WHO to believe? Either Kingston’s crime rates are rising, falling or staying the same.
But an assessment of claims by Liberal and Labor candidates contesting this month’s state election certainly doesn’t make the situation any clearer.
Kingston police declined to comment, perhaps mindful of the turmoil that surrounded former Victoria Police commissioner Simon Overland’s release of crime statistics on the eve of the 2010 state election, when law and order was a similar politically sensitive issue.
Mordialloc MP Lorraine Wreford says crime is down 9.9 per cent since 2009, or 2.9 per cent last year, while her opponents, the ALP candidates for Bentleigh and Mordialloc, Nick Staikos and Tim Richardson, claim crime rates have increased, with some categories, such as drug crimes, rising 100 per cent.
Ms Wreford visited the upgraded Chelsea police station with police and emergency services minister Kim Wells last week and said “great progress was being made” against crime.
She said 22 extra police – 5.3 per cent – had been recruited to Kingston since 2010, and that there were now protective services officers at all seven Kingston railway stations.
But, just last month, the two Labor candidates joined shadow police spokesman Wade Noonan on a visit to Moorabbin police complex to discuss “the problem of rising crime rates”.
“A special analysis by the Victorian Opposition reveals that the number of drug offences in Kingston has climbed from 266 four years ago to 557 today – and increase of more than 100 per cent,” they said.
“The number of crimes against the person has increased from 906 to 1250 during the same period.”
The Labor candidates claim crime has “increased every year under the Napthine government because they have not supported our communities and they’ve made it harder for police to do their jobs”.
Countering this, Ms Wreford said the 22 extra police and PSOs had resulted in “an increase in the detection of crime which increases the published crime rate to a more accurate level”.
Ms Wreford admitted there was still “plenty of work to do, particularly on drugs and family violence, which are two areas in which the government is investing heavily”.
“Today we are investing double the resources Labor did in 2010 to fight family violence and, going forward, we have a $150 million action plan that includes perpetrators wearing tracking devices and new laws enabling police to issue family violence safety notices at any hour, seven days a week.”
She also made the claim: “We don’t want to go back to the days when the city was a bloodbath every Saturday night, crime figures were fudged, people were getting slap-on-the-wrist penalties and local crime was higher.”
But the Labor men retorted: “Victoria police figures show that, in Kingston between 2009-10 and 2013-14, sex offences were up 80 per cent, rapes up 45 per cent, assaults up 41 per cent, crimes involving weapons or explosives up 56 per cent and behaviour-in-public crimes up 48 per cent.”
Labor has promised to establish an Ice Action taskforce, new drug and booze buses, funding for community action groups and new penalties for Ice-related crimes, including trafficking.
They plan to establish a Royal Commission into Family Violence if elected.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News
