sheds here.
It's full of rats, there's no facilities there.
But that's where he was living with all his goods and chattels around him
and his kids used to come and stay there, in a shed.
Traditionally, proceeds of crime legislation has been for the purpose of
depriving people of the proceeds of criminal activity.
But the way in which the legislation operates is far more wide-reaching than that.
People can lose property even though it was legitimately acquired
If one were cynical about it, one might think that that is because this area of the law provides
a fair bit of revenue for the Government.
I haven't got any plans.
I ain't going nowhere
until home is sorted out.
I'm staying here.
I'm staying in Nirranda.
The full weight of the law was brought down on this bloke.
He's getting older, his health is not great.
There's no doubt that Robert Moloney committed a crime, but it just seems that the
punishment that has been meted out to him
is far an excess of really what should've been intended, I think.