Benambra electorate crime
Bill TILLEY (Benambra) (19:20): (1219) I wish to raise a matter for the attention of the Minister for Police, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide me with a full ministerial briefing on what the police in Wodonga are doing to bring down crime in the city. The latest crime stats are an absolute horror show for Wodonga. For the 12 months to the end of March there were 3640 criminal incidents. That was 13.3 per cent more than the same time 12 months earlier, and it was 41 per cent more than a decade ago. More than half of these still remain unsolved, and the Crime Statistics Agency puts the unsolved crime rate at 44.5 per cent. But those stats are misleading, and the reason I say that is because family violence and shop theft make up a sizeable chunk of the total crimes, but both are usually solved on the spot, where the offender is either caught as part of the crime or is party to the domestic dispute. Take out the raw numbers for family violence and shoplifting, and the unsolved rate is more than 50 per cent. No matter how you spin it, there were 1610 crimes last year that went unsolved. That is people who never found out who stole their car, the culprit who damaged their property or entered their house and stole jewellery or other goods while they were there. These stats compare year on year, so if we are going to put our rose-coloured glasses on, theft of motor vehicles is up marginally, 378 to 393. But that is not just 15 extra people who had their car broken into or their mobile phone or their loose change knocked off. That is 393 new victims. What I would dream for and I would love to see is zero crime, not the celebration of a trend that is going on at the present. To the year ending in March, we had 21 aggravated robberies in Wodonga, which is an increase of eight from the same time in 2024. But let us break that down even further. That is 21 homes where people were sleeping or present when an unknown person entered their home. That is 21 families, parents and children that no longer feel safe. This is simply not good enough.
I had a staff member out at my office recently who was a victim. His partner and their daughter returned home after a 15-minute trip to the shops to pick up some groceries, and they entered the home to find drawers open and a few other telltale signs. They were home about 5 minutes before the offender burst out of a bedroom, passed the daughter and hurdled the front fence. Police were there in about 15 minutes, and there was security CCTV footage of the person casing the property, entering, then fleeing, none of which was ever released. That was over a year ago.
The important thing is I recently went to a community event on crime, with police command in attendance, and the local superintendent recommended that if you are not happy, call your local state member of Parliament. (Time expired)