The perception of a bias possibly exposes a misunderstanding of the generalised mandatory reporting that is in place in Victoria, that is not the same in other states by the way, at least not yet.
I'm happy to be proven wrong, but my understanding the Vic child protection act requires it for all child or youth crime, while and the public assume mandatory reporting only means mandatory reporting of child abuse. That means in Vic the mandatory reporting laws mean mandatory reporting of all children and youths involved in crime as well, they assume a child or youth involved in crime is a victim of some circumstance.
That is not the case in all Australian states, where officers have discretion over reporting in many cases, it's one of the big Federal issues to get it all standardized in the long term. Uniforms laws and reporting across Australia, but it's not there yet.
If you are in doubt, you can always get it clarified by Bec Judd!
You're on the wrong track there LP.
Mandatory reporting in Victoria requires certain professionals like doctors, nurses, teachers, police, etc to report evidence or belief of child physical or sexual abuse to child protection authorities. There's no requirement to report crimes committed by children.
However, there are significant inconsistencies across jurisdictions when it comes to "child crime". For example, the age of criminal responsibility is 10 for Commonwealth offences and in New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, and Tasmania, 12 in Victoria, and 14 in the ACT. In all jurisdictions, it's still the prosecution's responsibility to prove that children under 14 could distinguish between right and wrong. From 14 to 17, children are presumed to understand right and wrong, but are subject to milder sanctions than adults.
How come when it comes to overseas politics, we are happy to discuss back and forth information/quotes from everywhere and anywhere from the other side of the world all without distinction yet in our own backyard and under our own noses unless it ticks all the boxes its dismissed.
And when it does tick all the boxes there is crickets.......
Whys that i wonder.
There's a couple of rather obvious reasons; our bozoes aren't starting wars, disrupting world trade, sending the price of fuel (and everything else) skyrocketing, or threatening to invade former allies, and, most importantly, they don't control a nuclear arsenal.
And we get to vote our bozoes in or out every three or four years.
And they don't lie about being carried away from Ground Zero by two big firemen
Then there's the fact that this thread is specifically about the senile malignant narcissist in the White House and there are other threads about local politics.
When using the ABS statistics, or those from the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency, etc, it’s worth drilling down to see what limitations there are. The States and Territories don’t necessarily collect the same data or in the same way.
With that qualification, the ABS data shows a downward trend for most crimes across all jurisdictions.
But then there’s vile crimes like child sex abuse that aren’t reported and remain at appallingly high levels.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Victoria has more cars and more people than all of the other States except NSW. In fact, Queensland has a higher per capita rate of car thefts.
It's probably best to rely on ABS statistics than data provided by vested interests.
so the stats are fake are they because they are not from ABS.
ok
Yes, that's spot on. There are good reasons why most people don't trust insurance companies.
Another unwanted record under this incompetent trainwreck of a government.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Victoria has more cars and more people than all of the other States except NSW. In fact, Queensland has a higher per capita rate of car thefts.
It's probably best to rely on ABS statistics than data provided by vested interests.
I listened to an interesting if depressing discussion of child sex abuse on the wireless this morning. Some of the key points:
One in four children experience sexual abuse.
One in ten adult men admit to having sexual feelings about children.
While most abused children don’t go on to commit sex crimes, the rate of sex crime offending was 11% higher among confirmed abused children than a control group without sexual abuse.
Programs to raise awareness of child sexual abuse are being condemned as “woke” by some politicians.
Only a relatively small percentage of child sex abuse occurs in institutions; most is committed within families or by close friends. While working with children checks may help to reduce institutional child sex abuse, they do nothing to prevent the vast majority of cases.
That typifies the problem, and is relevant to other crime; there’s a limited bucket of money with competing demands, and governments often choose the more obvious but less effective options.
Obviously, the justice system can’t deal with one in ten adult males, so how do we ensure that they don’t go on to offend?
Two men found guilty of murdering three men after a fight outside the Salt nightclub in South Yarra in Melbourne three years ago, have each been sentenced to 30 years in jail.
Five other men will serve lesser sentences for the murder of one of the men in the fight.
The seven men were found guilty of murdering 19-year-old James Huynh, who died after being attacked with samurai swords and machetes.
Cuong Quoc Lam, 26 and Hung Tu Van, 29, were also found guilty of the murders of Mr Huynh's two cousins, who drowned after jumping into the Yarra River to escape that attack.
They have been sentenced to 30 years in jail with a 23-year non-parole period.
Be interested to see what makes up those stats. "The number of criminal incidents recorded by Victoria Police in the year to 31 March 2026 was 468,711, down 1.0% from 473,518 incidents recorded in the same period last year."
June 2025: 15,909 police officers (Total workforce: 21,332) June 2024: 16,059 police officers (Total workforce: 21,715) June 2023: 15,842 police officers (Total workforce: 21,326)
I found estimates of 15,600 police this year.
Those numbers are 'whats recorded'. The number of police officers available to record these crimes are going the opposite way to the number of crimes. I suspect that a large part of the 'drop in crime' is simply things are not being recorded.
I suspect if there was 0 police officers around to record things, crimes recorded would magically disappear too.
My son has the office next to the head of the Crime Statistics Agency but I'm not sure that he'd be willing to ask her for clarification. He has told me about in-house presentations she's given and she does appear on the wireless from time to time.
Only those crimes that are the subject of formal reports by victims or incidents attended by VicPol are included in the stats so yes, fewer police = less reports logged. However, back in the day you were more likely to get a crack with a baton or a punch in the guts than be charged. Topless "waitresses" definitely wouldn't have reported sexual assault by VFL footballers back then either.
One of the big differences between the "good old days" and now is that we only had the Truth newspaper to tell us how bad things were. Now we have the Murdoch papers, Sky News, shock jocks and influencers all banging on about how bad things are.
Coincidentally, I have just finished a long phone call with an author who is researching a book on violence in Coburg and surrounding suburbs during the 1960s-80s. It's surprising when you realise how many schoolmates (and I use "mates" advisedly) came to violent ends. The number of thugs who joined VicPol is also surprising.
We were genuinely scared of the cops back then; they'd beat the crap out of you just because they felt like it
A couple of months before my 15th birthday, my 23 year policeman brother and I were stabbed multiple times by a random 28 year old about 30 metres from our home in Coburg.
That was around the time of the Vic Market murders and the Ustaše terror attacks but before the likes of the Crevally Street Boys had us scared crapless.
Yes, but that was before we lost four talls and got only one back. However, my position has always been that there's no point adding talls if they can't play.
I'm a firm believer in the "a good big man will always beat a good little man" adage but with "good" being the operative word.
Thats the point, the past....not now.
I think you've misread something somewhere.
LP was stating fans were sayong we were top heavy in the past....when we had lemmey etc.
You were the only one i ever heard suggesting anything of the sort.
In short.....LP is talking BS again.
Just like the afl screwed up by playing the game on a friday night.....just a mere 96k there for a sellout crowd.
Again, I don’t believe that I ever suggested that we were top heavy. I did point out that our ratio of talls to smalls in 2025 was similar to most other clubs.
For the record, I’m a two ruckmen kind of guy … provided that the two ruckmen can both have an impact when they’re not rucking.
