If you want evidence that street violence is a growing problem in Victoria you need look back no further than last weekend, when at least seven people were stabbed in attacks across Melbourne and the head of The Alfred's trauma centre revealed the number of stabbing victims treated at the hospital had increased by 50 per cent in the past two years.
If you want evidence that law and order is a growing political problem for the Victorian Labor government, it is instructive to look back to another weekend, this one more than 10 years ago, in the dying hours of Jeff Kennett's Liberal government.
On Saturday, October 16, 1999, police officers handed out how-to-vote cards, complete with blue and white check pattern, that urged voters in the Frankston East byelection to back Labor ahead of the Liberals.
The Steve Bracks-led ALP won that fateful byelection, and by the Sunday night the three independent MPs then in State Parliament had resolved to end the Kennett era and install Bracks as premier.
Kennett's government had lost the police rank-and-file - normally a natural constituency for the conservatives - and then lost government. Labor had made big inroads with its promise to enhance ''community safety'' and its mantra that Kennett had promised an extra 1000 police but in fact had cut the force's numbers by 800.
Fast-forward a decade and it is Labor that has now lost the cops, or at least the leadership and a sizeable majority of the Police Association. As concern about a breakdown in law and order spreads, this is a dangerous development for a government preparing to fight its most difficult election.
The Police Association may have suffered severe hits to its credibility in recent years, but it remains one of the most politically potent unions in the state. It boasts about 11,300 members - almost the entire Victoria Police workforce. Those members are among the most respected and high-profile people in any given community and, of course, the union has uniformed representatives in every city and most towns across the state.
The association helped Labor defeat Kennett in 1999 and remained supportive in 2002. In 2006, the pro-Labor stance was puzzling - given that the Liberal opposition was promising to recruit many more police than the Labor government - until it was revealed that Bracks and then police minister Tim Holding had signed a secret pre-election deal on wages and other industrial issues with association secretary Paul Mullett, without the knowledge even of police commissioner Christine Nixon.
All that was before Mullett fell foul of the Office of Police Integrity and fell out with the government, big time. Now, the association has turned, big time. This is new territory for the Bracks/Brumby government - Labor is facing a hostile police association in an election year.
This government has a vastly superior record on police numbers than Kennett, something it will continue to remind voters of right up to election day in November. Labor at each of the past three elections has promised to increase police numbers, and in each of its three terms it has kept its promises. At the last election it promised an extra 350 police this term. It is now on track to deliver 170 more than that. But all that no longer seems to impress police on the beat.
Late last year, market research company GPS Research conducted an online survey of Police Association members. More than 2000 responded, or roughly 20 per cent of the force. Of those, just 9 per cent said they intended voting Labor at the 2010 election, compared with 51 per cent for the Liberal and National parties. Ninety-two per cent said they believed the government's performance on policing issues had got worse in the past year.
The association is enjoying vastly improved relations with the opposition. The Liberal candidate in this month's Altona byelection, Mark Rose, is a member of the association's executive. Association secretary Greg Davies, who replaced Mullett last March, attended last weekend's anti-corruption summit hosted by Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu. The association is a vocal advocate of an independent anti-corruption commission for Victoria. This is Liberal policy; the government continues to say no.
Between now and the November election, Davies and association president Brian Rix plan to intensify their ''Save Our Streets'' campaign, which is aimed at highlighting what Rix calls ''the worsening shortage of police numbers'' in Victoria.
In his message in the association's January journal, Davies wrote that police were ''sick and tired of having to work in a chronically under-resourced environment'' and the public were ''just as obviously fed up''.
''In response to this undeniable crisis, our government has prescribed a drip-fed dose of political spin doctoring,'' he wrote. ''Blind Freddy can see that we need more police and a greater visible policing presence on our streets - particularly in the face of escalating alcohol-fuelled violence.''
The opposition could hardly have put it better.
Which brings us to a final point: the opposition's police spokesman is now the Nationals leader, Peter Ryan, acknowledged by all sides as one of the better media performers in Parliament. Police Minister Bob Cameron, by contrast, is acknowledged - even by Brumby, publicly - to be one of Parliament's lesser public performers.
You can see why Victorian Labor, circa 2010, is worried about law and order.
Paul Austin is 's state political editor.