“People are scared to go out to restaurants at night because they’re followed by these gangs, home invasions and cars are stolen and we just need to call it for what it is; of course it’s African gang violence.”

Home affairs minister Peter Dutton pulled no punches during this infamous interview on Sydney radio station 2GB in January 2018.

Given it was the beginning of a state election year, the comments were always going to hold extra significance, and the gravity of the accusation meant that candidates had no choice but to respond.

Premier Daniel Andrews defended Melbourne as a safe, welcoming city and described Dutton’s comments as “designed to be as controversial as possible.”

Opposition leader Matthew Guy rode the coattails of his Liberal colleague, and the battle lines were drawn; Safety and crime became a critical theme of the Liberal party’s campaign to reclaim the power of Victorian state parliament for the first time since 2014.

When it was revealed that Hassan Khalif Shire Ali – the Somali immigrant behind the knife-wielding attack in Melbourne’s CBD that resulted in the death of culinary icon Sisto Malaspina and two other stabbings just weeks before Victorians went to the polls – was on bail at the time of the incident, Guy used the opportunity to mourn the death with Prime Minister Scott Morrison as an ideal moment to champion his promise for a tougher stance on crime.

“We’ll make sure those who commit crime are appropriately punished, that first responders, who are protecting us, have every method at their disposal to keep us safe,” Guy told reporters outside Pellegrini’s, the restaurant owned by Malaspina where hundreds had come to lay flowers and pay their respects.

As Victorians know, that line of campaigning backfired, spectacularly.

Andrews and the Labor party romped to victory in a landslide that saw Guy resign from his position as opposition leader, as voters “rejected the low road of fear and division” (as Andrews described) created by the Liberals.

What followed the election in the federal seat of La Trobe in Melbourne’s south east raised eyebrows.

The Liberal party began distributing federal election campaign material posing the questions of whether residents felt safe in their own homes, claiming that crime figures in the area were “worse than ever”.

Jason Wood MP, the Federal member for La Trobe, was basing his campaign on experiences from his previous line of work with the Organised Crime Squad and Counter Terrorism Unit.

He also spent time as chair of the recently ceased Federal Joint Standing Committee on migration.

Wood himself was the victim of an aggravated burglary in 2016 and even described his the location of his electorate as a “hot-spot” for crime.

On face value the claims on the distributed fliers look like a hyperbolic scare-campaign from which to launch promises of a crackdown on crime and enhancing law and order.

Being a marginal seat that Wood and the Liberal party won by a small margin in 2016, a swing from blue to red could prove crucial to the result of the Federal election.

But a snapshot of opinions from La Trobe residents paint a dire picture of safety and crime standards in the area. Nearly all respondents said that crime is a major concern of theirs and are welcoming the proposed crackdown, with may pointing the finger at the system, rather than criminals themselves.

“I don’t feel that safety is a government priority in our area,” one Pakenham resident told UniPollWatch.  “The amount of crime in our area seems to be out of step with what constitutes a safe place to live.”

“The system by which the police operate makes it hard to see justice done for petty crimes in the area. We have had our girls’ push bikes stolen from our house and the police can seemingly do very little about it.”

“I think our sentencing is too soft,” said another from Beaconsfield. “I believe the police are working hard but being undermined by the judicial system.”

Of particular concern to some respondents was public transport use, with some indicating that they avoid it altogether out of fears for their safety.

“People (are) getting mugged… kids and teenagers at train stations on their way home from school,” said one voter.

“We (my family) apply common sense to our decisions, so going out late and riding public transport aren’t ever really factored in to our day to day lives,” said another.

Almost all voters that spoke to UniPollWatch indicated that they choose to stay in at night, with many asking for more visible members of the police force to be present to protect people on the streets.

“If I were to go out at night, I would need to look behind occasionally,” said one respondent. “So maybe to get rid of that feeling, have more patrols around.”

“People should be more aware at night,” said one woman, “(to see) who they’re with. They should never be alone, never walk alone, if you want to go out at night then make sure you have a group of friends with you.”

One voter resented what they described as a lack of action from the government in response to the issues and said that they felt helpless.

“All politicians are on the same page I think; they never do anything, so I don’t have favorites or anything. No one’s doing anything about it and there’s nothing we can do either unfortunately.”

One elderly voter reflected on her time in Melbourne and came to the bleak conclusion that Melbourne is “not the place that we were, and we’re not generally as safe as we were” on the back of population increases.

Wood has held the seat since 2013 but only just retained in 2016 by 1.5%, bumped to 3.5 following an electorate redistribution in 2018. For someone so well-versed on the topic his constituents don’t reflect confidence in his ability to rectify the issue.