Steve Price: Victoria is being let down by poor leadership from its top public figures

We should all be angry about two of Victoria’s most powerful public figures - our premier and police chief - proving they have no spines as racial tensions continue to flare on the streets.

Steve Price

@StevePriceMedia

4 min read

November 18, 2023 - 9:00AM

Shane Patton and Jacinta Allan aren’t providing the leadership Victoria needs, Steve Price says

Opinion

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The people of Melbourne and Victoria are being let down badly by two of the most powerful public figures in the state.

We should all be angry about their lack of spine in the face of race hate and protest. We should all be very worried about the direction they are taking our state.

I talk of new Premier Jacinta Allan and Chief Police Commissioner Shane Patton.

The police chief appears captured by the woke left and his public statements and actions should anger all Victorians.

Under Patton’s leadership, the force has dissolved into a police service seemingly more interested in pleasing the political masters in Spring St rather than looking after the Victorian public.

So rudderless is Vic Pol that increased numbers coming out of the police academy can’t keep up with experienced police exiting in ever-increasing numbers. The Herald Sun reported in January that almost one in nine officers had left since 2019 — 1912 members of the 16,700-strong force. And in September, joint RMIT-Swinburne research found one in five officers said they were likely to leave in the next 12 months.

Under Shane Patton’s leadership, Victoria Police seems more interested in politics than looking after the public, writes Steve Price. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Under his leadership – and I can’t believe he hasn’t dealt more urgently with this – we now find Victoria Police will slash the opening hours of 43 police stations amid an ongoing resourcing crisis. Twenty-three will shut up shop at night and during off peak times by the end of this month and another 20 are expected to join them in coming months.

How can anyone work out what’s an offpeak time for a police station? Shouldn’t they be a place of refuge for the desperate and frightened.

Do command really want us to believe someone intent on committing violent crime like a home invasion or domestic violence works within defined time limits?

Even those of us with no knowledge of what drives criminal activity can see after dark – off peak times – is when most criminal activity happens. As Patton and his senior command throw darts at the metro map of Melbourne to work out where the doors slam shut, you just wonder how we got here.

How can the people at the top justify telling Portland, in the state’s west, that the nearest 24- hour station will be 100km away.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan’s conflicted attitudes to what is happening on the streets of Melbourne is “breathtaking”. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Or shutting stations in Mornington and Hastings on the Mornington Peninsula or even Camberwell and Malvern. Unless I’m mistaken most home invasions happen in the leafy eastern and southern suburbs. As the Police Association’s Wayne Gatt points out there are more than 800 police vacancies and many more on sick leave.

Patton’s commanders argue shutting these stations means they can re-direct more police to the frontline. What a joke! I defy anyone to identify anywhere in Victoria at any time day or night where you see any visible police.

On our roads it’s as if the Highway Patrol has ceased to exist. Even booze buses seem to have disappeared and the only visible traffic policing that is obvious are fixed revenue raising speed cameras often erected in 40 km/h zones.

Stripped of numbers and lacking leadership, police morale is at an all-time low.

If morale and budget mismanagement plus lack of leadership isn’t bad enough, the direction at the top around political issues is even worse.

As I’ve reported before Chief Commissioner Patton appeared before something called the Yoorrook Truth Telling Commission set up by the former Premier Daniel Andrews. At this commission, incredibly the highest-ranking police officer in the state, agreed that the police uniform represented a symbol of fear for some Indigenous Victorians.

Video grabs of Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protestors clashing in Caulfield. Credit: Rukshan Fernando

Pepper spray was used against Palestinian protestors who stormed a police line in Caulfield. Credit: Rukshan Fernando, @therealrukshan/Twitter

How does he think that made those wearing that uniform feel? And shouldn’t we all, if we are breaking the law, fear someone turning up wearing a police uniform. Isn’t that how we grew up — respecting but also fearful when police ask you to explain yourself.

At that same truth telling appearance he apologised unreservedly for past and present actions of the force that inflicted trauma on First Nations people. Why only them?

Then we have what’s happening right now with a limp wristed reaction to religious and racial hatred aimed at the Jewish community. Take last Friday night when an angry pro-Palestinian mob decided it was a good idea to gather on the sabbath Friday in Caufield.

Pepper spray was used against those Palestinian protestors when they stormed a police line and the local synagogue had to be evacuated. While som epeople were detained, police reportedly said there were no arrests. Compare that to August 2021 in the middle of Covid when mounted police used rubber pellets on an anti-lockdown protest at Flinders St station before arresting 218 people and issuing 236 fines of up to $5000.

People participate in a rally against the occupation of Palestine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Melbourne CBD. One flare was set off during the march in October. Picture: David Crosling

As for the new Premier Allan, her conflicted attitudes to what’s unfolding on the streets of the city she now supposedly controls are breathtaking. Obviously conscious of her supporters from the Socialist Left who installed her in the top job, she couldn’t even bring herself to condemn a planned high school student walk out to join a pro-Palestine rally next Thursday.

The strongest she got was saying it was her expectation students go to school on the day. Then this: “In terms of students, individual school attendance, that’s very much for local schools. What do you suggest we’d do, individually go around and check every household to make sure every child is in school.”

No, but what about leading your state for all Victorians, telling parents it would be best for the kids to stay in school.

Why not make the point that allowing the Middle East conflict into Victorian schools dividing student against student is a mistake. What about condemning violent street protests, what about asking your Chief Commissioner to clear the streets of these dangerously divisive protests and restore community peace and order.

It’s called leadership and it’s about time you and Mr Patton put your heads together and realise Victorians want strong, decisive, community supporting leadership for all of us.

Not politically partisan woke driven weakness.