Australian Bureau of Statistics
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MOTOR VEHICLE THEFT

Motor vehicle theft is relatively simple to define in comparison to some of the other crime types included in the Crime Victimisation Survey. In addition, motor vehicle theft has a high reporting rate; 90% of victims reported their most recent incident of motor vehicle theft to police in 2009-10 nationally.

With the exception of Queensland in 2008 and Tasmania and Queensland in 2009, jurisdictions’ recorded crime data was within the 95% confidence interval of the survey estimate for motor vehicle theft. The difference between the survey data and the recorded crime data for Tasmania and Queensland is very small. It is worth noting that all respondents in Queensland who said they were a victim of motor vehicle theft also said they reported the theft to police, which means that for motor vehicle theft, Queensland had an estimated reporting rate of 100%. As with all the results from the survey, the reporting rate is subject to sampling error. This may have contributed to the discrepancy between the survey estimate and the recorded crime figure. The true value of the reporting rate if all persons responded may be less than 100%, which would have the effect of reducing the number of victims who reported to police in the survey results.

Survey reported victims (a) and police recorded victims (b): Motor Vehicle Theft, 2008.

Sources: Crime Victimisation, Australia 2008-09 (cat. no. 4530.0) and Recorded Crime – Victims, Australia 2008 (cat. no. 4510.0).


Survey reported victims (a) and police recorded victims (b): Motor Vehicle Theft, 2009.

Sources: Crime Victimisation, Australia 2009-10 (cat. no. 4530.0) and Recorded Crime – Victims, Australia 2009 (cat. no. 4510.0).

Why is the data so consistent between the sources for motor vehicle theft?

As motor vehicle theft is an offence that is readily understood and not subject to much ambiguity in terms of legal definitions, motor vehicle theft tends to be very robust across both states and territories for police recorded data and for the crime victimisation surveys. The other important point to note is the very high reporting rate, which is generally assumed to be a product of the incentive for victims in claiming insurance for their stolen car. Insurance agencies generally require a police report in order to process such a claim.

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