On Lateline tonight, the point was made that other police agencies failed to share information with Queensland Police before the Fitzgerald Inquiry because it was demonstrated that such intelligence was leaked or sold to suspects. Can it be too difficult for the Victorian government to recognise that cops investigating cops is a bad model, and that you need an independent commission? Is it just the power of the Police Association? Or the fear that the government will suffer if systemic corruption and malfeasance is going on? Hard to read it any other way.
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“Is it just the power of the Police Association?”
Yes. Next question.
Perhaps that should read “corruption and malfeasance is found going on”? Because it’s there, and it’s not even really ‘under the surface’.
The entire drug squad was disbanded several years ago, for Christ’s sake.
I think the Age crime reporters have offered the best solution–have respected homicide detectives (for example) working under an independent crime commissioner with the powers to investigate coppers, judiciary, bureaucrats, businessmen and politicians.
Shall not hold my breath.
Labor paranoia about the power of the police union, I strongly suspect.
Which is shared, by the way – there hasn’t been a peep out of the opposition.
As an ex-Queenslander now living in Melbourne, this topic leaves me completely baffled. There is absolutely no interest by the Opposition in a Royal Commission, and I think this is partly (mostly?) because people down here don’t register it as a major issue. How they achieve this level of delusion is beyond me, with almost daily news of the latest corruption charges. You know, I think they consider police corruption an issue only for those dirty far eastern states.
I’ll say this, though – there’s no way an incumbent government will air their police force’s dirty linen voluntarily. There’ll be a long wait for change, and in the meantime I’ll treat the police as my parents taught me in Brisbane in the 80s – stay right away from them, and never talk back.
Not only was the Drug Squad dissolved. Also more recently the Armed Offenders Squad. The Office of Police Integrity has been working overtime, including investigating the Chief Commissioner’s recent acceptance of a free Qantas air ticket. And Christine Nixon was supposed to be one of the good guys. But her error pales into insignificance against leaking info to crims, supplying drug precursors to crims, and the (unsolved) murder of a police informer and his wife.
That nice Mr Bracks (and now that horrid Mr Brumby) resisted calls for a Victorian Crime and Corruption Commision. Why??
Ok, so who’ll be the first rightie to opine that the correct solution is to privatise the police force, and introduce competition.
More seriously, decriminalising recreational drugs would probably be the best solution, seeing as most police corruption seems to involve drug-related crime.
Because that would be admitting that things are as bad as in nasty New South Wales and naughty Queensland and that they will never admit.
Yes GregM
On an unrelated tack, the same pollies promised (about 6 years ago) to address the shortage of secondary teachers in certain subject areas [maths, IT, foreign languages,...] by introducing extra support for retraining. This they subsequently did. But the Vic Govt could not bring itself to say there were “teacher shortages”.
They called these subject areas “difficult to staff”. Well, yes. Difficult. A victory for spin over honesty. Never admit there’s a problem.
They’re terrified of the police union. I think Christine Nixon is one of the good guys. I have a barrister friend who loathes the Victorian Police, especially the Police Union, but reckons that Nixon is doing her best in an unsympathetic environment.
Kymbos, my parents also taught me to stay right away from the police if you hd a problem.
The Victorian Police Association make the Kevin Reynolds and the CFMEU look like Boy Scouts, which is interesting as white colar unions like that, and the AMA are revered, while the poor old Blue Collar union is treated as the devil incarnate.
Bloody Hypocrites.
The Police Association are a pack of thugs.
Bracks hoped that Christine Nixon, who is a clean-skin, would have enough clout to clean out the Force without having to rip some scabs off some very nasty wounds. Patently, Nixon wasn’t up to that job. A culture of corruption pervades several branches of the VPF.
Mystifyingly, despite a propensity of the Opposition to demand inquiries at the drop of a hat, the Libs have been strangely silent over the police issue, except for calling for ever larger recruitment.
The Brumby government is getting a free ride on police corruption.
Denial is widespread in Victoria about matters of law and order. For example, there was a wide consensus that the whole community should look the other way while the Underbelly crims bumped each other off. This was seen as a pragmatic cost-cutting measure. Indeed, this policy did cut costs in the short run.
For example, there was a wide consensus that the whole community should look the other way while the Underbelly crims bumped each other off.
Underbelly itself managed to overlook the fact that informants were being killed as a result of underworld figures received leaked info from police.
C’mon, Katz – Victorians loved the whole ‘Underbelly’ schtick. All those ‘colourful identities’ bumping each other off. Barbara Williams funeral is front page news. It’s all very cutting edge. Melbourne does gangsters so much better than anywhere else.
Very true, Fine.
Nowhere else in the world, beside Melbourne, could The Sopranos be retitled “Gangsterism for Dummies”.
Everyone knew someone who knew someone… Why, I myself … but perhaps I have said enough.
And what are the Carlton and Collingwood Football Clubs but life-support systems for Wise Guys?
Of course fear of the Police Union is a big part of it. But the reason we don’t have an ICAC probably has more to do with other areas it might investigate. The last thing the ALP wants is an independent body looking into corrupt local governments – not all of the ones that would be looked into are ALP, but nearly. And there are a few other skeletons that might be rattled.
If there is enough pressure Labor may go for a Royal Commission, but an ICAC, no chance.
[But the reason we don’t have an ICAC probably has more to do with other areas it might investigate. The last thing the ALP wants is an independent body looking into corrupt local governments - not all of the ones that would be looked into are ALP, but nearly. And there are a few other skeletons that might be rattled.]
But that didn’t stop the Gallop Labor Govt here in WA setting up the Crime & Corruption commission, despite it snaring quite a few ALP people in the process, ie Burke, Grills, D’Orazio(though never charged himself, the fact that he was entwined with a crooked panel beater and police officer effectively killed his position as Police Minister, Norm Malborough and Shelley Archer being prime examples.
Office of Police Integrity (OPI) white wash serious allegations of Victoria police corruption, they are merely are shop front full of pen pushers that pretend to be doing something about it but do nothing.
I would add, having come from QLD was a bit like going from Franco’s Spain to the Chistiania Free State in Denmark.
I’m serious: where QLD has too many, VIC is the opposite. There seems to be no coppers on patrol anywhere in Victoria! You never see them until they roll in shooting.
They’re either lazy, understaffed, or in deep cover.
Or out in the ‘burbs LE. You’re pretty central right?
I moved straight from Perth to Brunswick in 2004 – that’s from monthly random breath tests in Perth to none since. No house party bust-ups at 10pm, no being too paranoid to walk down the street with a beer.
Nice, innit?
Yep!! Not complaining, just sayin’ – there’s bugger all coppers around.
And yes, I am central. Maybe they’re all out at Broady, or the Res?
I live across the road from a police station so I have hordes of them about. But they still don’t stop the apartment building full of backpackers, just next door to them, from playing doof music till 4 in the morning.
If you’re dissatisfied with the public sector’s performance, come on up to the Premier State, Izquierdista. Market-based policing with a strong private sector incentive structure since 1792.
[NB for any out-of context readers in blue, last comment is tongue in cheek and not to be taken as anything but banal humour on the subject of pre-Wood Inquiry police force culture]
Thanks Liamista – and yes I’m comfortable with the Rum Corps brand, as I understand it well. Sure, the QLD regional variant brew packed more of a hangover with the protest-bust chaser, but its essentially the same old-school, NSW recipe.
Dont know what they’re drinking down here: Carlton Crew?
Light on the fuzz, so you can slam it down fast.
I would have to agree with Lefty E, the Rum Corps have a certain kind of logic which makes them easier to work with. As Kevin Rudd says, what business needs is certainty
PS: Liam, your line “Market-based policing with a strong private sector incentive structure since 1792.” is gold!