Last week, my local WhatsApp group exploded with footage of an attempted daylight carjacking a few hundred metres from my home in Ashburton. The footage made national news.
It was the third type of event close to my home in the past month, the others being one successful and one attempted home invasion and car theft.
Jacqui Felgate, Melbourne’s 3AW Radio host, posts daily videos via Instagram of the latest armed robberies, home invasions, and crimes in Melbourne.
The stories are as regular as they are disturbing. Teenagers in masks typically carry out assaults, burglaries, or carjackings, only to receive a slap on the wrist and return to the community to commit more crimes.
Last year, a record 14,797 knives, swords, daggers, and machetes were seized in Victoria.
In response, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has wasted millions of dollars on machete bins costing $325,000 apiece, where criminals can suddenly decide to be law-abiding citizens and dispose of their weapons.
Last month, The AFR reported that frontline staff at Woolworths and Coles are wearing body cameras following a sharp rise in retail crime and violence in Victoria.
The AFR on Wednesday reported that personal and retail theft in Victoria rose by nearly a third in 2024, driving national theft to its highest level in 21 years. Automotive theft and robbery also surged.
“Theft hit a national 21-year high last year, with 595,660 victims of personal and retail theft recorded by police, representing a 6% increase on the previous year” The AFR reported. “The figure doesn’t include more severe crimes such as motor vehicle theft (up 8% nationally) or robbery (up 3% nationally and 16% in Victoria)”.
“Victoria accounted for 169,673 victims of personal and retail theft in 2024”.
“We are confronting a full-scale retail crime crisis”, Australian Retailers Association CEO Chris Rodwell said. “That’s why we’re calling for urgent and decisive action from our political leaders—including premiers, police ministers and attorneys-general—to address this scourge of retail crime”.
Melbourne residents should not have to barricade themselves in their homes and watch for being tailed while driving.
Retail employees should not have to wear body cameras to feel safe on the job.
If half as much effort was put into law enforcement as was spent enforcing pandemic lockdowns and mask-wearing, Melbourne’s crime wave would be eradicated.
The Victorian Labor Government has utterly failed in upholding law and order.
