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ShareWhat specific criticism do you have against the media coverage, particularly in India?
I don't think it's been fair and balanced: I think it's been sensationalised. Don't get me wrong: some of the individual cases are shocking. The violence that has been witnessed is terrible, terrible. It's a shocking thing, and I absolutely condemn it, and it's not okay -- whether it's an Indian, Chinese, or Australian. And that's what we need to deal with.
But I think the extent of it has been sensationalised. And it's not been fairly reported in terms of our understanding of the issue and our response to it -- which is not in reaction to what happened two weeks ago. As I keep saying, we have been working on this for 18 months.
What do you think of the Australian media response?
It has been an interesting response from the Australian media. There have been sort of two lines: one has been to acknowledge the problem and talk about it, and give publicity to it. The other has been a bit defensive around the issue of race. And I think there is a great deal of sensitivity about the issue of race.
Some Australian commentators make the point that better policing could have averted these attacks.
Better policing has dealt with the issue of violence. We have had significant reductions in crime: crime is down 23.5% in Victoria over the last eight years. So they are right. We have been challenged around violence in the central business district on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, which is largely around licensed premises and alcohol. We are dealing with that. We are dealing with this issue, but the point I am making is: it's not always about policing.
People are very happy to put their problems on our doorstep and say 'this is for you to fix', and I accept my part of the responsibility for dealing with it. But there are other people with responsibility around this. In a city it's around regulation of liquor and other issues around it. With the Indian students and other international students, there are a whole series of other issues that need to be dealt with. If they come here and we put those students in a situation where they need to live where they are living, and they have to come and go in the circumstances that they do, they would continue to be victims because they are vulnerable. There is a lot that we can do to help. But we can't solve this by ourselves. Because there are actually a lot of issues here, and they are not within my control.
Are the law enforcement and judicial systems softer on juvenile crimes?
'Softer' is one way of describing it, but, yes, there is a lot more latitude extended to juveniles, and people would say there are good reasons around that. But that is an issue here. A lot of the offenders are young offenders, so they are under 18 years of age. That's an issue for us. They get caught, they get put before the court, they get bail and they are out. They re-offend (sic). They get caught, they get put before the court, they get bail, and they are out again. So we know there is a relatively small number of young offenders who are repeat offenders who are driving all of this stuff. So that's an issue as well.
Does the Victoria Police feel the need to work with community organisations to address the problems of juvenile alcoholism and drug addiction?
Yes, absolutely. Our whole approach is predicated on that. We have policemen going to the schools. We work with the community at many different levels. We work really hard to engage with our multicultural communities in Victoria, because it is a very diverse community. We have got many hundreds of nationalities living in Victoria. We do a lot of work around engaging with those communities, improving communication, improving understanding, and having people understand that they are entitled to be safe while they are here, and that they can trust us and they can work with us.
The point has been made that even the police force needs to reflect the multicultural diversity of the community.
I agree. Absolutely.
How multicultural is the Victoria Police?
Nowhere near as multicultural as it should be.
What impedes you?
A whole series of things. There is history, around the sort of people who come... But one of my goals is to actually make us much more representative of the community we police. And so that's about recruitment. There are a lot of reasons to engage with the multicultural communities to actually make sure that not only do they feel safe, but that they also see they can come and work for us.
We have launched an initiative earlier this week, one that we have been working on for some time. We engaged six 'new and emerging communities' liaison officers. We have got persons from Sudan, Eritrea, Chile... these are people who come and work with the Victoria Police to engage new and emerging communities.
We have had multicultural liaison officers in the community for a long time, whose job is to help us engage with those communities. We have had, for instance, aboriginal liaison officers, because we recognise there are particular challenges in dealing with new and emerging communities.
