African crime gangs: Matters of national importance deserve better response

If ever a story highlighted the disconnect between Twitter and the real world it was the uproar over African gangs in Melbourne.

If ever a story highlighted the disconnect between Twitter’s moral vanity and the real world it was the silly season uproar over African gangs in Melbourne.

Leading the charge against federal Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton over his comment on Sydney Radio 2GB on January 3 that people in Melbourne were too afraid to eat out for fear of confronting African gang violence was ABC 7.30 reporter Louise Milligan, who wrote: “Never met anyone worried about African gangs. Never heard anyone mention ­African gangs. Not once.”

Melburnians piled in on Twitter on the hashtag #Melbourne­BitesBack. Many posted photo­graphs of their restaurant meals. All good fun but some serious commentators argued the whole thing was a stunt to help the state election prospects of the Victorian Coalition on November 24 this year, and that News Corp and Dutton were fanning the flames of ­racism for political reasons.

READ MORE: African crime games ‘a genuine problem’

What tosh. The story is real and the Twitter outrage of people such as Jonathan Green, Mike Carlton and Julian Burnside only highlighted how out of touch many thought leaders in the modern left are with the concerns of the ordinary working people the left once sought to help.

People such as the Beat on family from Hoppers Crossing, whose plight was highlighted in The Weekend Australian on January 6. They are upping stumps for the Gold Coast after a home invasion, a ransacking and three car burglaries in the past year. Sure, African youths have a right to go about their business without racist assumptions about their conduct, but the Beatons and their children also have a right to a safe and happy life, free from gang violence.

The problem with all the confected empathy for the Sudanese community and gang denialism is that anyone reading newspapers or listening to current affairs in the past few years knew all about the Apex gang and its recent rival, Menace To Society. Indeed News Corp blogger ­Andrew Bolt, the state’s most prolific media identity, has been on the African gangs story for years. But in the closed world of progressive media many at the ABC and Fairfax never come in contact with the nation’s biggest-selling newspaper, the Herald Sun, or the nation’s top-rating commercial current affairs programs. And they certainly do not live in the poorer outer suburbs affected by gang ­violence.

READ MORE: Jailed African street gang thugs waiting to be deported

The latest round of African gang stories kicked off in the Herald Sun on December 29 with a page one splash, “Merchants of menace”, and pictures from the Ecoville Community Park in Tarneit in Melbourne’s west. Twitter’s moral posturers can’t really argue with the photos of the damage, the MTS slogans painted on the walls or the quotes of residents now too scared to use the park.

Truth is the African gangs story goes back to the mid-noughties. The left-wing Guardian did a better job than the ABC’s Twitter hand-wringers, a piece by Calla Wahlquist on January 3 pointing out the African gangs issue goes back “to the outer eastern suburb of Dandenong in the mid-2000s”, and explaining the most recent outbreak traces back to the 2016 Moomba Festival “when a group identified as the Apex Gang was named as the culprit in a violent brawl that saw 53 people arrested”.

The jump from local Victorian story to national significance was made on the Herald Sun’s front page on December 30, when the local federal Liberal member, Jason Wood, a former police officer, followed up the previous day’s Ecoville story with calls for Malcolm Turnbull to send in 80 federal police officers to clean up the gang problem. The story gained a lot of traction and guaranteed buy-in from Turnbull and Dutton.

READ MORE: Victorian cop says gang crime crisis ‘rubbish’

Yet the attitude of the left-wing Andrews government and many in the Victorian judiciary certainly provides fertile ground for any law and order campaign.

Enter Victorian Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry, who tweeted on January 3 in response to Dutton’s 2GB interview about Melbourne diners: “Breaking: there are citizens out to dinner in Mansfield tonight and they’re not worried.” The state opposition’s legal affairs spokesman, John Pesutto, pounced, quite rightly, saying: “It is deeply problematic for any sitting judge to enter the political fray by commenting on contentious issues on social media.”

Lasry was a vocal critic of then prime minister John Howard’s toughened anti-terrorism laws. Twitter lit up in support of Lasry.

Even The Age, Pravda by The Yarra as Gerard Henderson calls it, managed to offend Twitter by publishing a strong page one piece by self-styled Sudanese community activist Noa “Nelly” Yoa on January 1. Yoa argued that denying African gangs existed would be counter-productive and would not help young Sudanese drawn to crime. Some Sudanese community leaders challenged Yoa’s claims and denied his role in mentoring young Sudanese and his sporting claims. Twitter was outraged The Age even published the piece, which on rereading was an ­entirely sensible appeal to wider Victoria and to Sudanese migrants, whatever the truth of Yoa’s community and sport interests.

Enter Melbourne’s Seven News on January 7 with a report that probably should have been spiked. Young journalist Jodi Lee was invited to cover a meeting of 50 concerned citizens under the banner of the True Blue Crew.

The reporter seems not to have known the background of the meeting’s spokesman, Blair Cottrell, leader of the United Patriots Front but described by Seven as a right-wing activist. Cottrell, well dressed and articulate, has served prison time for violent offences and is as close to a neo-Nazi spokesperson as this country has.

Twitter and the left media had what they wanted: a link between concern about gang violence and far right Nazi groups, a stick with which to beat both Coalition politicians and the commercial media, especially the Herald Sun, The Australian and Seven.

Critics of the gangs story then pounced on a press conference by Victoria Police Commissioner Graham Ashton, who returned from leave to take control of what was now a full-blown crisis.

Progressive news outlets mis­reported the January 10 press conference, selectively quoting Ash­ton describing people saying “Victoria is not a safe place to live ... (as) complete and utter garbage”.

Ashton in fact set up a taskforce including African community leaders to handle the gangs problem. He went on to say: “What’s changed in recent weeks has been ... an increase in public disorder and public misbehaviour in public by groups of young people.” It was a politically canny performance by a very canny commissioner.

For my money the African gangs story is not a crisis but it is a serious issue for those young families in the outer suburbs affected. While the story undoubtedly generated more heat because of its silly season timing, it is important for social cohesion that the policing action taken is real.

The community consensus for immigration has always depended on the program being perceived to be in the national interest and under control. Over-excited Twitterati and journalists should not be so quick to brand the victims of crime as racists.