Malcolm Turnbull and a senior cabinet minister from Victoria have blamed the state’s premier for violent African gangs running rampant through Melbourne.
The prime minister said Daniel Andrews’ government was responsible for Apex and Menace to Society gangs terrorising residents following a spate of thuggery across the city’s western suburbs.
‘We are very concerned at the growing gang violence and lawlessness in Victoria, in particular in Melbourne,’ he told reporters at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Monday.
‘This is a failure of the Andrews Labor government.’
With an election due in Victoria this year, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, who holds the seat of Flinders south east of Melbourne, said one man should be held responsible.
‘The failure is not the police, but the premier,’ he said, standing next to the prime minister.
The Turnbull Government is stepping up its attack on the Victorian government after the MTS, or Menace to Society gang, last week smashed the Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit, in Melbourne’s west.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has pointed the finger at Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews
Furniture at the Ecoville Community Park at Tarneit in Melbourne’s west was vandalised
Furniture, windows, and even walls were destroyed while rubbish was thrown everywhere, including bongs for smoking marijuana.
Graffiti also covered every every surface, with the letters ‘MTS’ scrawled on walls in an apparent reference to the ethnic African youth gang calling itself Menace to Society.
Only days before Christmas, ‘MTS’ graffiti was also scrawled on an AirBnB party house at Werribee, in Melbourne’s west.
Rocks were also pelted at police forcing them to retreat from the house, when more than 100 youths of primarily South Sudanese appearance turned on them.
The house had been trashed into, with walls kicked and punched in, mattresses thrown on top of furniture and pepper spray splattered across bedroom curtains.
Police were pelted with rocks as they attended an AirBnB house at Werribee in Melbourne
The scene inside the trashed AirBnB house at Werribee in Melbourne’s western suburbs
Neighbours say they were left terrified when youths from the house started roaming the streets, throwing rocks and smashing cars.
Despite the spate of gang-related crime, Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville last week said youth crimes in her state were mainly committed by Australians.
‘We’ve got to be clear, this is not just an African youth problem,’ she said.
‘Overwhelmingly Australian citizens are the offenders, some of those are African-born,’ she told Melbourne radio station 3AW.
Victorian Police Minister Lisa Neville (pictured) has denied her state has a problem with African youths committing crime
She said youth crime in Australia is mainly committed by Australian citizens, some of whom are African-born (pictured is an incident in Maribyrnong)
Victoria Police last week insisted they didn’t have an African gang problem in Melbourne after coming under fire over a series of incidents involving African youths.
Superintendent Therese Fitzgerald made the comments after a boy kicked a police officer in the head as he crouched down attempting to arrest a 16-year-old youth for alleged shoplifting on Boxing Day at Highpoint Shopping Centre, at Maribyrnong.
However, Acting Commissioner Shane Patton contradicted that senior police officer, saying African community leaders admitted they had a problem ‘with a small cohort of African youth who are committing high-end crimes’.
Werribee resembled a war zone on December 20 as African youths pelted police with rocks
The senior constable sustained non-life threatening injuries and was taken to hospital as the youth who assaulted him remained at large.
A 16-year-old Flemington boy was arrested over the alleged theft but he was released pending further inquiries.
In June, at nearby Footscray, a man was struck in the head with a tomahawk as a gang of 15 African youths burst into a barber shop and began rioting.
In April, a gang of five Sudanese teenagers allegedly bashed their autistic classmate, in a horrific attack on a bus at Tarneit, in Melbourne’s west.
The 17-year-old student was travelling alone to the city centre, when five boys approached him and told him to hand over his mobile phone and new Nike shoes.
The scuffle captured on CCTV,unfolded in front of shocked Boxing Day shoppers in Melbourne