‘It's got to stop': Victorian crime statistics reveal ‘rampant' uptick in offences
'As I keep saying, there's absolutely nothing progressive about letting crime run rampant and letting criminals onto the street,' Mr Hildebrand told Sky News host Steve Price.
'This overwhelmingly affects people in the already most socially disadvantaged suburbs, they are the ones to be far more likely victims of crime.
'It's got to stop.'
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Sky News AU
3 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Victoria and WA's surging crime stats expose The Conversation expert's claim that Australia is becoming less violent
The term 'gaslighting' was born in the arts, but it found its true home in academia. And today, nowhere is the practice more pervasive than in Australia's universities. As readers know all too well, these institutions have become safe havens for left-leaning gaslighters, skilled at persuading the public that what they see and hear can't be trusted. It's a culture built on denial, where tidy theories and carefully scrubbed statistics are paraded out to wash away the fears, frustrations, and daily struggles of ordinary Australians. The latest example comes courtesy of Griffith University's Samara McPhedran, who confidently informs the nation that violent crime isn't rising. Such a claim presents a very narrow-minded version of reality. It's the kind of contrived intellectual thought that can only survive in the stale, insulated air of a lecture theatre, far from the streets where the damage is actually done. Perhaps Dr. McPhedran should speak with the families in Victoria watching their state's crime rate surge by 15 percent in a single year, each percentage point measured in stolen cars, broken bones, and lives violently knocked off course. Or she should consider the lengths the Victorian Allan government have gone to recently in an attempt to reduce violent crime, including the bizarre move to place more than 40 bins at police stations across the state so machete-wielding gangsters can safely dispose of their weaponry. She might then visit the residents of Perth's suburbs, where more than 25 suburbs have endured crime surges topping 30 percent in just 12 months. Perhaps she should speak with the parents who bolt their doors before the sun slips behind the rooftops, with the shopkeepers sweeping glass from their doorways for the twentieth time this year, with the pensioners who have abandoned the short walk to the corner shop because the risk now outweighs the reward. Instead, she remains sealed inside a bubble, an elitist echo chamber utterly detached from the realities and hardships of the people whose lives her theories claim to explain. If McPhedran's analysis reads like a masterclass in sidestepping the obvious, that's because it is. She leans on decades-old datasets, sanding down the jagged spikes of recent surges with long-term averages that bury the scale of the problem and don't engage with other aspects, such as recent rises in crime rates generally. In Victoria alone, police logged 627,268 criminal offences over a single twelve-month stretch (a shocking 17.1 per cent jump). Youth offenders now dominate robbery figures. In the 12 months to March 2025, according to the Crime Statistics Agency a range of theft offences were up significantly: motor vehicle theft was up 39.3 per cent, theft of number plates up 49.6 per cent and retail theft up 38.6 per cent. Cost-of-living pressures have driven this type of crime to levels that are breaking small businesses. Knife attacks have cut through once-secure communities, turning quiet shopping strips into places where tension lingers with every step. Yet McPhedran waves it away, insisting that reliable statistics aren't always available and that violent crime rates have fallen when compared to decades ago. When the evidence refuses to fit, she doesn't grapple with it. Unlike the principal research fellow, the public doesn't have the luxury of retreating into a spreadsheet. They live with the fallout of policy failure every day. They watch as the Albanese government's soft-on-crime stance emboldens offenders who know that the most likely consequence of repeat theft or assault is a token caution, not a meaningful sentence. They see state governments trial diversion programs that sound virtuous in a seminar room but collapse in the chaos of real streets with real victims. And while those failures multiply, academics step forward to supply the intellectual alibi for political leaders more intent on shielding their ideology than shielding their citizens. This is the point where the insulated arrogance of modern academia ceases to be an oddity and becomes a political weapon. Theories that clash with lived experience might remain harmless curiosities if they stayed buried in dusty journals, but they never do. They seep into ministerial speeches and bureaucratic talking points; they harden into legislative proposals. They turn genuine public concern into a 'perception problem' to be managed, not solved. Once that narrative takes root, the facts are bent until they break. The modern university system is built to protect that narrative. Scholars who dare to challenge progressive orthodoxy on crime, immigration, or public order find themselves quietly cut off from funding, promotions, and platforms. Those who repeat it are crowned as 'independent experts,' their words treated as gospel by journalists eager to paint public dissent as nothing more than hysteria. The result is a closed loop in which those most insulated from the damage their ideas cause are the very ones most empowered to write the laws everyone else must live under. Over time, this drip-feed of denial trains the public to second-guess themselves—until eventually, we begin to gaslight ourselves. Mention the knife-wielding teenagers roaming your streets, and you'll be branded a paranoid provocateur. Point to the boarded-up shopfronts in your town, and you'll be told you're cherry-picking. Describe a loved one's assault on public transport, and you'll get a lecture about 'isolated incidents.' The aim is not to convince you you're wrong; it's to make you doubt you were ever right. This gaslighting reaches far beyond crime statistics; it's now woven into the reflexes of Australia's academic and political class. The unspoken assumption is always that ordinary people misread reality, while they alone hold a higher, purer truth. In a university setting, that arrogance is tedious – but in the halls of power, it's lethal. Crime policy leaves no margin for theoretical blunders; every wrong assumption is paid for in screaming sirens, scared citizens, and suburbs drained of trust. Australians deserve far more than ivory-tower ignorance. They deserve leaders willing to face brutal truths—men and women prepared to say plainly that crime is climbing and the nation is hurting. They also deserve to know that the truth on their streets outweighs the fairy tales pushed by officials whose paychecks depend on avoiding inconvenient facts. And they deserve academics who leave the seminar room for the suburbs, who speak with business owners, walk with police, and listen—really listen—to victims. Because only then can their theories carry the weight of the world they claim to explain. John Mac Ghlionn is a researcher and essayist who writes on psychology and social relations. He has a keen interest in social dysfunction and media manipulation.
Sky News AU
3 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
'Appalling mistake': Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ‘adopts' language of terrorists in calling slain fighters ‘martyrs'
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has come under fire for 'adopting the language of terrorists' during his press conference to announce Australia would recognise a Palestinian state. Mr Albanese, alongside Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong on Monday, said Australia would formally recognise Palestine in the UN next month. Sky News host Chris Kenny said he was 'surprised' Mr Albanese's use of the word 'martyrs' had not gotten more backlash. 'Our government has made it clear that there can be no role for the terrorists of Hamas in any future Palestinian state. This is one of the commitments Australia has sought and received from President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority,' Mr Albanese said. 'The Palestinian Authority has reaffirmed it recognises Israel's right to exist in peace and security. It has committed to demilitarise and to hold general elections. 'It is pledged to abolish the system of payments to the families of prisoners and martyrs.' Speaking to Sky News, Shadow Finance Minister James Paterson said it was an 'appalling mistake, I hope'. 'Of course, that is what the Palestinian Authority calls people who get on school buses and blow themselves to smithereens and take Israeli and Jewish children with them,' Mr Paterson told Kenny on Tuesday. 'No Australian Prime Minister should endorse or use language like that. We should call it for what it is. The Palestinian Authority pays money to the family of terrorists after they kill Israelis. It's one of the many reasons why we should not recognise a Palestinian state.' Senator Paterson said the 'flimsy promise of reform' from Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas should be treated with 'contempt'. Mr Abbas is the Palestinian Authority President, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the leader of radical political party Fatah. Fatah has numerous military arms - including the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades which participated in the October 7 attacks in Gaza. Mr Albanese was given assurances about the future of democracy in Palestine, the demilitarisation of the territories and the elimination of Martyr funds by Mr Abbas. The Palestinian Authority operates a so-called 'Martyrs Fund,' which pays monthly stipends to the families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned for carrying out attacks against Israelis civilians. The longer the prison sentence, the higher the payment - with some families receiving the equivalent of $5,155 per month which have been linked to incentivising terrorism. Textbooks used in Palestinian Authority-run schools have long been condemned by international watchdogs for promoting hatred and glorifying violence. In one instance, a children's book about female suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat - who killed 21 people in a 2003 bombing - was shared by the organisation's South Hebron Directorate of Education.
The Age
5 hours ago
- The Age
Work from home Victoria: Jacinta Allan weighs carve-out for small business
The premier was similarly open to the idea of allowing businesses to require employees to work full-time from the office during the probationary period of their contracts. Loading 'That's a terrific example of how undertaking the consultation is about getting this right,' she said. 'It's about hearing from both businesses and also from workers about their real-world experience. 'We know not everyone wants to work from home. There are many who want to be in the office. This legislation is about protection for those who can, for those who need to.' The most reliable national data on working from home, gathered by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is that 36.3 per cent of people usually work from home – a figure that appears to have stabilised to a post-pandemic normal. Victorian public service employees are entitled to work from home two days a week, but Treasurer Jaclyn Symes confirmed that the real rate of such work was most likely higher. 'Anecdotally, whether that is being complied with strictly is probably questionable,' she said. 'It is certainly our expectation that staff are in the office three days a week. That's certainly happening in my office, and I know it's happening in many workplaces, but I can't confirm it's happening across the board. 'That's something that I think these conversations will help generate.' The government's online survey, which asks respondents how many days they work from home, their reasons for doing so and the benefits and disadvantaged associated with it, will provide a more detailed snapshot of working-from-home practices in Victoria. Politically, the Allan government is convinced that its work-from-home pledge is a winner. During question time on Tuesday, the government used its entire allotment of ministerial statements – Victoria's version of Dorothy Dixer questions – to spruik the benefits of working from home. While reported productivity gains of work-from-home are more pronounced for individual workers than the companies that employ them, Allan said increased participation of women in the labour market was one of the clear benefits of more flexible workplaces. 'It broadens the talent pool that employers can draw on for their workplaces,' she said. 'We know that balancing family responsibilities is a significant barrier, particularly for women to enter the workplace. 'At a time when we have skill shortages, at a time when that is a real constraint on our economy, getting more people into the workforce is good for the economy, it's good for those businesses and it's great for the individuals who feel that they are making a meaningful, productive contribution to society.' The online survey, results of which will be published in anonymised form, is open until September 28.
