Adjournment - Crime in Bayside

ADJOURNMENT

‘CRIME IN BAYSIDE’.

Wednesday, 6 March 2024

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (19:09):

My adjournment is directed to the Premier, and the action I seek is for the State Labor Government to issue a public apology to my community for ignoring the invasive crime increase in Bayside, following confirmation from Victoria Police that the wave first started in Bayside, contrary to the denials of former Premier Daniel Andrews.

We know that over the last year Victoria Police has decreased in size by 3 per cent, and it has come down by 5 per cent over the last two years. On top of that, there are currently 1000 vacant positions that remain unfilled.

This resourcing problem comes at a time when there has been a 33 per cent statewide increase in aggravated burglaries, and in my community of Bayside there has been a 43 per cent increase year on year, with 183 in 2023, up from 128 in 2022. In terms of burglaries, there were 24,881 recorded home burglaries across the state last year. That is a staggering average of 68 burglaries a day.

Appallingly, late last year the State Labor Government announced that 43 police stations will partly close. Bayside only has one station, and disappointingly it is one of the 43 slated for partial closure.

Victoria Police recently held a neighbourhood policing forum in Sandringham. The event allowed a panel of senior police to brief the community, and the information police provided to the forum was alarming.

Police confirmed that resourcing is so scarce that police command was forced to shut stations to keep officers on the road and able to respond to emergencies.

Police also confirmed that a group of around 290 young offenders are committing the majority of serious crimes, with 80 offenders having been arrested more than 10 times each over the past year.

This is at a time when Labor plans to raise the age of criminal responsibility and weaken the state’s bail laws on 25 March by abolishing the offence of committing an indictable offence whilst on bail.

Police also acknowledge that the court system is overflowing with cases and that it is not keeping up with offending that is occurring.

But one of the most locally relevant confirmations at the forum was that the aggravated burglary crime wave started in Bayside.

My community knows that when local mother Bec Judd and I first raised these crimes in May 2022, the then Premier Daniel Andrews victim-blamed her and said that we did not understand the data and needed to learn more. Shame.

Given the recent confirmation from police, I call on Labor to stop ignoring these pernicious crimes in my community and apologise.