Susie O’Brien: Sneering Daniel Andrews should show respect to all Victorians

Bec Judd may live in a $7m Brighton mansion but she has a right to feel safe, instead of being patronised and belittled for raising fears about crime.

Bec Judd has a right to feel safe in her own home, even if it’s a $7m Brighton mansion.

Judd also has every right not to be mansplained or belittled by the Premier when she expresses her concerns.

On Instagram last week, the entrepreneur and influencer wrote that she was “so sick of the rapes, bashings and home invasions at the hands of gangs in Bayside”.

“The state government don’t seem to care. We feel unsafe. I personally know 2 women who have experienced home invasions in Brighton in the last few weeks while they were at home,” she wrote.

Andrews responded by saying he was “not interested in having an argument with Ms Judd”.

And then he proceeded to argue against her views.

“I’m also obliged to point out, though, I think there are more than 70 additional police in the Bayside area, and the most recent crime statistics released by an independent agency would not support those sweeping assessments about patterns of crime,” he said.

Bec Judd has every right not to be patronised and belittled by our Premier when she expresses her view on crime in Brighton. Picture: AAP

What a pity he doesn’t feel as obliged not to sneer at a prominent Victorian woman like Judd.

She wasn’t making sweeping assessments, she was just expressing her personal views.

Andrews then went on to point out that Judd “may have missed” May’s state budget, which included the deployment of more than 500 additional police officers and 50 protective services officers.

No doubt Judd had better things to do than do a line-item analysis of the yawn-inducing state budget full of big promises that will be fulfilled some time in the next decade if we’re lucky. I was there and she didn’t miss anything.

Andrews then went on to say he doesn’t want anybody to feel unsafe.

Instead of saying he was sorry for the criminal acts in her area, he said he was sorry Judd “feels that way”.

“I hope that knowing those things, or perhaps learning those things, puts her mind at ease.”

Those who live in areas with much higher rates of crime than Brighton feel that Judd and her friends don’t have much to worry about inside their high-walled mansions.

What a slimy and patronising response.

In fact, there has been a spate of incidents in and around Brighton in recent weeks.

Moorabbin detectives have rounded up seven teens aged between 13 and 15 who have been conducting aggravated burglaries, home invasions, stealing cars and trafficking drugs, among other things.

The perpetrators, even though they’re mere kids, are aggressive and frightening.

There’s even a name for it – Operation Ibis.

The lack of a local police station, lenient sentences for repeat offenders and parents who can’t control their kids are fuelling very real fears of residents in the area.

Of course, not everyone is on Judd’s side.

“Move to Noble Park then,” one Herald Sun reader said after hearing of her concerns.

The concerns people in Brighton have are no less real because their clothes are nicer than anyone else’s and their houses more expensive. Picture: Instagram

“Welcome to the real world. Nice of you to drop by,” said another.

I don’t blame people who live in areas with much higher rates of crime than Brighton feeling that Judd and her friends don’t have much to worry about inside their high-walled mansions.

It’s true that Brighton and its leafy surrounding bayside suburbs have much lower rates of crime than many parts of Melbourne.

The latest criminal statistics show Greater Dandenong – where Noble Park is located – has five times more non-family violence serious assaults than Bayside, where Brighton is situated (256 v 48 offences in December last year). It also has more than three times more sexual offences (413 v 126), more than three times more car thefts (557 v 163) and five times more other thefts (1876 v 359).

There are many suburbs in Melbourne — and Brighton isn’t one of them — where going to the milk bar on a daily basis, picking kids up from school, or walking home from the station in broad daylight can be dangerous.

Daniel Andrews gave a slimy and patronising response to Bec Judd’s fears. David Crosling

In many ways, Brighton is even getting safer over time. A comparison between 2012 and 2021 shows non-aggressive residential burglaries were twice as high a decade ago (456) compared to December last year (233).

And yet there are areas of concern such as residential aggressive burglary rates which are twice as high now.

Brighton State MP James Newbury, who holds his seat on a wafer-thin margin of 1.1 per cent, says people in Brighton are hiring private security and even “leaving keys next to the front door so that if they are home invaded they’re not fought”.

The concerns people in Brighton have are no less real because their clothes are nicer than anyone else’s and their houses more expensive.

I haven’t always agreed with all of Judd’s political statements but I think she’s got every right not to be patronised and belittled by our Premier when she expresses her view about these issues.

Whether it’s Karen from Brighton or Sharon from Noble Park, no one deserves to be treated like that by Daniel Andrews.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist