Friday, 28 August 2026

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (15:47): (2767) My adjournment matter is for the Attorney-General. On Tuesday a mother from Phillip Island and her three children were walking down Spencer Street. A man assaulted her 10-year-old son, and when she intervened he put her in a headlock and stabbed her with a pair of scissors until a passer-by tackled him to the ground. This happened outside the Victoria Police Centre. Police say the man was known to them in Victoria and Western Australia. He is in custody, and I will say nothing further about him while the investigation is ongoing.

But these violent incidents have become far too frequent, a grim, grim pattern that we in Victoria do not need to accept. In October a chef, Wan Lai, was stabbed in the chest on Little Bourke Street on her way to work, The Age reported the accused was already on bail, with nine priors for failing to appear and 16 warrants for the same. Two months later the Supreme Court granted her bail again. On 1 August Van Viet Truong, a grocer in Sunshine, went to help a shop worker and was dragged to the ground. He died four days later. Of the young people charged, three are on bail. Mr Truong had told a Brimbank councillor months before the fatal attack that he feared for the safety of that street.

Constituents across my region frequently – I mean very frequently – relay to me similar concerns. There are many more crimes that go unreported. They simply want to walk to the station, open their business or take their children into the city without wondering whether they are going to see their loved ones again or if there is going to be trouble. They are asking the government for basic safety from violence, which is the first job of any government – to protect its citizens.

The Labor government, while continuing to make announcements saying that it will keep Victorians safe from crime, is overseeing a crime epidemic that it has not been able to get ahead of; in fact it has effectively, over the last three or four years, exacerbated considerably. If this government is keeping Victorians safe, why is it that Victoria Police currently has 1500 vacancies and why has crime climbed 30 per cent since Labor removed PSOs from 119 train stations? Why are key police stations across metropolitan Melbourne not open 24 hours a day? You have overseen a crime crisis that has Victorians rightfully worried.

The action I seek is that the Attorney-General take real steps to protect Victorians by adopting the tough-on-crime policies that we on this side of the house have put forward, amending the Bail Act 1977 so that anyone charged with a violent offence while on bail stays in custody and putting PSOs back on train stations. The plan exists; only the government will not pick it up.