Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has acknowledged Sudanese gangs roaming the streets of Melbourne are a ‘real concern’.
Mr Turnbull said residents are anxious about violence in the city and that he has heard how people are too scared to go out at night, backing claims made by a colleague.
‘There is real concern about Sudanese gangs,’ Mr Turnbull said in an interview with radio 3AW.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) has acknowledged ‘there is real concern about Sudanese gangs’ in Melbourne
Mr Turnbull said in a radio interview ‘there is certainly concern about street crime in Melbourne’. Pictured, an African teen being arrested during a violent confrontation at a shopping centre in Tarneit, in Melbourne’s west, earlier this year
Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton said in January ‘people are scared to go out to restaurants of a night-time because they’re followed home by these gangs’.
Mr Turnbull said he has heard of those reports.
‘I have heard people, colleagues from Melbourne, say that there is real anxiety about crime in Melbourne. It is a real issue,’ he said.
‘There is certainly concern about street crime in Melbourne. There is concern about the state government’s failure to uphold the rule of law on the streets of Melbourne.
‘You’d have to be walking around with your hands over your ears in Melbourne not to hear it.’
Mr Turnbull’s comments come as the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission linked an increase in reports of racism to politicians.
Menace to Society, linked to the infamous Apex gang, had its ‘MTS’ initials tagged on walls around the Ecoville Community Park in Tarneit, which was trashed late last year
The community centre in Tarneit was vandalised in December, with furniture, windows and walls smashed
The Commission issued a media release on Monday which said the number of formal race-related complaints received had jumped 76 per cent in 12 months.
‘This sudden jump in race-related discrimination reports should be a wake-up call for politicians who have made racially divisive statements,’ Commissioner Kristen Hilton said.
‘Linking skin colour and crime causes more problems than it solves. Victoria is one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world, and a great place to live.’
Mr Dutton added in his January interview that ‘We just need to call it for what it is. Of course it’s African gang violence’.
Mr Turnbull said it was ‘nonsense’ to link those comments with an increase in racism.
‘Peter Dutton is simply seeking to the best job as Minister for Home Affairs,’ he said.
‘He is responsible at a federal level for domestic security as well as immigration.’
He said the government has ‘zero tolerance’ for racism.