Daniel Andrews government ignores big issues like crime, while focusing on the trivial, writes Rita Panahi

THE Premier’s vision is more troubling by the day, with his government preoccupied with trivial guff amid a soaring crime rate, writes Rita Panahi.

Premier Daniel Andrews makes all the right noises at the appropriate times.

DAN Andrews’s vision for Victoria is looking more troubling by the day.

While the state’s crime rate is soaring, due to a dramatic surge in offences such as assaults, aggravated burglaries, theft, family violence and drug dealing, the Andrews government appears preoccupied with trivial guff such as non-gendered birth certificates.

A total of 535,826 offences were committed in Victoria during the past financial year, 13.4 per cent more than in the previous year.

In some regional areas the crime rate has more than doubled. Yet police officers continue to be taken off the streets, and operating hours at some police stations continue to be reduced.

It will surprise no one with an IQ above room temperature that many of the areas in which police stations have been closed, or in which station hours have been reduced, have experienced a surge in crime. These include Ashburton (up 52 per cent), Tatura (up 35 per cent), Endeavour Hills (up 30.1 per cent) and Carrum Downs (up by 47.3 per cent).

The police union continues to plead for greater police numbers, and a greater presence on the streets, to counter the spike in reported offences.

“Logic tells us that having more police on the front line out on patrol, providing a highly visible presence, prevents crime from occurring in the first instance,” said Police Association assistant secretary Bruce McKenzie.

Andrews might make all the right noises at the appropriate times but his government’s actions demonstrate it is soft on crime.

Whether it’s weakening the youth bail laws, so violent gang members can breach bail again and again with no penalty, or rejecting proposals that put the rights of victims ahead of that of crims, this government seem incapable of comprehending just how devastating the level of crime is for the people they govern.

Remember how Premier Andrews vowed to get tough on youth violence after the Moomba riots, in which scores of young thugs wrought havoc in the streets of Melbourne?

“Those who perpetrated these crimes will feel the full force of the law,’’ Mr Andrews said back in March. “I am not interested in any of these ‘poor me’ stories.”

The Premier certainly talked the talk and told the electorate what they wanted to hear, but when it came to the crunch he failed to deliver.

Instead of toughening youth bail laws, the government poured more than $2 million into a Community Harmony Program to run forums and sports programs and fund mediators: precisely the type of response favoured by the ideologues of the Left who’ve never heard a sob story from a crim they haven’t loved and accepted uncritically. These policies cost the taxpayers a fortune and achieve nothing other than making progressives feel all warm and fuzzy.

The twisted priorities are best illustrated by the government’s celebration of legislation that leaves many utterly bewildered.

Ministers have trumpeted the virtues of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Amendment Bill, which will allow Victorians to choose their sex on birth certificates without undertaking gender reassignment surgery or clinical treatment.

Those who don’t want to have their options limited to just male or female can specify a “gender-diverse or non-binary descriptor” of their choosing. Indeed, any “descriptor” is acceptable as long as it’s not obscene or offensive; let’s see if any identify as a unicorn or a pot plant.

Lyle Allan's brother, Keith, was murdered in May 2000. Picture: David Caird

The new laws have managed to infuriate groups as disparate as the Leftist feminists of the Women’s Liberation Front and the religious Right’s Australian Christian Lobby.

“Males who self-identify their sex as ‘female’, but are nonetheless entirely physically male, would be ­legally indistinguishable from actual ­females, giving them legally sanctioned access to all spaces, services and positions reserved for women and girls,” said WoLF’s Tessa Anne. “The implications for women’s privacy, safety and pursuit of equality are stark.”

The Andrews government is proud of its birth certificate legislation but refuses to pass a “no body, no parole” Bill that would deny parole to a murderer who refuses to reveal the whereabouts of the victim’s body.

The Bill would bring comfort to grieving family members — like Lyle Allan, whose younger brother was killed in 2000 — who have been denied the small mercy of laying their loved ones to rest. It passed the Legislative Council in August, with the support of minor parties and independents, but Labor and the Greens combined to vote against its being heard in the Legislative Assembly.

Mr Andrews’s hard line Leftist ideology is at the heart of many of these dysfunctional decisions which are slowly disenfranchising the electorate, to the extent that according to last month’s Newspoll he is no longer preferred premier.

No government has so enthusiastically embraced every aspect of the highly contentious Safe Schools program than Victorian Labor. Anyone daring to cast a critical eye on some of its frankly bizarre elements is immediately labelled a bigot, a homophobe and a transphobe.

Such tactics might curry favour with some, but it ultimately alienates the many more who belong to the mainstream.

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Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist