Politically correct culture erodes the justice system

Victorians injured, robbed or intimidated by marauding African youths will not appreciate Victorian Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry’s comments this week. He showed bad judgment mocking Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton’s claim that Melbourne’s gang violence had made residents too scared to go out at night. While hyperbolic, the minister’s claim was true for many who have suffered at the hands of menacing gangs or individuals on the St Kilda foreshore, in suburban Werribee, outside the Essendon Tennis Club and at the Highpoint Shopping Centre in suburban Maribyrnong on Boxing Day. An estimated 100 youths were involved in the Werribee house attack and about 200 in the St Kilda beach brawl.

Residents of Melbourne’s west, sadly, also will be nervous about staying home after the terrifying crime rampage unleashed on Thursday night. A woman was hit across the face and forced to sit in her front room as a dozen African youths ransacked her home. These were “horrendous” offences, as Victoria Police Commander Russell Barrett said yesterday. The same youths are being sought over another home invasion and a street attack on two teenage boys.

One of the worst aspects of the judge’s tweet from Mansfield, an alpine town 200km northeast of Melbourne, is that it has reinforced community perceptions that police, the justice system and the Andrews government, mired in politically correct culture, have failed to put public safety first. It is cold comfort that a youth accused of kicking a police officer in the head on Boxing Day allegedly breached a bail condition the day after a magistrate granted him bail.

Peter Faris QC captured public sentiment when he wrote about a lack of deterrence against teens committing serious crimes: “A number of African youths have seen this problem and taken advantage of it. They realise that if they stay within the Children’s Court system they will be released and counselled rather than be locked up … African youths, when faced with harsh punishment — any punishment — will cease breaking the law. Lock a few of them up now and the rest will cease their criminal behaviour.”

In covering the issue in depth for weeks it is clear to The Weekend Australian that the power vacuum in Victoria has not helped. Premier Daniel Andrews is on holiday; his deputy, James Merlino, has just returned. Police Commissioner Graham Ashton has been on sick leave since November 23, prompting Mr Faris to call for a new commissioner to be appointed. Late last month, police superintendent Therese Fitzgerald made the force look out of touch when she claimed there was no problem with African gangs: “It’s all youths.’’ Deputy Commissioner Andrew Crisp claimed: “There is no evidence or intelligence to suggest we’ve got a gang.” Such furphies finally were contradicted by Acting Commissioner Shane Patton, who said: “They’re behaving like street gangs so let’s call them that.”

Malcolm Turnbull was correct this week when he blamed the Andrews government for the crisis. He said that while the federal government had boosted the Australian Federal Police, law and order was a state responsibility. Victoria Police was a larger force than the AFP but it required leadership from the Andrews government. Melbourne-based federal Labor MP Andrew Giles, in contrast, fell in with the liberal left culture, tweeting about “Dutton’s attacks on a vulnerable group, and all those who might defend them” and “loathsome, divisive and destructive stuff”. In a curious oversight by an MP who represents an outer suburban seat, the victims of crime did not rate a mention from Mr Giles.

Mr Dutton, as Home Affairs Minister, has an important role to play, promising to deport those guilty of offending if their residency status allows. While severe, the minister’s stance is right: “If people aren’t prepared to integrate … frankly, they don’t belong in Australian society.” Australians, one of the world’s most generous people in accepting refugees through official channels, are entitled to expect closer scrutiny of potential newcomers in future.

The situation of African refugees, with the criminality of some destroying the reputations of many others, should not be so problematic. As we reported from Toowoomba this week, more than 2000 Sudanese refugees have settled into the Darling Downs city of 100,000 people over the past 15 years, with help from the community and churches. And poet and writer Majok Tulba, a former child refugee from South Sudan, told Caroline Overington this week that the young men who have been rampaging through Melbourne, many of them Australian-born, need to be told: “Give up your Australian life. Go to South Sudan for just one week”, experience gunfire, hunger, malaria, and duck and weave in fear. They would not do the wrong thing again.

The first step in their being integrated in Melbourne, however, is zero tolerance by authorities of abhorrent crimes that have no place in this country. A fresh approach demands a change of attitude on the part of the Victorian government and its justice system.