Victorian police march on MP`s office

Anger about law and order in Victoria moved from the city to the country this week
with police marching on an MP's office and a crisis meeting planned on street
violence.
About 50 local police marched through Ballarat to Labor MP Geoff Howard's office on
Tuesday, urging him to back their pleas for more officers.
Official police figures reveal crime per head in Ballarat outstrips the rest of the
state and local traders say vandalism has almost sent them broke.
A meeting will be held 120km north in Bendigo on Friday between MPs, the local
council, police and others to discuss street violence.
Relations between police in Ballarat - Victoria's third-largest town - and police
command have deteriorated over the last week.
Chief Commissioner Simon Overland said he was unhappy about rising crime rates in
the region and issued a "please explain" to the station.
Ballarat Detective Sergeant Kevin Carson spoke out publicly, saying members were
under-resourced and "devastated" at what they saw as Mr Overland's public suggestion
they were lazy and "not up to it".
Det Sgt Carson said he did not want to "play politics" through the media and would
speak to Mr Overland personally.
"We just want to be able to police our town properly and get replacements for people
who are not there and are having babies or are permanent sick," he told AAP on
Wednesday.
Retired Ballarat police Superintendent Paul Murnane wrote a letter to a newspaper
criticising Mr Overland over the comments.
Some local police, including Det Sgt Carson, question the wisdom of using resources
for the force's new weapon against street violence, the 127-member Operational
Response Unit (ORU) which will rise to 220.
Police Association secretary Senior Sergeant Greg Davies said local members were so
"outraged" by Mr Overland's views and Mr Howard's comment that the police were
well-resourced, they wanted to "to walk out on strike".
Sen Sgt Davies said official police figures showed there were 1100 crimes committed
per 100,000 population in Ballarat last year, compared to 650 for the rest of
Victoria.
He says the station is short 98 police officers, with the state's fourth-biggest
town of Bendigo 81 short and second-biggest Geelong 133 short, according to National
Institute of Economic and Industry Research stats.
Victoria Police receives less money and has fewer police officers per capita than
any other state, according to last year's Commonwealth report on government
services.
The general manager of Ballarat's Regent Cinema, Stephen Anderson, says he has spent
tens of thousands of dollars in recent years fixing windows regularly smashed.
"I am having trouble getting insurance, every weekend it's terrible dealing with
broken glass, bottles, blood, urine, excrement," he said.
He called for "zero tolerance", laws to close nightclubs by 2am instead of 5am and
more police, which would "solve 75 per cent of the problem".
The Ballarat Barber Shop's owner, Geoff Johnson, said his strip of shops was damaged
regularly on weekends by drunken youths, nearly sending one trader broke, but only
one police divisional van served the 100,000 population.