AS distressing as the sight was of the total loss of the Fish Creek Football Netball Clubrooms, to an arsonist’s fire last Saturday morning, it raises an even more fearful prospect.
Criminal damage and specifically, torching the scene of the crime to destroy CCTV records, fingerprints and other evidence left behind by the perpetrators could become standard practice of these, often drug-crazed, criminals.
That’s the view of Secretary of the Corner Inlet Motorcycle Club, Jeffre Klemm, and he should know.
His group’s clubhouse, in an isolated location on the Meeniyan-Promontory Road, has regularly been the target of burglars, so much so that they’ve taken to removing all maintenance equipment, including chainsaws and whipper snippers, and any other items of value to get them out of the burglars reach.
But still they come.
In the lead up to what may prove to be a connected local crime spree at the weekend, would-be burglars hooked up the front gates of the motorcycle club about 10 days ago and pulled them off all but one of their hinges in their latest attempt to gain access.
“They’ve wrecked the gates, but we think they might have been disturbed after that and left. But two months ago, they broke into our canteen looking for valuables, did a lot of damage but ultimately got away with a couple of Mars bars.
“These people don’t care what damage they do, we saw that at Fish Cree on the weekend, at the netball rooms during the week and at Paul Aherns Fruit Market sometime ago.
“Unfortunately, crime has caught up with the rural environment and they have been causing more and more damage as they go.
“What happened at Fish Creek on Saturday might just be the beginning.”
Mr Klemm said the internet-connected storage for the surveillance equipment at the Fish Creek Bowls Club, the football and netball club facilities and points around John Terrill Memorial Park were located in the football clubrooms.
“My concern now is what happened at Fish Creek will become standard practice for burglars covering their tracks.
“Once upon a time, when you drove into South Gippsland, there was a police presence at Loch, Korumburra and Leongatha along the way and you might also see the lights on at the Meeniyan Police Station, at Foster and also at Toora.
“People knew the police were around and you could get help if you needed it. Not now.
“Everyone knows the police are an hour and a half away at Wonthaggi and sometimes they’ve only got a couple of divvy vans on, covering the whole region. The crooks know it too. The word has got around that South Gippsland is an easy target.
“Three things. Clubs and businesses need to be upgrading their security and beefing up barriers to access, the shire needs to be helping sports precincts with better fencing and gates, and the state government needs to recruit more police.”
Fish Creek Football Netball Club stalwart, Lou Seuren, a former president of the club, agrees. More police are needed in country areas, he says.
“I don’t blame the police for this, they haven’t been given the support they need by the government,” said Mr Seuren.
“While they’ve been running around wasting billions on major projects and things like the Commonwealth Games, they’ve forgotten the basics.
“There simply aren’t enough police in country areas and our politicians need to stand up and do something about it.”
The incident at Fish Creek, prior to 5am last Saturday, also likely linked with break-ins at the Meeniyan IGA at 4.28am and the Meeniyan Bowls Club earlier in the morning, comes two days after it was revealed that counter staff at 43 police stations in Victoria will have their hours reduced, as police are withdrawn to cover shortages elsewhere.
It follows confirmed reports in August that police officers from 98 one-person stations in small towns will be forced from their posts and rostered out to larger regional centres and cities, in a move that undermines the security of rural communities.
But it’s been going on for years in South Gippsland, plenty of small-town police stations, but no one in them.
The force’s annual report, published last week, revealed the number of active serving police had reduced by 317 in the year to 15,850 officers.
Attrition exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic has left about 800 vacancies across the force, but the police say the academy is at capacity, producing 48 new constables each fortnight.
But according to the official Victorian state government projection of population and households (September 2023), the state’s population is expected to reach 10.3 million by 2051.
And by 2026 in South Gippsland for example, the number of people over 85 is expected to expand from 139,830 in 2021 to 255,600 by 2026.
By 2036, South Gippsland’s population is projected to increase by almost 5000, while Bass Coast’s population increase will exceed 10,000 in that time.
You can probably take the crime rate reported by the Crime Statistics Agency with a grain of salt, because if you haven’t got enough police, you can’t follow up reports of crime but the incidence of crime in South Gippsland increased by 20.5% in the 12 months to June 30, 2023 with criminal damage, non-residential, non-aggravated burglaries and theft the second, third and fourth highest categories, behind breaches of family violence orders.
