Despite living in Avondale Heights the past 23 1/2 years, I still consider Footscray my home town. I am proud that I was born there, and that it says as much in my passport. I support the Footscray Football Club (aka the Western Bulldogs) and own a significant amount of fan gear, including polo shirts and baseball caps which I wear regularly.
And I still spend so much of my time there. I don’t only pass through it en route elsewhere via Footscray Railway Station, but I also frequent various businesses. Today I took my elderly mother to the Footscray Market for her shopping. On Tuesday I met a close friend at the Station Hotel before we did lunch in Hopkins Street at a Malaysian-Chinese restaurant and then visited a few of the bars in Barkly Street. And last Sunday I did a long lunch with much red meat and red wine at the Station Hotel with a couple of friends.
And I don’t plan to stop going to Footscray – in broad daylight at least.
But there is a lot about Footscray recently which is truly rotten, and this troubles me.
Let us count the ways….
Just this week, two serious incidents in the Nicholson Street Mall.
Yesterday (ie Wednesday 5th August), the Mayor and another councillor were in the Mall for a meeting with local traders in the early afternoon. Council workers were clearing rubbish when one of the itinerants who haunt Nicholson Street started showing aggression to them. This resulted in that itinerant threatening the mayor with a large knife. After police came and took this chap away, he was booked and back in Nicholson Street within the hours, hopefully sans knife.
Monday (ie 3rd August), a local shop owner in Nicholson Street tried to intervene and break up a fight and protect people from someone armed with a wooden plank. The result was a broken arm.
On 25th June, local state MP Katie Hall intervened to stop a man kicking a woman in the head outside her electorate office in Nicholson Street south of the Mall – she got assaulted and required surgery for her injuries.
Earlier in June, the son of Barry Michael, famed for his boxing career in the 1980s (he was a world champion at one point) was charged with murder after stabbing someone behind the Courthouse Hotel (which is the pub located near the corner of Nicholson Street and Irving Street).
Several shops on the western side of Nicholson Street just south of the Mall were burnt out three weeks ago. I passed that segment of the street earlier this week merely because I don’t believe in ceding the streets of my home town – one of the shops was a kebab shop I would occasionally buy from.
Last November, a cafe in Buckley Street (which is on the other side of the railway tracks from the epicentre of the troubles) closed down because the owner was seriously assaulted in his shop.
In June 2025, a veteran news photographer was walking through Nicholson Street in broad daylight one Sunday morning when he was assaulted and received fatal head injuries.
And to top off the list, let’s remember that a man armed with a knife charged at police in Nicholson Street in April 2025. They shot him dead, which resulted in locals holding a protest against police violence.
I observe, somewhat wryly, that posters advertising this protest were displayed prominently in shop windows up and down Nicholson Street. I don’t remember seeing any posters protesting about the killing committed by the itinerant criminal (and yes, I am using the word ‘criminal’ with just cause in this context) who bashed the news photographer to death two months later displayed in any windows.
I do my little bit for Footscray. I still spend a fair bit of money in restaurants and bars there, including in Nicholson Street (I applaud the owners of Maples Cafe, the Footscray Best Kebab Shop and Mr West in particular, as well as the divers Ethiopian restaurants south of the Mall). I walk through the streets in broad daylight when I still feel safe there.
But me as one single individual who does not still actually live in Footscray can only do so much.
It is up to the local traders, the current residents of Footscray, the local council and the state government to actually do something, in proportion to what is in their respective power.
Local residents need to shop and spend money there. The traders need to organise better and put pressure on the council and government. The state government needs to commit the police resources to make Footscray safe again.
And the council? They are not hiring private security guards right now. What they are doing is advertising for two or three ‘engagement officers’ at $100,000 salaries (plus superannuation) to address the social problems in the Footscray CBD.
My mother of course has her own views. As the mayor likes to knock on doors and talk to residents/voters (he is very good that way), she is looking forward to the next time he darkens her doorstep. She will tell him he needs to hire some very big security guards to patrol central Footscray.
Lost For Words! 