James Campbell: Prime Minister not in clear on gangs crisis

WITH migration and the settlement of refugees a federal matter, it’s ridiculous for Malcolm Turnbull to wash his hands of the gangs crisis, writes James Campbell.

MAYBE because my mother was born in what is now Zimbabwe, I struggle to suppress a smile when I hear warnings about youths of African appearance.

Africa is a big place — bigger than China, India, the US and most of Europe put together — with a diverse population. Technically a list of people of African appearance would include — in addition to my mum — television’s Waleed Aly whose parents were born in Egypt, Majak Daw who was born in Sudan and the late Tony Greig, who was born in South Africa.

PM SAYS YOUTH CRIME, GANG VIOLENCE A ‘FAILURE’ OF STATE GOVERNMENT

MELBOURNE’S WEST TERRORISED IN CRIME SPREE

AFRICAN YOUTHS TURN ABUSIVE TOWARDS ESSENDON TENNIS PLAYERS

What the coppers mean when they say “of African appearance” is, of course, “of sub-Saharan African appearance but excluding Arabs and for that matter anyone else whose ancestors arrived there from Europe or the subcontinent of India sometime in the past 300 years”.

But even if you accept that “African appearance” has some use as shorthand, it still lumps together people from many countries whose experiences in Australia are not at all the same.

At the time of the last census in 2016, the unemployment rate in Victoria for Nigerians was 9.8 per cent, Ghanaians, 11.1 per cent and Kenyans, 13.5 per cent. Moving up the table, 17.2 per cent of Ethiopians were unemployed, as were one in five of Eritreans. None of those figures should make us happy given the Victorian average unemployment rate was 6.6 per cent. More worryingly, in each case the unemployment rate was higher than it had been at the census in 2011, although in some cases their participation rate in the labour market had improved slightly.

It’s ridiculous for Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to wash his hands of the gangs crisis. Picture: Jenny Evans

REVEALED: COPS HAD EYE ON APEX GANG YEARS AGO

PETER DUTTON BACKS PROPOSAL TO DEPORT YOUNG THUGS

Migrants from those countries are a success story, however, compared with the Africans who have joined us from Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia, whose unemployment rates on census night in 2016 were 32.5 per cent, 31.8 per cent and 24.5 per cent respectively.

To be fair to the South Sudanese, in 2011 their unemployment rate was at 38.3 per cent so things have been getting better, but for almost a third of them to be unemployed is hard to ignore.

But until their kids started running wild in the streets, ignoring it is exactly what we have been doing. You can tell that from the fact that only data you can get on how migrants are doing are from the five-yearly snapshots caught by the census.

Those figures are the overall unemployment for people born in the countries. Now take a deep breath while I walk you through the youth unemployment figures.

At census-time in 2016, of males aged between 15 and 19 born in South Sudan, 62.8 per cent were unemployed. The figures for Sudan and Somalia were 53.9 per cent and 64.5 per cent respectively. The youth unemployment rate for the whole state was 21.6 per cent. Think about those figures and ask yourself: is it any wonder these kids are acting up?

POSITIVE ROLE MODELS FOR SOUTH SUDANESE BUST PERCEPTIONS

Now, the last time I looked, migration and the settlement of refugees — which is how almost all of these people came to be here — was a responsibility of the Australian government, not the states. In which case it is strikes me as obvious that the lions’ share of the blame belongs to Canberra — especially the Howard government which for several years skewed Australia’s refugee intake towards Africa. That government did this shortly after it abolished the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research which provided government with data on issues facing migrants.

But if you’ve heard any federal politician accepting responsibility for this situation at any time in the past forever, I’d love to be pointed to it. Until the crime wave of Sudanese and South Sudanese youths hit the headlines, I can’t remember any federal politician accepting responsibility for their failures in this department.

This week all the bigshots in Canberra have had to offer Victoria has been cheap point scoring at the expense of the Victorian government.

ANDREWS GOVERNMENT LEADERS MIA DURING GANGS CRISIS

POLICE VOW TO TARGET OUT-OF-CONTROL TEEN ‘STREET GANGS’

‘I’LL F---ING KILL YOU’ TARNEIT RESIDENTS LIVING IN FEAR

RITA PANAHI: TRIP TO TARNEIT A MUST FOR HEAD-IN-THE-SAND LEFTIES

I’m no fan of Daniel Andrews’ government but for the Prime Minister to stand up in front of the media — at Bondi Beach of all places — and tell us this is entirely a failure of a Labor government in Victoria took some gall. And not only because the problem is in part a problem of Canberra’s making. Having taken the trouble to brief The Australian that morning on how concerned all these Victorian federal ministers are about the situation down here, you might have expected Turnbull to offer some help.

But no. All we got from him was the statement that “that’s their responsibility” and later nonsense from Peter Dutton about people here being too frightened to go out to restaurants. You might have thought Turnbull would have learned something from his intervention over energy prices which focus group research — both Liberal and Labor — now shows is seen as a Canberra issue.

If the Prime Minister wants to take control of “African” gang violence, I suspect Daniel Andrews will say “go right ahead”.

James Campbell is national political editor.

[e-mail]

@J_C_Campbell