By Derek Schlennstedt
Education, law and order, and domestic violence support received key funding in the Labor Government State Budget handed down on Tuesday 2 May.
Victoria will spend an unprecedented $1.9 billion on combating family violence and another $2 billion will go towards more police and other community safety statement initiatives.
The Mail met with Opposition Leader Matthew Guy who responded to this year’s budget.
The leader of the opposition welcomed the crackdown on family violence, but chided the government for ignoring mandatory sentencing and said the government was not doing enough to tackle the rising rate of crime in Victoria.
“Our major concern around the budget is bail and sentencing, it’s good to employ more police, but we need to go beyond just police numbers, it has to be about the whole criminal justice system and the government hasn’t put any money into reforming bail laws or into tightening sentencing,” Mr Guy said.
“We welcome the state and federal governments’ crackdown on domestic violence, but we must focus on the entire population and that’s why I say the government, while doing well on domestic violence is ignoring the rest of the population by not focusing on sentencing and bail.”
In recent years, Victorian crime rates have continued to grow, and in October 2016 The Mail reported that Yarra Ranges crime had increased by 24 per cent for the financial year of 2016.
Mr Guy believes that the mandatory sentencing system, under which violent offenders would face minimum sentences of at least six years for 11 crimes is the deterrent needed to reduce crime rates, and would also reduce the time police spend on re-arresting offenders.
“Under my mandatory sentencing proposal, repeat domestic violence offenders would get 10 years in jail.”
“I’d rather those people be off the streets than causing mayhem on the streets.”
“The police are arresting and re-arresting people over and over again, the sentencing and bail laws are allowing this to happen … it has a direct impact on police time and resources,” Mr Guy said.
