Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes said the government would on Tuesday introduce legislation in a bid to reduce the number of people accused of low-level offending who were put behind bars on remand.
Under the changes to the Bail Act, people who committed crimes they were unlikely to receive prison time for would not be remanded in jail while they awaited their sentence.
The change would apply to summary offences, excluding some specific crimes including sexual exposure, displaying a Nazi symbol and common or aggravated assault, the government said.
"We are not relaxing the rules for serious offenders," Ms Symes told reporters.
"They still have the strictest rules apply to them and will be facing remand."
The "double uplift" provision - which resulted in people who committed offences while on bail having more onerous tests - would also be scrapped under the reforms.
The double uplift provision was among tougher bail laws introduced in 2018 after James Gargasoulas drove into a busy Bourke Street Mall in January 2017, killing six people and injuring dozens more. He was on bail at the time.
The government has opted against scrapping the reverse-onus test, which was also introduced in the 2018 reforms.
Under the test, offenders themselves - rather than the prosecution - have to prove why they should get bail.
Instead, the government has sought to minimise how frequently the reverse-onus test is used.
The Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service welcomed the broader bail reforms, but urged the government to reconsider holding on to the reverse-onus test and include a statutory review of the bill 12 months after it is enacted.
It says the reforms would be enacted six months after passing parliament.
"There have been three bail bills before this in the last decade and the government has admitted that there were mistakes in all of them," legal service chief executive Nerita Waight said.
"They should accept that they probably haven't got this one right either and set a timeline for reviewing the bill in the legislation."
Victorian Greens justice spokeswoman Katherine Copsey said her party was also concerned the bill wouldn't go far enough when it came to the reverse-onus test.
The bail reforms would also refine the definition of "unacceptable risk" to make it clear a court should not refuse someone bail just because there was a risk they could commit further minor offending.
Breaching bail conditions and committing further offences while on bail would no longer be specified criminal offences under the changes.
"Based on all of the feedback, we understand that (those offences are) having a disproportionate impact on those low-level offenders (and) vulnerable cohorts, the people that we are not wanting to see in our prisons," Ms Symes said.
Children would have a presumption in favour of bail under the laws, and adults represented by a lawyer would be able to make a second application for bail without showing new facts and circumstances.
In January, Coroner Simon McGregor found the 2020 death in custody of Indigenous woman Veronica Nelson was preventable, and called for an urgent review of the Bail Act.
Ms Nelson was arrested in December 2019 on warrants for breaching bail and suspicion of shoplifting. She represented herself in a bail application, which was denied.
Following dozens of calls for help, she died in her cell at Dame Phyllis Frost Centre days later from complications of Wilkie's syndrome while suffering from heroin withdrawal.
The Police Association Victoria was on Tuesday morning waiting to see the bail reform bill in full.
Secretary Wayne Gatt said reform should not come at the expense of Victorians' safety.
