The insightful article and Opinion piece in the Herald Sun on the 16th of September 2025 by Shannon Deery really throws down the gauntlet to those in power or with influence to lift their game in addressing Crime Prevention.
No longer can the quiet majority sit by and watch our once vibrant State deteriorate further.
The CAA has been somewhat guilty of the apathy sin and, since its inception over ten years ago, has doggedly stuck to its policy of non-aligned political views.
This needs to be modified.
As honourable as that stance may be, and given the rapid and accelerating deterioration of Law and order in this State, we have now come to the realisation that we cannot temper our advocacy work by tempering our comments, on the basis that we would like to minimise allegations of political bias.
We cannot think of a better descriptor for the current malaise of Law and Order than the one penned by Deery, the Pothole Strategy.
Just as with the Pothole Strategy on our roads, there is little effort to address Crime beyond temporary fixes.
These fixes often prove ineffective, with the pothole reappearing within a week or so, and there are many examples of potholes being filled on multiple occasions.
Similarly, the Law-and-Order space is experiencing a similar lack of effort.
But in the Law-and-Order space, there aren’t even temporary fixes; it is like the Government wishes it away, or even worse, is prepared to accept the crime tsunami as a necessary sacrifice to other Government priorities.
Whether the Government priorities align with the community expectations is moot.
It would be too kind to suggest they don’t have the mental acuity or ability to address the issue, irrespective of funding.
It appears that one significant failing of some governments is that they often throw seemingly buckets of money at an issue, claiming to have fixed it, rather than identifying the problem, developing a sound strategy, considering preferred options, and then securing the necessary funding.
That must be followed up with accountability and monitoring the effectiveness of the funded strategy to ensure the funding has completed the purpose for which it was allocated.
The allocation of funding is not the end of the problem, as it appears we are required to accept, but it is the start of the process.
We are expected to accept without question that the Crime Tsunami is merely collateral damage necessary for the greater good, as per the government’s stance.
The CAA is strongly inclined to the view that this government’s strategy is deliberate to avoid focus and scrutiny on other significant projects or processes.
When a government cries poor, we have to start looking and questioning their management of the economy, an area where the Opposition seems not to fulfil its role.
As Deery points out with just one example,
“The Allan government is spending more per day detaining young offenders than any other state in the country.
Each detainee costs Victoria more than $2.8m a year to lock up – more than double what NSW pays, and more than four times last year’s investment in crime prevention spending.”- Herald Sun.
By any measure, those figures are outrageous.
Whether this disparity is due to incompetence or criminal activity within the Juvenile Detention system must be resolved as a matter of urgency, as this is just one area where the funding for a new paradigm could be achieved.
A new Paradigm? It is urgently needed because the current one is severely broken or unserviceable, the kinder term.
Perhaps we could start by sorting out the Commissioners for Youth.
We have them, but given the failure of Law and Order, particularly in the juvenile cohort these Commissioners operate in, there needs to be a chapter and verse review of their functions. We never hear what they do; perhaps it’s a secret.
Acting Principal Commissioner Meena Singh?
She is currently the Commissioner for Aboriginal Children and Young People in Victoria, a role in which she advocates for the voices of Aboriginal children and young people to be heard in the decisions made about them in the child protection and criminal law systems, and for systemic improvement in both systems.
Liana Buchanan recently vacated the position of Principal Commissioner.
The Principal Commissioner’s role is to promote issues that regularly affect victims of crime in the justice system and advocate to the government on ways in which the justice and victim support systems can be improved for the benefit of victims.
Moreover, many of these so-called Commissioners are part-time only, and earn high-level salaries, so some accountability for their performance is well overdue because these are the people who should be monitoring and guiding the various instruments of Government to achieve positive results for the citizens who pay their stipend.
The problems faced in this Juvenile space seem insurmountable, and we do not suggest that the solutions are easily achieved, nor will they take effect in a short time.
However, we desperately need leadership to start to pull the levers of Government together to address the atrocious situation that not only destroys the victims but also the lives of the Juveniles.
This Crime tsunami requires prioritisation and the highest focus, as all other government functions and initiatives are subordinate and cannot operate effectively in a criminal environment, which Victoria now is.
The capability of policing has been severely impacted by the recent industrial settlements, and we do not begrudge the advancement the Police have received. However, the Police budget must be quarantined against the fiscal impacts of these decisions on service delivery, and the Forces’ quantum must be elevated rapidly to ensure the same level of service in the overall Policing of the State is not diminished.
We would argue that VicPol must be rapidly expanded by at least 2000 members to address the crime tsunami, and urgent funding must be provided to attract former Police back to the Force to cover non-frontline positions, freeing up the operational members to ‘take back the streets’.
The CAA, however, is prepared to work with either side of the political divide to achieve solutions to what is a crime epidemic of mammoth proportions, and the longer the problem is allowed to fester, the more severe the infection and the likelihood of becoming incurable.
Do we Victorians want to live in the environment created by lawlessness?
I suggest that the Government officials and operatives are treated as any common citizen who commits a crime or corrupt act and is treated as such. This nonsense of indemnity as written up and subsequently abused by Government officials is only allowing a sense of invulnrability within Government ranks for more and more abuses of position or privalage and inflating corrupt practices by the criminal rank and file in the system, which I have personally witnessed on a number of occations just within the small orbit of the Dandenong Mechanics’ Institutes dealings with local and State Government. Indemnity is for accidental missteps by an operative; not as a tool for criminal success within Government. The Police are not willing to step over this pathetic chaulk line and as such this corrupt runaway train contiues at greater and greater speed.