Australia is in the midst of a wave of copper theft with thousands of kilograms stolen from sites across the country, including 400 metres of wiring from a public reserve near Melbourne earlier this month.
The annual cost of metal theft to the country has risen to over $100 million, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology, which said criminals were targeting “worksites, new home builds, railway lines, electricity substations, sewerage works, hospitals and even schools”.
Black market demand for copper is being driven by soaring metal prices and a looming supply shortage which has also caused a similar but more severe crime wave in South Africa where the commodity is known as “red gold” and theft costs the economy $3.8 billion a year.
In Bacchus Marsh in outer Melbourne last last month wiring was stolen from switchboard in two separate incidents in the same week, leaving the Bacchus Marsh Racecourse and Recreation Reserve without power, and affecting five major sporting clubs that use the site.
President of the Bacchus Marsh Soccer Club Scott Williams told ABC Ballarat Breakfast Radio the crime appeared to be the work of professional thieves.
“Someone’s gone up to the Racecourse Reserve and broken into the distribution boards up there, and they have stolen all the high-voltage cable between each of the distribution boards.”
“It’s definitely been done by someone that knows what they’re doing. High-voltage cabling is not something you just go and play with.”
Mr Williams noted a similar theft had occurred at a former club facility on Masons Lane several years ago, while 2,300 homes in nearby Woodend also lost access to the internet this August when thieves stole copper from a local NBN site.
Stella Smith, chief executive of Crime Stoppers Victoria, said the reason these crimes were occurring “is the price — [copper] can fetch anywhere between $10 to $15 a kilo”.
The stolen copper is thought to be sold online, on the black market or to scrap-metal merchants. It may then be melted down, reshaped and used in electronics.
Copper theft has increased across Victoria, with the state’s public infrastructure a prime target.
“[Victoria Police] are saying that copper’s being stolen from public lighting from the pole earths, the earths that connect the poles to houses or to the streets, [and] also from the ice detection systems on the highway,” Ms Smith said.
Similar crimes are taking place in other states, and in Western Australia police are grappling with a spate of metal theft that is costing the taxpayer millions. In one recent incident, around 15,000 metres of cabling was stolen from light-poles in the Perth suburb of Mirrabooka.
James Pinnington, acting director of metropolitan operations of Main Roads WA, told ABC Radio Perth: “We’re probably looking at around 800,000 metres of cable stolen over the last five or six years and that’s having a widespread impact across the network, in terms of lighting being out.”
And the replacement costs are “really starting to rack up”, Mr Pinnington said, as around “$2 million to $3 million a year worth of cable replacement is required”.
Alice Springs in the Northern Territory has also seen a surge in copper thefts, with police noting that tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of copper has been stolen from telecommunications pits since April.
Since 2023 authorities in Queensland have recorded almost 500 attempted copper thefts, with these incidents costing the state $4.5 million last year alone.
Copper theft in the Sunshine State has tripled since 2020 according to Energy Queensland.
In the New South Wales Hunter Valley wine-growing region the theft of copper wire and batteries on January 9 left residents in the Pokolbin area with interrupted internet and phone access for up to three weeks, and
Telstra’s NSW regional general manager Mike Marom told the ABC: “One of our exchanges … as well as one of our mobile facilities in that area had been targeted across January.
“We’ve had several impacts of theft … we’ve had restoration of services followed by more theft.”
Header image credit: Moorabool Shire Council
