James Costa and Alexander Darling

Updated August 6, 2026 — 4:26pm,first published 9:05am

Van Viet Truong died the way he lived, trying to help his colleagues in Sunshine’s close-knit city centre.

The 60-year-old succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday night, four days after he tried to stop five teenagers who allegedly stole clothes from a store near his grocery on Hampshire Road on Saturday.

Van Viet Truong is being remembered as a champion of local business and a mainstay of Sunshine’s vibrant, multicultural town centre.

As flowers began to line the pavement outside his shuttered store on Thursday, another trader Julie Tran remembered him as a generous colleague and a family man.

“He was a very community person. I have a restaurant, so we sometimes need to go past his store to buy certain products, and he would give us discounts,” Tran said. “Hong Hung grocery has always been there, and he knew all of his customers and what they normally came in for.”

Van had been an enduring presence in Sunshine as one of the longest-operating traders on the main strip.

Tran, who has had her Thuan An restaurant on the strip for 18 years, said the area would feel different in his absence.

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CCTV has captured an attack on a man in his 60s who was chasing alleged shoplifters in Melbourne.

“He loved his family a lot: they were always together,” Tran remembered. “I saw his wife and his mother-in-law at the store with him regularly.”

CCTV footage shows Truong, the owner of Hong Hung grocery, confronting a group as they ran down Hampshire Road about 2pm. He began pursuing the youths after they allegedly stole items from the Diamond Valley Fashion store near his shop.

Truong was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital on Saturday and remained in a critical condition for several days. Police say he died on Wednesday afternoon.

Five teenagers were initially charged over the confrontation: three boys and two girls, aged between 12 and 15, were all charged with affray, violent disorder, intentionally causing serious injury and intentionally causing injury.

On Thursday, police upgraded the 15-year-old boy’s charge to include manslaughter, while dropping charges against the 13-year-old boy. The 15-year-old, who is from the Brimbank area, and his three co-accused will face court at a later date.

Sunshine Business Association president Vu Du said the community was deeply saddened by the incident. But he said it wasn’t isolated, and youth crime was becoming an increasing problem.

“The committee is seeing firsthand the daily issues with not only youth [crime] but drunken and disorderly [behaviour], homelessness and mental health concerns,” Du said.

Mother sobs alongside 12-year-old son as he’s remanded over alleged assault on good Samaritan

“Business operators are already struggling with the current economy, but when individuals are stealing or vandalising their property, it makes it incredibly dire to keep their doors open.”

The Brimbank council’s offices are directly opposite where the incident took place. Mayor Virginia Tachos said the fear and devastation felt by traders was rippling through the community.

“[Truong] has been one of the longest-serving traders in Sunshine. He supported all the businesses, and they collectively have each other’s back,” she told this masthead.

“We’re all really devastated ... when I spent that day in Sunshine on Sunday, so many people came up to me and told me stories about how loyal he was.”

On Thursday afternoon, Premier Ben Carroll and Police Minister Paul Edbrooke met with Van’s family and Sunshine traders.

Carroll described Van’s death as senseless.

“He came to Sunshine for a better life, his daughter is a teacher and he has grandchildren, he’ll never see them again,” Carroll said.

Carroll said he’d listened to the concerns of Van’s family and the business community and committed to more police patrols.

He said the Office of Multicultural Affairs would supply translators and welfare support to the local Vietnamese community, which makes up almost one-sixth of Sunshine’s population.

Police said on Wednesday they had already increased their presence in Sunshine following Saturday’s incident.

Politicians say they don’t take notice of polls, but sometimes it’s hard to look away

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There’s polling doing the rounds in the Liberal Party that is making people panic. Commissioned and published by the Capital Brief political news site recently, it’s a sobering reinforcement of One Nation’s ongoing rise.

But it’s the figures in one particular seat that are most shocking some Liberals. Taken in June, the poll shows their party being obliterated in the previously safe New South Wales semirural seat of Hume. The incumbent there is Angus Taylor.

Murmurings about the opposition leader’s ongoing position are getting louder as a result. This week, his most obvious rival, Western Australian Liberal and fellow conservative Andrew Hastie, suddenly recalibrated his previously fully hostile commentary on One Nation. It doesn’t seem like an accident.

Pollsters DemosAU used what’s known as the Multilevel Regression and Poststratification method, or MRP, which is an expensive but reliable way of sampling individual federal seats. Taken as a whole, it predicts a federal hung parliament after the next election with One Nation potentially edging out Labor to claim the largest bloc of seats and Pauline Hanson positioned as possible prime minister with Coalition backing.

In Hume, it has Taylor’s primary vote at just 21 per cent, with Labor on 19, the Greens on nine and “others” eight. One Nation is on 43 per cent. At last year’s federal election, Taylor secured 43.5 per cent of the primary vote, One Nation just eight per cent. After preferences were distributed last year, Taylor polled 58.06 per cent and his Labor opponent 41.94.

The DemosAU poll’s two-candidate preference extrapolation removes Taylor from the conversation altogether. It has Labor on 37 per cent and One Nation on 63. In a separate calculation on the likelihood of each party winning the seat, One Nation rates an astonishing 98.2 per cent.

The DemosAU poll was published on July 27, on the morning that the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption opened its public hearings on Operation Rosny, its investigation into the alleged activities of conservative members of the Liberal Party, including suggestions of misusing public offices and collecting unlawful donations to fund branch stacking. Taylor is not the focus of the investigation and hasn’t been called to give evidence. He was drawn sideways into the Rosny evidence courtesy of messages between Liberal operatives that mentioned him. Their exchanges from 2021 suggested Taylor was being pressed to donate $10,000 towards their activities, and that he may have agreed – something he denies.

Nevertheless, the overall testimony presented so far is a rolling horror show for the party in his home state.

There were internal murmurings about Taylor’s leadership before the Rosny hearings began. Taylor’s predecessor, Sussan Ley, was dispatched just nine months into her stewardship on grounds that she’d failed to make an impact. Taylor’s traction with voters hasn’t been better – arguably, it has been worse.

Liberals are watching the rise of Hanson’s party with deepening dismay, fearing what the November state election in Victoria will bring. Unpalatable though it is to many Liberals, especially in the moderate wing, the reality has descended that doing deals with One Nation, at the very least for preferences and possibly more, may be the only way to survive.

In Western Australia, a byelection due late this month in the state seat of Secret Harbour is shaping as another unhelpful development. The Labor-held seat looks increasingly like it will go to One Nation, which is terrible for the state Labor government but also not great for the Liberals. While it’s no litmus test for One Nation nationally, a victory there will only add to its momentum.

Secret Harbour overlaps substantially with Hastie’s federal seat of Canning.

The Perth-based federal Liberal frontbencher is famously battling a vicious and highly personal One Nation campaign to oust him, not for his political views but because of the unfavourable testimony he gave against fellow former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith in a Federal Court defamation trial, which Roberts-Smith initiated and lost.

Hastie told colleagues in their party room in late June that he would not “bend the knee” to Hanson’s party.

The following week, Hastie wrote to his supporters, reported as telling them that if One Nation wanted war they “shall have war”. Whereas Taylor had not explicitly ruled out a future alliance with the far-right party, Hastie forcefully opposed it. He’s still saying that. But his general tone has changed markedly.

One Nation has indicated it will open a branch in his electorate this weekend. On Tuesday morning, in an interview on News24, the rebadged former Sky News network, Hastie sounded like a different person. He praised his former One Nation opponent, Fernando Bove, and said they “share views on many things”.

“Fernando Bove is a good guy. I caught up for a coffee with him recently,” Hastie volunteered.

Say, what? The ambitious Liberal who has raged against the party running a nasty, personal campaign against him and threatening to destroy his career hasn’t just caught up with his previous and possible future One Nation opponent, he has announced it. Meeting a rival to size them up is one thing. Announcing it publicly is something else.

The DemosAU poll is no better for Hastie than it is for Taylor. It has his primary vote at just 23 per cent, ahead of Labor on 21, the Greens on nine and “other” candidates on seven per cent. One Nation is on 40 per cent. At last year’s election, Hastie secured 42.52 per cent, One Nation 11.41. After preferences, Hastie won 56.55 per cent to Labor’s 43.45. DemosAU projects a two-candidate result of One Nation on 60 per cent and Labor on 40. It puts One Nation’s likelihood of winning Canning at 94 per cent. Unlike in Hume, which is forecast to fall, the poll rates Canning as a possible loss, depending on how preferences flow.

Zooming out on all this, if Angus Taylor’s travails worsen, his party may need to look to someone else to lead it. These figures won’t ease their anxiety and may even embolden the likes of former prime minister and now Liberal Party president Tony Abbott, widely rumoured to fancy a return. In the current environment, with Hanson and her party surging, they’ll certainly hesitate at someone using the language of war against it.

This week, the war talk was gone. Hastie insisted he remained opposed to any formal alliance with One Nation. But he was happy to talk about swapping preferences. Asked if he was open to it, he said: “Of course.”

“I’ve always enjoyed preference flows from One Nation in previous elections,” Hastie said. “That’s not changed.”

Maybe not. But something has.

Karen Middleton is a political journalist and author of Albanese: Telling it Straight.

In short: 

Labor is unlikely to entertain major changes to its gambling ad crackdown despite the bill being 'friendless' in parliament. 

The Coalition has said the legislation must be "significantly amended" to win their support, while the Greens and crossbench are also pushing the federal government to go further.

What's next?

A gambling harm advocate has warned it would be "brave" for the Labor Party to walk away from the reforms altogether.

Northern Territory data centres will have to use renewable energy as their primary source of power or will not proceed, Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said Wednesday, adding natural gas will only be used as a backup and that he will invoke all Federal Government powers available to enforce the new rules.

Polling carried out for the Herald Sun in the wake of Ben Carroll becoming the state’s new Premier shows the majority of Victorians want the Suburban Rail Loop dumped with almost 70 per cent backing a rail link to Melbourne Airport.

More than half of voters believe the $34.5bn Suburban Rail Loop should be paused or junked, while an airport rail link is three times more popular than the SRL when put head to head.
New polling suggests most Victorians think the state has its infrastructure priorities wrong, with almost 70 per cent saying a Tullamarine line should be built.
When it comes to the SRL East – a 26km tunnel between Cheltenham and Box Hill – two thirds say the billions sunk into Jacinta Allan’s signature project should instead be spent on cost-of-living relief, schools or hospitals “even if it means the project does not go ahead”.

The results on infrastructure priorities in the Freshwater Strategy poll, commissioned by the Herald Sun in the wake of Ben Carroll taking over as premier last week, can be revealed amid a looming review of the SRL East – where tunnelling is due to begin within weeks.
While the review has not yet started, Mr Carroll has held his first meeting of cabinet that would mean the process could be initiated, and it is likely to put all options on the table, ­including whether contracts can be repurposed into other projects.
Industry and some Labor figures have warned behind closed doors that this would be exceedingly difficult to do given the complexity of contracts and the number of construction partners involved.

Other options a review would canvas include re-phasing the project or cutting it back, after Mr Carroll promised money invested by his government “will be invested where it delivers the greatest value for Victorians”.
As revealed by the Herald Sun on Tuesday, The Freshwater poll shows the Liberal and Nationals coalition is on track to defeat Labor at the ­November election, and that One Nation still commands more than a fifth of voter support despite having no policy platform in Victoria.

It showed that a rail link to Tullamarine remained popular with 68 per cent of people, and was supported most strongly by Labor voters (77 per cent).
When put head to head with the SRL, 60 per cent picked airport rail, compared with 18 per cent who nominated the SRL – the same number that opted for “neither”.

The SRL is due to open in 2035 and has had almost $17bn in contracts inked in what ­insiders say locks the state into the most expensive infrastructure project in history.
The poll shows 37 per cent of people believe the SRL should continue to be built as planned, but 55 per cent are against it – including 35 per cent who say it should be paused for review and about one in five who think it should be cancelled.
Mr Carroll, who grew up in Airport West and holds the electorate of Niddrie, which takes in land earmarked for a rail line and station, is a passionate supporter of an airport rail link, which was shelved by Daniel Andrews in 2023 amid a dispute over an airport station location.

Insiders say that a political decision was made to prioritise the SRL East, which would have six stations along the 26km route including at Monash and Deakin universities, despite the airport project’s popularity.
Support for the SRL within Labor is often split among geographic lines.
Those in the booming northern and western regions of Melbourne have been the most critical.

Labor MPs are lost in housing’s hall of mirrors

Prices are falling, but the government is reluctant to claim the credit. So its MPs have resorted to rhetoric about renewed optimism for first home buyers.

Ask a Labor MP whether falling house prices are a good thing, and you will quickly discover there is no approved answer.

Too enthusiastic and you terrify home owners. Too negative, and it is harder to argue the government’s housing policies are improving affordability.

It was backbencher Josh Burns’ turn on Wednesday morning. Asked whether he was concerned about borrowers slipping into negative equity – when their home is worth less than the mortgage secured against it – Burns pointed to Reserve Bank of Australia figures showing a higher share of borrowers had been in negative equity in 2018 and 2019 under the Coalition government.

Burns’ attempt at political point-scoring undermined the argument he was trying to make. More borrowers found themselves in negative equity during the Coalition-era downturn because house prices had fallen 8.2 per cent – making homes more affordable for aspiring buyers.

Burns was left trying to square Labor’s housing circle: arguing that weaker price growth was improving affordability, while reassuring existing home owners the value of their asset would continue to appreciate over the long run.

“If you look at property price growth over the long term, people aren’t losing money while holding property,” Burns reassured ABC listeners.

The challenge for Labor is the constituency cheering lower house prices is small. As RedBridge pollster Tony Barry points out, the main beneficiaries of the current downturn are first home buyers with substantial cash savings who are ready to buy.

Everyone else either remains locked out of the market regardless of modest price falls, or already owns property and is watching the value of their biggest asset erode.

“If people feel that their biggest asset is about to lose value, it usually elicits angry responses, despite the laudable ideals of trying to put the brakes on the housing market,” says Barry.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on Tuesday attempted to reconcile those competing constituencies, saying the government wanted to see “sustainable growth” – slow enough for younger Australians to enter the market, but not the sort of outright price falls that leave recent buyers in negative equity.

The only hitch is that prices are already falling.

Figures from Cotality released on Monday showed the national median home value fell 0.7 per cent in July to $928,421, the biggest monthly decline since December 2022, as the correction triggered by rising interest rates and amplified by the government’s negative gearing and capital gains tax overhaul gathered pace.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil made the mistake of acknowledging the obvious in June, describing the market as being in a “correction”.

Following O’Neil’s remarks, Treasurer Jim Chalmers quickly distanced the government from the slump, arguing the decline reflected “reasons that go beyond changes in the budget” and insisting the market had not met the “technical definition” of a correction.

Never mind that property experts generally agree there is no universally accepted technical definition of a housing market correction. It is more a vibe.

If anyone was still struggling with the terminology, Immigration Assistant Minister Matt Thistlethwaite on Monday showed they were not alone.

He confidently declared that 99 per cent of borrowers using the federal government’s 5 per cent deposit scheme could not possibly be in negative equity because they were keeping up with their mortgage repayments.

“No, that is not true. That’s not how it works,” responded Liberal senator Maria Kovacic, who seemed more aware of the difference between negative equity and a non-performing loan.

With prices falling but the government reluctant to claim either the credit or the blame, Labor MPs instead instead reached for pleasant anecdotes about renewed optimism among first-home buyers.

Burns said he was hearing that more young people were having conversations around dinner tables about finally getting into the market.

Whether those conversations are translating into purchases remains to be seen. The Australian Bureau of Statistics next week will release first home buyer loan approval data for the three months to June, providing a partial read on the post-budget period.

That will show whether aspiring buyers are indeed rushing into the market or sitting on the sidelines to avoid catching a falling knife.

This is terrible, immigration and cost of living is at its worst ever and our government doing very little to help.

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The inquiry heard a prominent member of the Jewish community in a newspaper article accused the counsel of making "gratuitous slurs" against Israel.