Liberal leader Sussan Ley has been accused of taking a page out of Peter Dutton's playbook after muscling in on one state's battle with rising crime.
Ms Ley lobbed in Melbourne on Wednesday to shine a spotlight on Victoria's worsening "crime crisis", alongside new shadow attorney-general Andrew Wallace and opposition education spokesman Julian Leeser.
Victoria has been in the grips of surging crime rates, with criminal offences spiking by 15.7 per cent in the year to mid-2025 fuelled by thefts, home invasions and repeat youth offenders.
Ms Ley will hold a child safety roundtable and visit programs dealing with at-risk youth and recidivists, while calling on the Albanese government to intervene to stop the rot.
Premier Jacinta Allan labelled the opposition leader's visit "purely politics" and drew a link to when Peter Dutton declared in 2018 that Victorians were "scared to to go out to restaurants" because of "African gang violence".
"We all remember when the previous leader of the opposition, when he was a minister, he came to town making some of the most outrageous claims about Melbourne and safety issues in Melbourne," Ms Allan told reporters on Wednesday.
"So we're seeing from the current leader of the opposition that she's following the same anti-Victorian pattern of behaviour that the federal Liberal Party have perpetrated on Victoria year after year after year."
To coincide with her trip to Melbourne, Ms Ley penned an a opinion piece that suggested crime in the Victorian capital was just as bad as a century ago.
"In the 1920s, Melbourne was overrun by crime and political violence," the Herald Sun column read.
"Strikes turned ugly, gangs roamed the streets, and ordinary citizens were forced to hire private guards to keep their families safe.
"A century on, this echoes Victoria today."
Ms Ley's remarks drew the ire of the premier, who remains under a pressure to go harder on crime after tightening bail laws and banning machetes ahead of facing the poll in November 2026.
"That's what Sussan Ley is bringing to Victoria, her plan to take Melbourne back to the 1920s," Ms Allan said.
"This is about understanding the challenges that are present here in our state now, working through those challenges responsibly, listening to victims of crime, working with communities and working with Victoria Police."
A raft of high-profile crimes in Melbourne have captured national media attention in the past 12 months.
Two Melbourne synagogues were targeted in alleged arson attacks, including one in December at Ripponlea that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation believes was orchestrated by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Chol Achiek, 12, and Dau Akueng, 15, were also killed in September after allegedly being set upon as they walked home from basketball by a group of masked males armed with machetes and other bladed weapons.
State Opposition Leader Brad Battin said Victoria was the crime "hotspot" of the country and the Allan government had "stuffed up".
"Sussan Ley is only pointing out the facts," he said.
"And the facts are crime is up."
