By Callum Ludwig
Healesville resident Penny walked in through the Star Mail door with a petition in hand in December 2024, calling for the CCTV network in the Yarra Ranges installed between 2013 and 2019 to be re-engaged.
Funded through the Safer Communities Fund and with many throughout the region now inoperational, Star Mail’s reporters got together to delve into the issue following a number of crimes committed in the shopping strips of local towns in recent years and a consistent rise in the community’s concerns.
Speaking to the Star Mail in February 2025, Penny said her drive to start the petition arose from her ongoing experience with a stalker.
“I don’t feel safe in the community, I’m a 53-year-old vulnerable single mother, I live alone and I’ve had a four-year-long stalker, the court system was supportive of me, but the court system is now broken and I’m no longer protected,” she said.
“There’s been a couple of times where I felt like I was safe with some of the things that were happening because those cameras were there and I’ve called the police station because these crimes could have been recorded.
“It was just so important that these cameras picked up this crime because it would have put this man in jail finally but I was told ‘Sorry, the cameras aren’t working’ so all of this behaviour continued.”
At the time of writing, Penny had received 180 signatures on her petition and anticipated between 20 to 60 more as she had been told a few more copies of the signature sheet were ready to be returned.
Penny said after speaking to police, she wanted to find out who was responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the cameras and started to ring around.
“Keep in mind, I’m not getting paid for any of it but I am having to put in hours and hours and hours of my time sitting on the phone waiting for people to get back to me, ringing, getting handballed from one person to the next and having meetings,” she said.
“The police said to me, ‘They’re not our responsibility, they’re the responsibility of VicRoads’, then I go to VicRoads and ‘They’re saying they’re not our responsibility’ so I go to Yarra Ranges Council and they say ‘They’re not our responsibility’ so I go to Tony Smith’s old office, which is Aaron Violi now, who tells me ‘It’s up to the traders in the community to take care of that now’ and I don’t know where my blood started boiling, but it was pretty warm by now.
“It’s tough for me to say that it was for votes but it’s pretty clear when someone gets these cameras installed and everybody’s patting him on the back and saying ‘Thank You’ that nobody asked him about the upkeep, nobody asked him about the ongoing maintenance and nobody asked who was going to pay for it all.”
When Star Mail reported on pledges for cameras being made, the funding was entrusted to township groups to establish and maintain a network of cameras in towns to report back to Lilydale Police Station. However, given the number of cameras that have gone offline and the fluctuating nature of township and traders groups that have dissolved, rebranded, shuffled committees and members and could run into fundraising issues, it may be inappropriate for the responsibility to be left up to them.
Penny also previously worked for the Healesville Jewellers, which was targeted by thieves in 2019 and suffered criminal damage to the shopfront in 2023 and said she has headed around to all the traders and they are all so deflated.
“It’s become their responsibility and we haven’t come back from Covid yet, this is a small community and this town and the businesses have not come back from Covid, no matter what anyone says.
“Tourism isn’t bringing it back, traders are struggling and they’ve got to pay for their own security as well so that’s where all this has come from and their response has been amazing.
“I’m a really tough woman, I am a very strong woman and I have been through some traumas that would make your head spin but let me tell you, when you come up against these kinds of things your body takes over and when you get a little bit older, the anxiety turns into heart conditions, your legs turn into jelly and as much as your brain says ‘I can take care of this’, your body can’t.”
Penny’s petition and her story of personal suffering have sparked the Star Mail to ask questions and seek a solution to the camera crisis in the Yarra Ranges, with more coverage of the issue to follow in the coming weeks.
Penny said for her, the re-establishing of the camera network would mean getting back on with her life.
“It would mean being able to work again, it would mean being able to have my routine again, it would mean I won’t have to take medication anymore for the anxiety that I’m having to deal with,” she said.
“It means I can see my friends again, it means I can leave my dogs at home alone again, it means I can go for a walk without looking over my shoulder.
“It means a lot to me, it means the world to me, because my life is on hold.”
