The State of Victoria is in a terrible mess and is deteriorating before our eyes; not a day goes by without more bad news.

We have a rapidly climbing crime rate in the worst categories.

  • A Road Toll is off the Richter scale,
  • Domestic Violence is out of control,
  • Youth crime is at levels never seen before,
  • The burgeoning drug problem ruining lives on an unprecedented scale,
  • Rampant Cybercrime,
  • Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMG) and Organised Crime gang strategies failing, all operating with a degree of impunity,
  • A broken legal system, taking years to resolve straightforward cases and with little or no empathy for victims,
  • A biased legal system with serious crimes going unprosecuted based on who the perpetrator is rather than impartiality applied,
  • If you need Police in a hurry, any chance of a response is problematic.

A crisis seems an understatement.

Additionally, the mooted Police industrial action currently confronting the community aggravates the overall perception that this State has an ineffective Police Force, which feeds into accelerating the further decline of the issue being confronted by us all.

The government must do what it takes to resolve this industrial matter quickly.

We do not criticise the Police members, and although we oppose the Police industrial action on principle, there are compelling issues that have caused this current industrial dispute.

Amongst the issues,

  • High levels of staff turnover,
  • Poor recruiting outcomes,
  • The Force being overmanaged – top heavy at the expense of the front line,
  • Unrelenting repetition of certain policing demands without solutions,
  • Police members over-committed to non-core functions, reducing their ability to perform the task of policing,
  • Understaffing of frontline policing,
  • Staff burnout,
  • Lack of support from the Courts and the Government,
  • Unnecessary tasks sapping resources,
  • The breakdown of the ‘Separation of Powers’ politicising Policing.

We should also include management capabilities as that is no doubt a contributor.

We do acknowledge there are pressures on police management due to outside factors. It is hard in an operational sense for management to service all competing demands with insufficient staff who have generally become less motivated by the nature of the irrelevant tasks they are required to perform.

Police are continually attending domestic conflicts at an alarming rate, sapping the majority of Police resources, and whilst there was a Royal Commission into the problem costing many millions, the outcome has not achieved any reduction in the levels of violence or frequency of police demands to attend domestic disputes but rather the issue has exponentially exploded in demands on Police resources.

Causing substantial negativity among Police members, their plight is generally ignored, with more demands on their time with fewer police to do the policing and no appreciable effort to arrest the decline.

These problems did not manifest overnight but are a consequence of factors that should have been dealt with a long time ago.

The issue is complex, but the reality is that the rising crime rates are the consequence of sustained inaction by the state and, in particular, the denigration of effective Proactive Policing that has all but disappeared. Although portrayed as functional, the police proactive strategies have failed to play a fundamental or effective role in policing.

Failure to stop crime before it happens has fed substantially into the current community malaise.

The issue is plain and simple: we are becoming a more lawless society, not a more tolerant one, as pundits try to portray.

An ideological bent towards a more progressive ideal is actually a misnomer. Generally, progressive philosophies create regression, and we all suffer, particularly the most vulnerable in society.

Examples that stand out,

  • Medically Supervised (Safe injecting room) Injecting room,
  • Decriminalising public drunkenness,
  • The Koori parallel judicial system,
  • Abuse of the ‘Separation of Powers’ convention,
  • Weakening of various criminal statutes,
  • The failure to modernise the archaic legal system that is now unfit for purpose.

There is a void in leadership in this State, across a broad spectrum of management, fed by an insatiable appetite to never accept blame for failure. A sentiment throughout Government and also now appearing in the corporate sector.

This all leads to a lack of accountability, the nemesis this State faces.

If you have had enough like us, sign our petition demanding these issues be urgently addressed. https://www.change.org/p/when-is-enough-is-really-enough

Enough signatures and we can demand change.