A violent confrontation in which police were pelted with bottles in Australia Day celebrations marred by booze and drugs.
Assaults, drugs and alcohol misuse also kept Ambulance Victoria paramedics busy as Australia Day festivities wore on, while traffic police say they are alarmed by the results of a long weekend blitz.
Acting Senior Sergeant Matthew Williams of Mill Park police said the crowd at a council Australia Day event in South Morang turned nasty shortly before 9pm when they arrested a man.
"He was inciting police and security guards and then it all became a bit erratic and confrontational when we arrested him, at which point some youths started becoming a little volatile and started throwing bottles at police," he told AAP.
One bottle smashed the windscreen of a police car but no one was hurt, Sgt Williams said.
More police were called in to restore order.
A Mernda man, 21, has been charged with public drunkenness and assaulting police.
Three others, a teenage boy and two men aged 18 and 22, will be charged on summons with discharging a missile.
Ambulance Victoria acting operations general manager Anthony Carlyon says paramedic call-outs spiked across the state on Tuesday evening.
"A lot of these unfortunately involved misuse of alcohol or drugs," he said.
"We also saw a significant increase in the number of calls to assaults last night, and some of those were related to alcohol."
It's disappointing that despite the warnings, people continue to misuse alcohol and drugs."
Hundreds of drink and drug drivers were caught during the annual Australia Day weekend police traffic operation.
Between Friday and Tuesday, as five people died on Victorian roads, police found 290 drink-drivers out of 8000 tested.
Another 240 drivers had drugs in their system - one in 11 of those tested for drugs.
Police also detected thousands of other traffic offences.
"We put the call out to people last week to look out for their mates, but these drivers are showing blatant disregard for not only their own lives, but the lives of those around them," Superintendent Deb Robertson said.
TRAFFIC OFFENCES DETECTED DURING OPERATION AMITY:
* 290 drink drivers
* 240 drug drivers
* 223 disqualified/suspended drivers
* 410 unlicensed drivers
* 995 unregistered vehicles
* 2683 speeding offences
* 373 mobile phone offences
* 353 disobeying sign/signal offences
* 288 seat belt offences
* 64 vehicles impounded
(Source: Victoria Police)
