Property crime: Regional Victoria’s most unsafe postcodes ranked

The latest crime data has revealed regional Victoria’s most unsafe localities when it comes to property crime. See how your postcode compares.

Morwell is the most unsafe postcode in Victoria when it comes to property damage and break ins.

That’s according to data obtained by insurance agency Budget Direct, which has also ranked 551 postcodes across Victoria based on the amount of crime in the localities.

Featuring consistently at the bottom of the list with the highest amount of property crime, the locality of 3840 recorded 69 offences per 1000 households last year, the most of all postcodes.

But this was down from 94 in 2019, 79 in 2018 and 80 in 2017.

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Latrobe City Council councillor Graeme Middlemiss said it came as “a complete surprise” the ward he represented being named the most dangerous in the state.

“Being a Morwell resident I can’t say that I’ve noticed any increases in crime recently,” he said.

“I don’t feel unsafe during the day or night and I think Morwell is well-serviced by the police we’ve got.”

Topping the list of safest postcodes is Teesdale near Geelong (3328), followed closely by Newstead (3462), which shot up the list from 246th position in 2019 to 2nd in 2020.

Property crime in this region dropped from 18 offences per 1000 households two years ago to just 2 last year.

Mount Alexander Shire Councillor Matthew Driscoll, whose ward covers Newstead and surrounds, said he thought it was the camaraderie of the area that led to being among the safest postcodes.

“It’s the kind of place where people who know each other will have a chat — people tend to keep an eye on their community,” he said.

“It’s also a one-copper town. He’s been there for 22 years, he’s well connected to the community and I know a lot of people like him – so I think that’s an important point.”

The postcode of Binginwarri and surrounds (3966) also saw an enormous reduction in crime, going from 490th safest to 27th. Their crime rate went down from 35 per 1000 to 5 between 2019 and 2020.

When comparing overall regions in Victoria, the safest place to live was in Shepparton, with an average of 20 offences per 1000 households. The most unsafe region was the North West, which recorded an average of 322 offences per 1000 households.

Budget Direct’s figures showed that of regional Victoria’s 308 postcodes represented above, 27 per cent were considered “high-risk”, 39 per cent were deemed “medium-risk” and 33 per cent are “low-risk”.

Melbourne’s 243 postcodes painted a bit of a different picture, with 63 per cent of their postcodes considered “medium-risk”, and 22 per cent were “high-risk” and 14 per cent “low-risk”.