A crime wave is sweeping Melbourne caused by 鈥渙ut-of control African gangs鈥濃 if we are to believe Channel 7, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Coalition MPs and even Victorian police minister Lisa Neville, who claimed: 鈥淭his core group of African youth are causing huge fear.鈥
Turnbull intoned with all the gravitas of a ventriloquist鈥檚 dummy: 鈥淭here is a gang issue here and you are not going to make it go away by pretending it does not exist.鈥
Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton, Minister for Health Greg Hunt and Coalition MP Tim Wilson all claimed Melburnians are so paralysed with fear that pubs and restaurants are deserted in the city 鈥 never mind that not a single restaurant has reported closing even for an hour for lack of customers.
The solution to this 鈥渃rime wave鈥, however, seems to vary depending upon whether one is a Coalition MP at the federal level or a Labor MP in the state parliament.
Federal Coalition MPs see the solution to the 鈥渂reakdown in law and order鈥 in federal intervention through a bigger role for the Australian Federal Police.
Victorian Labor Premier Daniel Andrews has sought to tackle the 鈥済angs terrorising鈥 helpless diners in restaurants by further militarising the police with bigger guns, bullet-proof vests and greater powers of handing out 鈥渁nti-association鈥 notices to kids as young as 14.
In all this, the Crime Statistics Agency reports that the crime rate dropped 6.2% in Victoria last year and deputy police commissioner Andrew Crisp said there was no gang problem in Victoria.
Now, with an election in November, the state Labor government has proposed legislation to recruit an additional 2500 police officers who can hand notices to children as young as 14 forbidding them to 鈥渁ssociate鈥 with certain individuals for three years. For children with physical or mental impairment and Aboriginal youth, the notices will expire after 12 months.
Anyone breaching the notice can be jailed for up to three years, thus effectively introducing the crime of guilt by association. Children can be jailed for simply playing footy, going to the movies, having a barbeque or for communicating online with others.
While the 鈥淎frican gangs鈥 might go the way of the disappearing 鈥淎pex gang鈥 after what is likely to be a 鈥渓aw and order, tough on crime鈥 election, the sweeping powers to ban and arrest will continue to blight the lives of some of the most marginalised in society.
These new powers will remain hovering over the heads of all to be arbitrarily exercised to further divide and rule all of us.