Thousands of police across Victoria have worked around-the-clock, keeping a close eye on New Year's Eve celebrations to ensure the community could bring in 2022 safely.
Uniform, plain clothed and specialist police saturated Melbourne's CBD to monitor crowd behaviour and maintain public order as hundreds of thousands of people gathered to watch the fireworks displays.
A significant police presence was also in place at key areas across the state, including the St Kilda foreshore, Mornington Peninsula, Surf Coast and Phillip Island.
As part of the New Year's Eve operation across the state, police made 49 arrests.
Operation Omni was activated in the CBD, St Kilda foreshore, Mornington Peninsula, Surf Coast and Phillip Island, providing officers with additional search powers under the Control of Weapons Act.
Provisional statistics for the night indicate there were:
• 19 drunk in a public place
• 10 people arrested for assault/affray/robberies
Arrests for other offences comprised:
• 8 weapons offences
• 1 for a sexual assault incident. There were 9 reports of sexual assault with one person arrested for one of the incidents.
More than 1735 weapon searches were conducted across OMNI operations.
Across the evening, a combined total of 2462 preliminary breath tests and road-side drug tests were conducted.
Quotes attributable to Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent - to be approved on 1 Jan
"New Year's Eve is one of our biggest state-wide policing operations, with thousands of our officers working hard at all hours of the day and night to keep the community safe."
"Overwhelmingly our police saw great behaviour by crowds overnight, both in the city and at suburban and regional community celebrations, with people taking responsibility for their own behaviour and looking out for their friends."
"There were a small number of people who did the wrong thing. Police were very active in intervening to address poor behaviour and where necessary, arrest people committing offences so celebrations weren't spoiled for the broader community."
