Queensland Premier David Crisafulli defends new crime stats amid claims of data ‘cherrypicking’

Queensland’s new crime data shows victim numbers dropping, but the opposition says tens of thousands of theft victims have been deliberately excluded from the count.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli in Brisbane on Tuesday. Picture: Richard Walker

You can now listen to The Australian's articles. Give us your feedback.

You can now listen to The Australian's articles.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli claims to have met his election pledge to bring down victim numbers after releasing new crime statistics that disregard thousands of offences.

Figures collated by the Queensland Police Service show the number of victims across the state fell 3.3 per cent year on year over the first six months of 2025 – or 5.7 per cent when adjusted for the rise in state population.

The Premier had pledged to resign if victim numbers did not fall during his first term, as his Liberal National Party government focused on tackling the state’s “crime crisis”.

But the state Labor opposition has questioned the validity of the claim, accusing the government of cherrypicking data.

During the 2024 election campaign, Mr Crisafulli relied on the Australian Bureau of Statistics data, which identified 289,657 Queensland crime victims in 2023. The majority (151,501) of the state’s crime victims in the data were represented under the “other theft” category, which reflects theft from a person or retail store.

Mr Crisafulli. Picture: Liam Kidston

The new QPS figures, released on Tuesday, cover a dozen crime categories, including homicide, assault, robbery, kidnapping, life-endangering acts and unlawful entry. While it includes several new categories, such as coercive control, unlawful use of a motor vehicle and unlawful injury, a deliberate choice was made not to include the “other theft” category.

Mr Crisafulli said some of the offences included under the category were “victimless crimes”, such as stealing a street sign or a witches hat from a construction site.

As a result, victim numbers have fallen from 75,084 to 72,588 over the first half of 2025. If the “other theft” were category included, the figures would have been 88,088 at the start of the year, falling to 84,543 in June.

Mr Crisafulli said the new data set would provide a more immediate reflection of the government’s performance as the national figures from the ABS were lagged by nine months.

“That’s certainly a crime and that data has always been included in some of the ABS stats,” the Premier said.

“But in the spirit of transparency we thought we would give you the ones that do relate to the victims.”

Opposition Leader Steven Miles said the “cherrypicked” data disregards the experiences of tens of thousands of Queensland victims.

“Tens of thousands of Queenslanders are no longer considered victims in the eyes of David Crisafulli,” Mr Miles said.

“His victim data isn’t worth the paper that it’s printed on, because he’s cut corners, cherrypicked, and removed offences that should matter.

“Victims of ‘other theft’ could be the local independent grocer who has had stock swiped from their shelves, or someone who’s had items stolen from their car.”

Queensland Opposition Leader Steven Miles. Picture: Liam Kidston

Mr Crisafulli would not restate whether he would resign over the numbers when pressed during budget estimates, instead confirming several data sets would inform progress.

The latest QPS figures stretch back to 2001 and show that in the first six months of 2025, break-ins fell by 12 per cent, while the number of people affected by stolen cars fell 6.4 per cent and robbery fell 13.2 per cent.

The next cache of ABS crime victim data, for 2024, will be released in September.

Mr Crisafulli said the data released on Tuesday was positive but acknowledged the government still has a “long way to go” in reducing the number of victims.