Vikki Campion: Tackling regional crime is a test of government – and it’s a massive fail

Tackling regional crime is not a test of law and order; it’s a test of government, and at this point, it’s a massive fail, writes Vikki Campion.

In regional Australia, crime is running riot. Yet Michael Daley, our state Attorney-General, looks victims of crime in the eye and infers the extent of danger was a figment of their imagination.

“When I was the Minister for Police, I learnt that even though crime statistics might suggest that things are okay, a community can still be scared,” Mr Daley told two victims of crime in the public gallery of the NSW Legislative Assembly recently.

But things are not okay and people are scared. If, like Adam McNamara, your brother Daniel had been killed when struck by a stolen ute allegedly driven by a 14-year-old boy in Gunnedah, or like Phebe Furneaux, bashed by juvenile delinquents in her Tamworth home, why would the tabulation of rhetoric on a spreadsheet soothe you?

Phebe had her own numbers – the 22,015 people calling for community safety to be prioritised via the petition she launched.

Mr Daley is also wrong. Stats paint a grim picture. Violent crime in regional NSW is 57 per cent higher than in Sydney, with a 188 per cent surge in legal actions against children aged 10-17 for motor vehicle theft since 2019. More than 50 per cent of the offending in Moree is committed by young people on bail.

Some of the injuries sustained by Tamworth mother Phebe Furneaux during a home invasion in late 2024. Picture: Supplied.

Yet, according to Mr Daley, it’s not as a bad as you think. After telling them they should not be afraid, Mr Daley boldly claimed that it had been helped by “strengthening bail laws to prevent violent young offenders from reoffending”. Has it?

The changes came in April, yet this week, a 17-year-old allegedly involved in a gang stabbing attack on an innocent stranger at a Tamworth shopping centre was granted bail.

Last month a 16-year-old, allegedly involved in a gang that threatened a man with a knife in a Moree carpark, was charged with aggravated robbery, unrelated matters for police pursuit, drive recklessly, drive recklessly/furiously or speed/manner dangerous, never licensed person drive vehicle on road, and breach of bail. And what did he get? Bailed again.

If you believe the job is done, Mr Daley, then you should rethink your job. Let someone else step in and fix the problem.

You should never be granted bail again if you commit a crime on bail.

This is bleedingly obvious to everyone except Mr Daley and the legal system. Mr Daley moralised on other members’ speeches, saying they be “very careful about our language” and “aware of the words we use in relation to this.” This is code, of course, for not making it be about Aboriginal kids offending, although the victims are often Aboriginal, in many cases elderly and vulnerable.

A still from a homeowner's CCTV of a youth break-in at Bulimba. Picture: Supplied

His government then pumped out a new report this week that suggests silencing media coverage to curb “public anxiety”, ignoring the reality of traumatised communities and victims.

The second finding of the Legislative Assembly Committee on Law and Safety interim report was: “Sensationalist media coverage of youth crime in rural and regional NSW heightens public anxiety and encourages negative perceptions of young people.”

The inquiry would not have happened at all without the media. The only reason it did was the combined efforts of a 2GB and The Daily Telegraph campaign. The interim report discussed new “media guidelines around crime reporting” to “change how the public perceives crime and community safety”.

Is there any problem known to humanity whereby the first step to dealing with it is to deny it exists?

During the Great Leap Forward under Mao, it was an offence to say people were starving to death when people were starving to death.

The committee’s terms of reference were to report on “what drives youth crime” and the “root causes”.

NSW Attorney-General Michael Daley Picture: NewsWire/Max Mason-Hubers

It talks about the trauma of juvie, forgetting most young offenders are already traumatised by their childhoods. The kids who steal cars or break into homes with machetes aren’t doing so after a hot dinner and being tucked into bed.

The mostly metropolitan Labor/Green committee was supposed to look at how “services can be improved to reduce youth crime” and it came up with … Recommendation 10: TAFE.

There is a huge disjuncture between problem, logic and solution in the NSW parliament.

The Minns ministry took an insulting lack of interest in the debate they were forced to have by 22,015 petitioners calling for tougher bail laws to prevent violent young offenders from reoffending, with only two government speakers, half the usual for any other matter.

This is not a test of law and order; it’s a test of government, and at this point, it’s a massive fail.

NATS HAVE CHANCE TO PULL PLUG ON EXPENSIVE NET ZERO GUILT TRIP

First, it was the state conference of the South Australian Liberal Party, whose branches did what the parliamentary party refused and dumped net zero. Now we can watch if the NSW Nationals follow suit next weekend at their Coffs Harbour conference.

The agenda will have several motions to rip the energy millionaire and billionaire subsidy miners away from the taxpayer’s teat, which has all the grifters in a spin briefing about how we in the country have it all wrong and those with fat investments in intermittents have it all right.

Many in the membership affirm that net zero is a massive hit to the economy, an accelerant to the cost of living crisis and a windfall gain for multinational foreign developers and domestic billionaires. And it is all premised on a guilt trip.

Net zero is all premised on a guilt trip. Picture: Jonathan Ng

After losing the election, it will be interesting to see whether the Coalition has also lost it with their membership and, instead of ridding the nation of this self-harm, tries to rig the conference of the resolution.

As the Coalition moves to the “sensible centre”, their supporters move elsewhere.

While the Nationals lost a senator in NSW, One Nation, which campaigned against net zero, won. Now it has the same number of senators federally as the Nationals.

Suppose One Nation absorbs one more member, with discussions underway to encourage yet another senate jump like Dorinda Cox from Green to Labor, or the litany of other past senate jumpers.

In that case, One Nation will have what the Nationals used to have but now do not: party status in the Senate and all the resources that it brings.

The right side of politics is globally fracturing because of the legacy party’s desire to represent the “sensible centre” at the expense of their true believers.

Unfortunately, the “sensible centre” lives on the left-hand side of the median.

LIFTER

The TGA for finally admitting the Covid-19 vaccine should not be given to kids, but where are the apologies for those “conspiracy theorists” like Russell Broadbent and Gerard Rennick who warned against it and were cancelled as a result?

LEANER

The Minns and Albanese governments’ piss-weak assistance for those dealing with the aftermath of the floods on the mid-north coast.

Originally published as Vikki Campion: Tackling regional crime is a test of government – and it’s a massive fail