With crime rates soaring, local services, residents and Cardinia Shire Council are coming together like never before to work with Victoria Police on urgent challenges.
The Neighbourhood Policing Forum was held by Victoria Police at the Cardinia Cultural Centre on Thursday, 5 June.
The forum covered a range of topics, including current crime trends and prevention, family violence, youth issues, road policing, and drug-related crime.
Attendees had an opportunity to ask questions and share their concerns directly with the panel of Victoria Police representatives.
It featured Therese Fitzgerald (Acting Assistant Commissioner), Adrian Healy (Acting Commander), Scott Brennan (Local area Commander Cardinia Inspector), Dearne Dummett (Superintendent Divisional Commander), Rodney Maroney (Inspector) and Natalie Dollard (Inspector).
Police stressed that family violence remains the leading issue, with incidents steadily rising over the past five years — including a notable 15% increase in the past year alone.
Between July 2023 and June 2024, 38 incidents were recorded in the local police service area, out of 228 reported statewide.
Cardinia Shire Mayor Cr Jack Kowarzik questioned whether the increase still reflected improved reporting or a genuine surge in incidents.
“Previously, when the stats have risen from a family violence perspective, some of that was possibly a good thing because more and more instances were being reported,” he told the panel.
“It was becoming more socially acceptable for women and children to report family violence to the police.
“At what point does that no longer become the case, and we’re actually seeing an increasing rate of incidents, as opposed to just over-reporting?”
Inspector Maroney responded by warning that while the rise is concerning, effective support services are bringing about positive change.
“We see a high level of family violence everyday. It’s large in number but the vast majority here is at a low level,” he said.
“Once reported we work with stakeholders to engage families in support services and generally we don’t see them again.
“Within that we always have high risk offenders so we have a specialist unit to deal with that.”
Another pressing concern was youth-related car theft, with a Berwick victim critiquing police efforts and questioning what is being done to stop the crimes.
“There’s a good saying, prevention is better than cure, which we all do, or we try to keep everything in control,” he said.
“For those youngsters or professionals, they still find ways to either break it or start the car, even if the cars are locked. So, whatever the devices they are using, can we stop them importing from overseas? Is there any control on that?”
Fitzgerald explained that regulatory complications such as data-sharing requirements between manufacturers and third-party providers have made it difficult to ban or limit the devices.
“We are aware that criminals are using devices. They buy them easily online,” she said.
“We haven’t been able to influence the sale of them in Australia, that is difficult for us to combat. It’s an area of law we will try to seek to influence in the future.”
Sergeant Joey Tubecki said his Crime Reduction Team, formed less than a year ago, is taking a proactive approach by targeting the top 50 local youth offenders.
“We go out to speak to young people, link them with justice, child protection, and health services. The aim is to stop them reoffending and coming into custody,” he said.
“Sometimes when you get into custody, there may not be a solution to stop them from reoffending.”
The panel found one local woman’s question particularly insightful, as she asked whether youth reoffending in Cardinia was driven by residents or outsiders.
They said it was a combination of both, with some repeat offenders living in the area and others coming from within or beyond the Southern Metro Region
Additionally, Cardinia, Casey, and Greater Dandenong make up Division 3 of the Southern Metro region—Victoria’s largest policing division. Inspector Dollard responded to concerns about police visibility, assuring residents that the area is well-resourced and proactive.
“We often investigate a lot of these types of crimes (car theft). It is a very big focus of ours, and to disrupt that offending,” she said.
“Every night we have police officers out, saturating the area as part of Operation Trinity. So that’s a well-established operation that was actually born out of this Southern Metro region.
“And nightly we see masses of police out on patrol in response to this particular issue that we have and we’ve identified that is occurring.
“Along with Operation Trinity, we’ve also been very proactive in establishing crime reduction teams within Victoria Police.”
