Melbourne-Australia becoming Naarmistan-third-world-s**thole. By Alan Howe in The Australian.
What eats most acidly into the heart of our state is the criminality of a single union: the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union. … Its criminality is slickly organised and it has been penetrated by outlaw motorcycle gangs as it oversees worksites around Australia with mafia-like command and control — and in a true mafia style even trafficking drugs. Criminals are given positions on worksites and then employ their mates as they stand over construction companies holding them hostage and stripping them of not millions, not tens of millions, not hundreds of millions but thousands of millions of dollars. Just in Victoria.
There have been calls for a royal commission into the CFMEU, but [Victorian Premier Jacinta] Allan won’t have it. …
Investigator Geoffrey Watson SC, who was commissioned by recently resigned Mark Irving KC, the administrator of the CFMEU’s construction and general division, to examine the union, found it was a criminal enterprise that had stolen or diverted about $15bn from Victorian taxpayers. …
Watson said it “was no longer a trade union, it was a crime syndicate” that had converted building sites into “drug distribution centres”. It is a uniquely Victorian problem. He said if you compared corruption around the states on a scale of zero to 10, “NSW is about a two or a three, Queensland’s about a five, and Victoria’s about 1000. It’s insane.” …
It is hard to imagine what $15bn means … No wonder we can’t afford to fix potholes, properly fund hospitals or pay for a fully functioning police force. …
Spiraling downwards towards third world behavior:
I have called Melbourne home since 1958 and I have never known a city to be so paralysed by hopelessness. World’s fourth most liveable city? That ranking mocks us. We used to be so content in our little southern paradise the car number plates stated “The place to be”. Now it is the place to be stabbed. Recently a sushi chef on her way to work was stabbed by a complete stranger at 7.40am in the CBD.
Melbourne’s children are stabbing, slashing and killing each other. We are so hardened to the numbing uniformity of crime by children who should be in bed but instead steal cars and attack and rob people, it soon drops from the news agenda.
Our children are the most violently criminal in the country. Morning radio bulletins carry news of savage home invasions, machete attacks and cars stolen and crashed by drivers not long out of primary school. Sometimes they or their passengers are found dead in the wreck. …
Last September the news was worse: two boys, aged 15 and 12, walking home from a suburban basketball game were stabbed to death by a gang of youngsters. One of the dead boys had his hand sliced off. Prosecutors say the boys’ deaths were revenge for another boy’s murder nine months earlier. That victim also had his hand chopped off. …
The number of police has fallen to 15,601 full-time officers, the lowest for seven years. Since then the state has grown by more than 500,000 people and the crime rate has exploded. The Police Association believes we are more than 1400 officers short. But too few want to be a police officer in Victoria. Who can blame them? Another 150 have left in the past three months.
The money stolen or diverted by the CFMEU — traditionally one of Labor’s biggest donors — would cover the total Victoria Police budget for years.
Children’s courts deal daily with a tidal wave of youngsters charged with serious violent crime. The gang culture in the city is so vicious that one of the courts is festooned with security cameras — focused on the streets outside and beamed inside. Those about to be bailed are able to see if enemy gang members are waiting for them. One boy must know those cameras well; he has been bailed more than 50 times. He has had 388 charges struck out. He breaks into houses while families are asleep, steals money and cars that he often crashes. But we’re good with it, apparently. He is reportedly here on a refugee visa. No doubt he’ll make a fine Victorian citizen if he lives long enough. …
This complete contempt for law and order is aided and abetted by a criminal justice system that refuses to punish its citizens even for edge-of-life violence. The sentencing of criminals in Victoria is absurdly lenient and has been for years.
Victoria’s hospitals are underfunded, understaffed and overcrowded, and run up huge debts in a system so stressed and demanding that patients are attacking doctors, nursing staff and each other.
Not sure where Naarn is? Here’s the map:
