National murder rate hits historic low Australians are shooting each other less and stabbing each other more. The latest Homicide in Australia report by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) shows 13 per cent of people murdered in 2008/09 and 2009/10 were killed by firearms, down from 25 per cent in the late 1980s. But knife murders have risen from 30 to 41 per cent over the last decade. The report shows Australia's homicide rate is at a historic low since reporting began in 1989, but the murder rate of indigenous people, although falling, is still four times the national level. The AIC homicide monitoring program was launched in 1989 and uses information from police and coroners. Reports usually cover a single year but the latest covers a two year period between 2008-09 (253 murder incidents) and 2009-10 (257 murder incidents). There were 541 victims and 611 offenders in these incidents, translating to a rate of 1.2 murders per 100,000 people over both years. The study shows there were 60 murders of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people (34 males and 26 females) over the two-year period, a decrease on previous years. Overall, that's a rate of 4.1 per 100,000 people, around four times the rate that non-indigenous people are murdered. "In trend terms, the rate of indigenous victimisation for both males and females has continued to decline steadily since 2001-02," the report said. It noted that rates were at historic lows from the peak of 16.2 per 100,000 for males in 1993-94 and 13.5 per 100,000 for females in 1990-91. Consistent with past years, NSW had the most murders - 153 incidents in 2008-10 - while the ACT, with seven, had the least. The Northern Territory reported 24 murder incidents over this period but standardised by population size, it has by far the highest murder rate - 4.9 per 100,000 in 2008-09 and 5.7 per 100,000 in 2009-10.