Victoria Police have submitted a report to the state parliament's COVID-19 inquiry detailing the number of COVID-19 related fines issued in each local government area.
It highlights that Melbourne (590), Greater Dandenong (333) and Frankston (297) were the localities with the highest number of fines issued.
There is a wide variation across Victoria in the rate at which fines have been issued. For example, almost 5 fines were issues per every 1,000 head of population in Corangamite - almost double the rate of any other area in Victoria.
And while some people may have been out-of-towners visiting, Melbourne, Frankston and Dandenong were also over-represented per head of population in the data.
Victorian Greens spokesperson for justice, Dr Tim Read, said there was some evidence that certain communities may have been over-policed, and highlighted the need for a new system of detailed police stop and enforcement data to be collected and released through an independent agency.
He added that due to historical over-policing of Aboriginal and minority people it was vitally important that the ethnicity of the person was also recorded.
The government is yet to respond to a separate question from Dr Read regarding the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that were fined.
As stated by Victorian Greens spokesperson for justice, Tim Read MP:
"This government continues to give more enforcement powers to police and PSOs without any increase in the level of scrutiny and accountability to the public.
"In this day and age we should have the right to know whether there are socio-economic or racial biases in law enforcement in this state."
