Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Saturday I was at the Berwick Show down at Akoonah Park, and it was a great day. At the show we launched a petition to get tough on crime. One of the couples who signed the petition, a young couple who lived in Officer, were eager to sign because they had had a very bad experience. They told me how they had been the victims of a burglary. When I inquired further, I noticed that the female occupant of the house was very upset. The reason she was very upset was that they had been in bed at 3 am when five Africans broke into their house, into the garage, and stole a motorbike—but even more concerning was the fact that one of them was actually holding an axe. This is an absolutely outrageous thing to happen in anyone's house anywhere. This occurred in my electorate, and I feel very sorry for the victims involved. The good news is that a number of offenders have been caught. I do not know whether or not they are on visas but, sadly, this is a reflection of what is going on in our community.

I am pushing for a number of measures—for example, adopting a 'one strike and you're out' policy when it comes to bail and serious crimes. I have to say that Daniel Andrews and the state Labor government have caused this problem. In my time as a police officer, if a person got charged with a serious crime and got released on bail and they then committed a further offence you would charge them for a breach of bail. State Labor got rid of that. So we are now in the situation where people can be on five lots of bail. We talk about, for example, as I mentioned before, those from the African community—most of whom have been on humanitarian visas. The situation is that there is no early intervention at all to help them. The first time they will become aware of the potential for their visa to be cancelled is when they are in custody, because that is the first time the immigration department become aware. It is an absolute outrage.

Another measure I would like to see is a change to the presumption laws when it comes to remanding for violent offences. What does this mean? At the moment, if a police officer charges a person for a serious offence and takes them before the bail justice, the police must prove the case as to why that person should be remanded in custody. It should be the other way around. If a person has been charged with a serious offence, they should say: 'I am no longer going to be a danger on the street. I'm no longer going to be a danger to witnesses or the community.' The onus should be on them.

Another point is to establish a multi-agency task force comprising the Australian Federal Police, the Victoria Police, Immigration officials, intelligence analysts and youth workers to take on violent gangs. Why a joint task force? It is because this works effectively overseas—in the USA where the FBI team up with the local sheriffs and in the UK with Scotland Yard. Here we are finding it is working very effectively with outlaw motorcycle gang members when you have the states working with the police. The Commonwealth brings in extra powers and extra resources when the state police, who are doing a magnificent job and have that knowledge on the ground, need that extra assistance. I would also like to see task forces of this kind in both the south-east and also the western suburbs—the two hotspots at the moment. This is desperately needed.

I would also say that in the same building there need to be Sudanese youth workers and Islander youth workers, so that, if a young person is charged, rather than them just walking out the door and having their next experience before a magistrate or a judge, we have that diversion in place to say: 'How can we assist? What courses do you need to undertake? Do you need to undertake extra English courses?' The problem at the moment is that so many of the migrants who come here, especially the African migrants—and we have heard this throughout our committee hearings—have difficulty staying in the education system. Why is that? It can be because the first class they go into may be a year 9 class when they only have year 7 English ability. This is something that we are looking at as a committee. We need to change this and we are working on it at the moment.

We have a major problem in Victoria when it comes to gangs and when it comes to crime. If we compare that to the situation in New South Wales, we see that their serious crime is going down and ours is going up. We need action. We need to get tough on crime—and we need to get tough on crime now.