A major polling company doing focus groups in Melbourne a couple of months back was surprised when the subject of African gangs started coming up from participants unprompted, during conversations about an entirely unrelated federal policy issue.



Perhaps not that surprising, given some of the media attention on the issue. Depressing obviously, but not surprising. In any case, the level of unprompted agitation was sufficient enough to be noticeable.

What this tells us is this issue is a thing, and when hot-button issues become things, politicians (who spend a lot of their resources trying to decant the contents of voters heads) try to channel the things as a means of connecting with communities seriously pissed off with the political class being out of touch, and obsessed with themselves.

Turnbull says there is ‘real concern about Sudanese gangs’ in Melbourne Read more

It becomes a feedback loop in other words, and facts can often be the casualty of feedback loops, particularly in close proximity to electoral contests.

Right now we have federal election contests on 28 July, the outcome of which will be important for both Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, and a state election looms in Victoria, which the Liberals would like to find a way to win.

Part of the strategy in Victoria is mining community concern about street crime. The Liberals in Victoria have already defended distributing election leaflets that warn of “gangs hunting in packs” in Melbourne.

This week has opened with federal figures implicitly joining dots between law and order, migration and social cohesion.

Peter Dutton in Tasmania on Monday took the opportunity of a law and order announcement in the seat of Braddon to trumpet his recent efforts at reducing the number of migrants coming into the country, and draw a partisan distinction between what the Coalition could do and what Labor would do. Humblebrag, with a spicy twist.

Shorten, also on the hustings, put his toe in the water too, complaining about the large number of workers here on temporary visas potentially taking jobs away from young Australians.

Because the conversation wasn’t quite inspirational and heartwarming enough, Tony Abbott noted on radio the Coalition could make immigration an election issue if Turnbull only had the guts to slash the intake, because Labor was in the thrall of unnamed “ethnic activists”.

On Tuesday Turnbull had heard things about African gangs. Asked about the issue on 3AW, the prime minister had heard from “colleagues” that there was real anxiety about crime.

“There is real concern about Sudanese gangs,” Turnbull said. “You’d have to be walking around with your hands over your ears in Melbourne not to hear it.”

The colleague he had heard that from clearly wasn’t Christopher Pyne, who, caught flat-footed at a press conference elsewhere shortly afterwards, wondered why he should be afraid to go out to restaurants in Melbourne.

Henry Belot (@Henry_Belot) REPORTER: Are you afraid to go out to restaurants in Melbourne?



PYNE: No, why? Should I be?



REPORTER: Well the PM says colleagues have told him…



PYNE: Oh, because of the gangs, the violence… pic.twitter.com/W41YggbM7N

Pyne got there in the end. Ah yes. Penny drops, all that.

“You’ve got to be honest, right,” the prime minister counselled reporters at a public event a bit later in the morning. “There are Sudanese gangs in Melbourne. It is an issue.”

Turnbull declared nobody was “making any reflections on Sudanese migrants” but one had to be “fair dinkum”.

One indeed does need to be fair dinkum.

Here’s the acid test of being fair dinkum: truth-telling.

Crime in Victoria is down. It fell 6% last year, the biggest reduction in more than a decade.

Here’s another test of being fair dinkum, particularly when you possess the power to shape public opinion: a sense of proportion.

Rise in reported racial incidents linked to sensationalised 'African gangs' coverage Read more

Victoria’s crime statistics agency said in January that people from Sudan make up 0.1% of the state’s population.

For crimes committed in the year ending September 2017, Sudanese people comprised 1.0% of the offender population. So yes, Sudanese-born people are committing crimes in Victoria. There were 846 offenders last year and, according to the same statistics, young Sudanese-born people committed 3% of serious assaults, 5% of car thefts and 8.6% of aggravated burglaries.

Now, the number of Australian-born offenders? 59,048.

Australian-born people in Victoria made up 71.7% of the offender population.

Here’s another bit of field evidence. Blowing incendiary issues out of proportion, either to foment feelings, or chase a screeching headline, or to court a swinging vote, has practical consequences, and those consequences linger long after journalists have clocked off for the night, and political parties have packed away their corflutes and the how-to-vote cards and returned to the bunker.

Here’s one of those consequences.

Victoria’s equal opportunity and human rights commissioner, Kristen Hilton, says the number of race-related inquiries to the commission in the 2017-18 financial year increased by 34% (470 to 630) compared with the previous 12 months, while formal complaints were up 76% (77 to 136).

Hilton has this to say about political short-termism: “I think to say that Victorians are scared to go out for dinner, or there’s a perceived lawlessness in Victorian society because of the African community, is not only wildly inaccurate – it’s very dangerous.”

So yes, prime minister, it really does pay to be fair dinkum. Nobody was born yesterday, and everybody is watching.