Nation’s Car Theft Epidemic Directly Linked To Scrapping The Service That Successfully Reduced Car Theft

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

Australia’s car theft crisis is now so dire that it’s even making the ABC news, and not just the scary commercial networks.

While the most commonly reported cases involve at-risk teenagers breaking into houses to steal car keys off the kitchen table, police data shows that it’s not just kids behind this epidemic, with highly sophisticated criminal networks pouncing on Australia’s blind spot when it comes to motor theft.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, one Australian car is stolen every 11 minutes. While some are just used for joyriding, many are being chopped and imported overseas as parts. Some are being driven straight into containers – and an increasing number are being used for gangland hits and ram-raid robberies.

But the modern car theft epidemic in unlike anything our police have encountered before, the 1990s methods of smashing windows and hot-wiring have been replaced by highly advanced technology that involves the cloning of smart keys and alarm neutralisers.

In 2015 the total value of motor vehicle theft claims in Australia was $170 million. In 2024 that number jumped to $428 million – a rise of 96 per cent in real terms.

But what happened in those ten years that might’ve caused this catastrophic spike in major crimes.

Some, mostly experts, point to the fact that car theft rates began soaring when the the government scrapped the program that existed purely to prevent car theft, in 2021, when this all kicked off.

At the time of it’s axing, the National Motor Vehicle Theft Reduction Council had overseen a 60 per cent reduction in overall car theft in the 22 years since it was established as a partnership between the government and the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA).

The NMVTRAC found great success using data analysis from police, registration agencies, and insurers to develop national strategies to reduce vehicle theft and its associated costs.

Four years ago, the ICA decided it was no longer going to front their $1.2m annual funding, and the government allowed the NMVTRAC to quietly fold.

Without this organisation monitoring the crime, car theft has evolved into a fully fledged criminal industry that state police forces simply cannot keep up with.

It is not known why the insurance council decided to pull their funding, or why either level of government refused to spot the $1.2m gap, but both the Liberal Party and the Insurance industry are not known for caring too much about Australians being forced to pay higher insurance premiums.