Firearm offences and domestic violence topped the crimes list over the past 12 months in Hume, Victoria Police data released last week shows.
In Whittlesea, drug offences, burglaries and assaults were up on the previous year.
Across the state, Victoria Police’s raw figures show overall crime increased 3.1 per cent, with drug offences up 14.4 per cent and assaults, including family violence, increasing 3.3 per cent.
While senior police and the state government put the rise in family violence crime figures down to proactive policing, shadow minister for family violence and Yan Yean MP Danielle Green said the government had failed to keep up with rapid urban growth in Melbourne’s north, leaving people and properties without enough police.
“It is not surprising given the local police resources are stretched to the limit to meet the dramatic increase in the population in areas such as Mernda and Doreen, from 3500 in 2006 to 23,000 in 2012,” Ms Green said.
“As Parliamentary Secretary for Police and Emergency Services in the previous Labor government, I fought for new police stations serving the Yan Yean electorate which were built at Wallan, Craigieburn, Diamond Creek, Eltham, Warrandyte, Kinglake and Hurstbridge – and crime went down.”
Ms Green said she had handed a petition to the government signed by local residents and calling for a police station for Mernda and Doreen and an upgrade to the 1950s township police station in Whittlesea.
“As shadow minister for family violence, I am also concerned about the increase in family violence in the area, with the number of assaults in the family increasing from 739 in 2012 to 843 in 2013,” Ms Green said.
It was a similar situation in Hume, where family violence incidents in 2013 rose by almost 10 per cent on the previous year. The number of firearms offences was also of concern. However, drug offences were down.
