Hundreds rallied in Sunshine for Van Truong as the petition against bail passed 22,000 names

Several hundred people stood in the rain outside Sunshine Library on Sunday afternoon to demand tougher bail laws and more police in Melbourne's west. It was nine days after grocer Van Viet Truong, 60, was allegedly bashed by a group of children on Hampshire Road, and four days after he died of his injuries.

Mr Truong had run the Hong Hung grocery for more than 30 years, Rebel News reported. He stepped in when a fellow trader was allegedly set upon by a group who had taken items from a nearby shop, and police allege he was struck in the head repeatedly before he hit the ground.

A petition demanding the bail decisions be reconsidered has passed 22,000 signatures.

Two girls aged 14 were granted bail in a children's court on Friday after police did not oppose their release, having deemed them not an unacceptable risk to community safety. A boy aged 12 was already on community release. A boy aged 15, charged with Mr Truong's manslaughter, appeared by video link from custody and made no application for bail.

The magistrate accepted one girl's age, her lack of criminal history and what was put as her limited role in the alleged offending. For the second girl, the magistrate weighed her Aboriginal heritage and her lack of a criminal history. None of the allegations has been tested, and none of the children can be identified by law.

That is the decision the 22,000 names are aimed at, and it is what filled the footpath on Sunday.

Kien Huynh eats at that shopping strip every week. Bharat Palta says people are fed up

Kien Huynh, a business owner from Truganina, told the rally his family sits and eats on the strip where Mr Truong was attacked nearly every week.

"He will not die for nothing. We need change."

Bharat Palta, who chairs the Brimbank Maribyrnong Interfaith Network, put it plainly.

"With the amount of youth crime that's happening, people are fed up."

The rally was organised by a group of Vietnamese mothers, who insisted it was not a political event. Rebel News reported that speaker after speaker went after the government, the police and the judiciary anyway, and told the crowd to take their anger to the ballot box in November.

The crowd named Natalie Suleyman, Ingrid Stitt and Ben Carroll from the microphone

One speaker told the crowd exactly where to aim, and the three names were their own.

"Let your rage sound all the way to Natalie Stolman. Let your rage sound all the way to Ingrid Stott. Let your rage sound all the way to Ben Carroll."

Natalie Suleyman is the Labor member for St Albans, the district that takes in Sunshine. She was born and raised in the west and served three terms as mayor of Brimbank. Ingrid Stitt is a Labor member for Western Metropolitan Region and became health minister in Ben Carroll's reshuffle on 4 August. The people they represent spent Sunday afternoon in the rain asking them for police.

Speaker after speaker described a system that arrests and then releases. The footage is Rebel News, and none of the speakers gave their surnames.

"What do they do? They arrest these people. They let them out an hour later. I see the same guy walking on the street. What's happening?"

Another man said he was robbed at knifepoint in broad daylight, and that police told him the offenders were already on bail when they did it.

"I was robbed by two guys pointing a knife at me in the middle of the campus in broad daylight. And what is said is after that, nothing happened. They got bail after that. The police told me that they are already criminal on bail and they committed that again."

One speaker put the blame past the police and onto the bench.

"Judges make a final decision. The judges are letting people out on the streets the very next time."

A man named only as Kevin, who spoke at the rally, said he had bought bean sprouts from Mr Truong the week before he was attacked.

"I don't want the man who I bought bean sprouts from last week to die. I remember him behind that counter as anyone else would. He could have been my uncle, my grandfather, my father."

The crowd, largely from Melbourne's Vietnamese community, chanted "protect families, protect us". One speaker said he hoped the gathering would get bigger and longer until there was real change, and another said he hoped Mr Truong had not died for nothing.

One Nation wants 40 empty police stations filled before November

One Nation published its law and order plan on 5 August, while Mr Truong lay dying in hospital.

"Australians are sick of feeling unsafe. Gangs on our streets, home invasions, car theft on the rise, violent crime in family suburbs that used to be peaceful."

The party wants real jail time for violent offenders and an end to what it calls the revolving door justice system. Two girls walking out of a children's court four days after a man died, because police told the court they weren't an unacceptable risk, is what that phrase means in practice.

Victorian leader Warren Pickering has put a number on the fix. Victoria has police stations that exist on paper with nobody rostered into them, and he says a One Nation government would staff them.

"We (will) fill the 40 unmanned stations and will ensure we have a reserve force on hand for times of increased activity."

That is the same demand the crowd made on Sunday, from a party that was making it before Mr Truong was attacked. Mr Pickering set out the 40 stations pledge at One Nation's Victorian campaign launch in Hawthorn on 3 August. A far left mob outside forced the deployment of riot police and mounted officers that night, and Pauline Hanson needed a police escort to get into the building.

Pauline Hanson has gone after the other end of the system. She wants an independent judges board with the power to remove Victorian judges whose sentences the public won't wear. As the law stands, Victorian judges hold office until they turn 70 and can only be removed for proved misbehaviour or incapacity, by a 60% supermajority of parliament. A sentence the public finds indefensible is not grounds for anything.

None of this is new for the party. In July, the first boy to admit his part in the machete gang bashing of Lucas Jeisman walked out of court with no conviction recorded. That is the sentencing outcome Hanson's judges board is aimed at.

One Nation is polling 27% in Victoria and has a full upper house ticket in the field, led by Mr Pickering, against a Labor government that will be almost 12 years old on polling day.

Victorians go to the polls on Saturday, 28 November.

Our earlier report set out how Mr Truong died and what the crime figures actually say. His shop on Hampshire Road is still closed.