Tudge misrepresents crime figures to beat racist drum: Bandt
Greens Adam Bandt MP has called on the Minister for Citizenship Alan Tudge to apologise and correct the record after he seemingly deliberately used the wrong figures in an interview today. Mr Bandt said the Minister was misrepresenting crime stats to beat the racist drum.
Greens Adam Bandt MP has called on the Minister for Citizenship Alan Tudge to apologise and correct the record after he seemingly deliberately used the wrong figures in an interview today. Mr Bandt said the Minister was misrepresenting crime stats to beat the racist drum.
Speaking on Sky News today Minister Tudge said:
“ … basically the crime data is kept by country of origin and what it shows is that typically the Australian born commit most of the crime, naturally, because ¾ of Victoria are Australian born, but often now Sudanese born is number 2 or number 3 despite them being a tiny proportion of the population. So there clearly is an issue going on there and the Victorian public know this.”
But according to Victoria’s Crime Statistics Agency, Sudan is the 6th highest country listed for country of origin in the most recent crime statistics. New Zealand is in fact the second highest.
“The government is just straight out telling untruths as it beats the racist drum at election time. Minister Tudge must apologise, correct the record immediately and repudiate the government’s racist ‘law and order’ election politicking,” said Mr Bandt.
“If the Minister wants to go down the ‘country of origin’ road, he should at least tell the truth that New Zealand comes in at number 2.”
“By Alan Tudge’s reasoning, we should all be worried sick in Victoria about a ‘New Zealand crime wave’ because New Zealanders are over represented in the crime statistics, with the proportion of ‘New Zealand crime’ coming in at 2.2% when they are only 1.6% of the Victorian population.”
“Politicians should be coming together to work out how we increase cohesion and reduce violent crime rates, not trying to divide the community along racial lines.”
“The Liberals must not exploit the recent tragic death of a woman in Melbourne for election purposes. I hope this terrible tragedy is able to be soberly and seriously investigated as a crime by Victoria police, not used as fodder by race-baiting politicians.”
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Alleged offender country of birth data in Victoria, Crime Statistics Agency, year ending March 2018:
- Australia 58,798 or 71.3% of the unique offender population
- New Zealand 1,803 or 2.2% of the unique offender population
- India 1,190 or 1.4% of the unique offender population
- UK and Ireland 1,089 or 1.3% of the unique offender population
- Vietnam 919 or 1.1% of the unique offender population
- Sudan 879 or 1.1% of the unique offender population