By Mitchell Clarke and Jessica Anstice
The overwhelming majority of crimes committed throughout the Cardinia shire were carried out by Australian born offenders, according to data obtained by the Gazette.
Of the 2367 alleged offender incidents in Cardinia shire between October 2018 and September 2019, 1868 were carried out by people born in Australia.
According to Crime Statistics Agency, an alleged offender incident represents one alleged offender but may involve multiple victims and offences.
They added that one incident may involve offences which occur over a period of time, but if processed by Victoria Police as one incident it will have a count of one in the data.
The data found that just 69 alleged offender incidents were committed by people born in Sudan and South Sudan, while 50 of the incidents were carried out by New Zealand born people.
Cardinia’s area commander inspector Dearne Dummett recognised the importance to remember that criminality is not predicated on nationality, race, culture, sex, gender or age.
“While Victoria Police and the African community have acknowledged a small group of young people are committing criminal acts, we know the vast majority of the African community, irrespective of their ages, are law abiding people,” she said.
“Victoria Police has and will continue to engage with communities in the Cardinia area on a number of levels to remain connected to the communities it serves.
“Police will continue to take tough action against offenders to ensure they are stopped in their tracks and the local community remains safe.”
The data indicates that just over one percent of all offenders in Victoria were born in Sudan or South Sudan, with the overwhelming majority of offenders across the state being born in Australia.
But La Trobe MP and assistant minister for immigration Jason Wood claims the statistics were flawed.
“The figures are not reflective of what I hear and see daily in my role as the Member for La Trobe,” he said.
“If the figures are saying the majority of alleged criminals are Australian, I can tell you now that it won’t be the case.”
Mr Wood, a retired police officer, claims the only way for police to find out a person’s birthplace is during an interview.
“If you’re in custody and you’re on a visa, you’re not going to run around and highlight the fact that you’re on a visa.
“You can’t just take it on face value, everyone says they’re Australian born for the simple reason that if they’re on a visa, they don’t want to face deportation.”
The assistant minister said he wasn’t accusing the force of “trying to cover anything up” but believed it was simply a flaw in the system.
“If they say ‘yes they’re born in Australia’ or ‘no they’re not born in Australia’, there’s no further inquiry through immigration.
“That’s why I’m pushing so hard for changes to the character test because then you’ll find there is more investigation on foreign born criminals to be deported.”
