by CAA | Jul 25, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
25th July 2020
As Victoria wrings its collective hands in response to COVID-19, it is galling to know the ability to mitigate this virus has been with us from day one.
But, somewhere along the line, the method/solution has been overlooked, deliberately ignored, not understood, buried because of internal political consternation, or just plain forgotten.
This is not a COVID Pandemic. This is a Disaster, that in this case has taken the form of a Pandemic with the contagion, COVID 19 but it could equally have been SARS or MERS. So it is a Disaster to be managed.
What was, and is required still, is to implement tried and tested practices that are capable of effectively dealing with any Disaster.
In its simplest terms, a Pandemic has to be managed as any Disaster, and responses coordinated; the Virus (COVID-19) requires treatment and mitigation with the lead agency logically the Health Department. However, the health response is largely about detecting through testing people who may be infected and treating those who are infected. The Health Department is unskilled in implementing a holistic approach needed to quell the Pandemic.
Those with the skill sets to manage the Disaster response, would it seem have been sidelined.
The second wave, as it is termed, has a direct causal link to the inability of the Government and the bureaucrats to have SMEAC implemented by somebody who understands the concept and is in charge, accountable and capable of managing a Disaster.
SMEAC an acronym for the five-paragraph system that organizes function and information to apply to any multi-disciplined force to implement and manage a field operation.
SMEAC: In the current context.
“S” Situation; A Disaster that is a Pandemic out of control.
“M” Mission: To bring the Pandemic under control and then eliminate it from our State.
“E” Execution: Here the problem would be defined, an analysis of requirements made, available resources assessed, the Organization to fight the disaster designed, liaison established with all involved parties and a plan produced with the actions required and by whom, set out in detail.
“A” Administration/Logistics:
Involves the organizing and assembling of resources.
“C” Command and Control.
Nominate who is in charge. This is why Victoria has an Emergency Services Commissioner (ESC) who should be in charge of the totality of the response to the Disaster. The ESC should control the whole operation.
A community Disaster is a field operation, and the principles behind SMEAC have a proven track record that can run the gamut from the routine to calamity.
Using this process, many of the problems in the management of this Disaster would have been identified and corrected, avoiding the situation we now have.
The Health Department as the lead agency cannot do it all on their own, so there is a need to coordinate resources and manage the community, for them to achieve their objectives.
Expecting them, whether that is their idea or others, to take charge of everything has led to this catastrophic failure to manage the Disaster we are experiencing.
The Health Departments expertise relates to the treatment and mitigation of upper repertory tract infections, not managing a Disaster.
Emergency Services Victoria (ESV) is a dedicated legislated authority with the skills to manage a Disaster but appears not to have been used; ESV should be in charge. The major problem with that Authority (ESV)is it lacks the depth of trained Disaster managers that the Chief Commissioner has at his disposal when occupying this role.
Instead, we are looking to Health as the solution to the Disaster when Health is not equipped, resourced or trained in Disaster management. Coincidently neither are the Politicians, although they might believe they are.
Although one may be forgiven for assuming that this Disaster was something out of left field, it was not. Significant planning had been done to deal with a Disaster like a Pandemic or epidemic of an upper repertory infection for many years, and there is a Government Authority that has legislative responsibility, not only for the planning, but also the management of a Disaster. But, that Authority (ESV) is nowhere to be seen, and that in itself is a disaster.
The only left-field component to this Disaster was the response from Government that involved a number of Ministers seemingly acting independently and who refuse to accept responsibility or accountability for manifest errors. In dealing with this Disaster any skill sets they possess have been as useless as hip pockets on underwear.
The problem in Victoria is Government procrastination, while the virus roared into life; the Nero effect.
The incompetence and the lack of understanding of what or how to deal with this Disaster is breathtaking.
The Premier has at long last started to grasp the real situation although it has taken nearly six months and countless infections and many avoidable premature deaths, the near destruction of the State’s economy, and it was all predominately avoidable.
Accountabilities and retribution will no doubt come, but now is not the time.
To allow the pandemic to get out of control is inexcusable, particularly when the solution was always at hand. There is, however, hope on the horizon.
At long last somebody has told the Premier about SMEAC. Somebody has turned the switch on, but rather than admitting error by utilizing the skilled people already available in this State trained to undertake this task, he has opted for a military intervention to try to deflect any attention from the failure to use the existing resources available throughout this Disaster.
Navy Commodore, Mark Hill has been tasked with sorting out this mess, and the good Commodore will be right up with SMEAC, his only disadvantage will be a lack of knowledge of State resources to assist him. That knowledge resides with the Agency we have but don’t want to use.
Even with that disadvantage, we are confident that the Commodore will get on top of things very rapidly.
Our only concern is a comment by the Premier that,” he would talk to him (the Commodore) and a range of senior people at the Department about the overall setting”. Political speak for another meeting, heaven forbid.
There is nothing to talk about, the time of committees and talkfests has elapsed.
Now the application of SMEAC and a proper Command and Control mechanism (usually referred to as a coordinating role, so the precious do not get offended), must be implemented immediately, and let the Commodore do his job without tying one hand behind his back, as the bureaucrats are so adept at achieving.
The Premier must give absolute control to the Commodore if we want to exit this mire as soon as possible.
by CAA | Jul 21, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
22nd July 2020
As far as we can see, the Heath responders and Police have done a damn good job with COVID despite mismanagement of the Pandemic by the Government; not the frontline workers or the community at large where the Government has essentially placed the blame.
There are a small number of irresponsible citizens, but the overwhelming majority have tried valiantly to unravel the confusing messages to comply with mandated restrictions, which seem to project indecision, inconsistency, and a lack of competency.
Many Victorians will recall the State’s disaster management system called Displan that morphed into Emergency Management Victoria (EMV) in July of 2014.
The EMV was generally seen as a response to the mismanagement of the Black Saturday Fires at the Executive Coordination level. The behaviour of that individual has seen them rightly forever shamed. It is our view the behaviour was so reprehensible that they should have been charged with Misconduct in Public Office and be tried according to the Law.
The risk of another failure, although remote, is not mitigated by the establishment of a new authority, EMV.
It is improbable, but the Emergency Services Commissioner could at some time fail, you can never totally eliminate the risk of the human factor.
We are not suggesting that the Emergency Services Commissioner has failed us during this Pandemic, we can not say that, because he has kept such a low profile,
We are of the view however, that had this role remained vested in the CCP the community would feel safer, and the implementation of the various community management functions would be clearer and more acceptable and effective.
Displan’s sophisticated planning process where the various agencies were clear in their role was the success of Displan, and that was applied through strong lines of responsibility and accountability that served this Sate well.
The establishment of EMV had more to do with politics than a real need. Victoria is the only State that has tried this experiment.
We had a disaster and a monumental failure by an individual; something needed to be done, so that was the something.
The secret to Displan was that the Police, with their entrenched authority, took the coordinating role, and managed the people and the process. The Services applied all their skills to the Disaster, and each responding agency could focus on their job.
The new strategy of VicPol to gain a close connection with the public by allocating geographical areas to individual Police to connect with each community will also play an important role to improve responses to any future disaster. Local knowledge in disasters, as in Policing is pure gold.
What is not widely known, or is ignored by bureaucrats and politicians, is that under Displan, every Commissioned Officer and Station Commander in the Victoria Police were trained for and capable of performing the coordinating function. Therefore, there were many coordinators scattered throughout the community to deal with matters at a local, regional or State level with the overarching oversight of the State-wide coordination by the Chief. The Chief also has line control over these subordinate Officers as well as a command structure to ensure continuity and capability.
The first question we raise is why the coordination roles should not be returned to the CCP, eliminating a layer of bureaucracy, and that can only help with efficiency, critical in emergencies?
We know that the planning for disasters continued with the establishment of EMV but, the application and flawed interpretation of the legislation and the role of a disaster coordinator have caused some very clear principles to evaporate.
In the COVID crisis, the Emergency role has become politicised to the degree that can only be described as extreme.
This raises another question; why are the separation of powers not applied in Emergency management, something the CCP enjoys, but emergency management does not?
It would appear for political reasons the role of the Emergency Services Commissioner has largely been usurped by this Government and has been shared with, or in practical terms, taken over by the Department of Health; not a particular individual, just a Department. This shows an appalling lack of understanding of the roles of each.
Accountability is always the first casualty.
Politicians and bureaucrats have no emergency disaster training, so why are they calling all the operational shots?
A supposed dual responsibility has been established in this COVID disaster, and there are a number of examples where this dual responsibility has failed and none more so than when the Emergency Services Commissioner arranged for Military assistance for Victoria’s quarantine management on the 24th of June only to have the orders rescinded by the now-former Chief Commissioner and politicians. We would argue he was fulfilling his clear and undisputed role under the Act.
We suspect that this was more of a power struggle within Government than a sound decision.
This part of the debacle clearly indicated political or bureaucratic self-serving power plays—the last thing needed in the middle of a Disaster response.
This comment must not be construed to suggest that Health is not a key component to fighting this Pandemic; it is the front line as a Fire Service is in a fire disaster. We would never consider it necessary to create a duopoly to manage a fire disaster, so why do it when the matter is Health-related?
Again, a lack of understanding of the role of an Emergency Services coordinator is the key. People have been making decisions without the appropriate skill sets and knowledge. The Health Department has the training and expertise to respond to the health aspect of the Pandemic, but not manage it.
What is needed is authentic leadership, not mouthpieces who are not leaders.
”Leaders are made, but not all politicians are leaders “– Paul Roos
Those running interference may have thought they knew what they were doing, but thinking and knowing, are a chasm apart, and that chasm is evident in this COVID response.
With all of the above, it may be a surprise to know, given the shambolic approach to the Pandemic, that a Plan exists to respond to an’ Upper respiratory contagion Pandemic’, and that has been in place for a long time, as do plans for every imaginable Disaster that may befall us.
The politicians and their bureaucrats are just not trained in disaster management;
It is hoped that there are enlightened and competent people who will correctly identify the failure and move the role of coordinating and managing disasters to the CCP who is the only person with the depth of management resources capable of dealing with these issues.
The EMV must be abolished, and Emergency Powers transferred back to the CCP so that rapid and effective responses can be deployed and coordinated to address a disaster, whatever that may be.
The money saved can be invested in upskilling Police to a higher level of preparedness.
Until this CCP was appointed, it is entirely understandable why Disaster management was removed from Policing; however, the mistakes of the past appointments are now not likely to be repeated. The movement of the Disaster management role, back to the CCP is sensible and essential.
The real scary bit in the management of this Disaster has been the need for interdepartmental meetings.
If the control of a reaction to a disaster is degraded to need meetings to decide on a response rather than leadership, the system has failed dramatically and profoundly.
Just who was responsible for the failures may likely remain a mystery, probably hidden in the machinations of committees staffed by faceless and unaccountable bureaucrats designed to mask incompetence and avoid accepting blame.
We can hope that the Judicial Inquiry can break through the morass.
by CAA | Jul 19, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
19th July 2020
The legacy of ineffective Chief Commissioners, generally of the Federal Police mould in Victoria, has been severed and consigned to the WPB.
In brilliant news, under the guidance of the new Chief Commissioner Shane Patton, Victoria Police has made a monumental move towards Policing the Community.
First, there was the patrolling of the Highways and the visible police presence on our major roads and then this.
Under the management of Assistant Commissioner Glen Weir, the move to have Police members allocated a part of each community, to interact with, is a brilliant piece of policing strategy and addresses the core issue and the reason why the Community Advocacy Alliance was established.
There is still a long way to go, but this move sends the strongest signal in twenty years, that Victoria Police are here to Police, in the true sense of the word.
This type of Policing is a two way street that the Police desperately needed to initiate, as they have.
As the community takes ownership of their local Police members, it will not be long before the Police feel as safe in the community as the people they are working with, and the need for two-up policing will fade in community work, as the risks dissipate and the community will more readily come to the aid of their Police if needed.
It is hoped that with all the protective equipment, the members are equipped with a pocket full of personalised Business Cards at a minimal cost ($9.90 for 250), a great investment. Not all new Policing initiatives cost a lot of money.
Each member will have a profound impact on the community, helping it to achieve ‘Eudemony’, then watch the crime rate fall.
Well done.
Kel Glare Chairman CAA and Ivan Ray CEO CAA
by CAA | Jul 18, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
18th July 2020
Published in the Australian is an excellent article by Janet Albrechtsen about the new phenomena,’ Cancel Culture’, and how dangerous this culture is to each of us.
Her rework of the famous lament by German pastor and theologian Martin Niemoller makes for an insightful and prophetic read.
“First, they came for the authors, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t an author.
“Then they came for the comedians, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a comedian.
“Then they came for the scientists, the economists, the academics, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t one of them.
“Then they came for the journalists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a journalist.
“Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.”
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/how-to-cancel-cancel-culture/news-story/817b19fb7fe28f0dd6c88f20d5941399
The work of the CAA is a counter to this growing culture that has been around for a long time but has not been called out as it currently is.
Although our field of work is of a narrow genera, nevertheless, holding those to account that hitherto have had free reign to push their ideologies is a good thing, and it is certainly true of the Law and Order, and more specifically the Policing space.
One of the victims of this culture has been the attempt by the elites to shut down debate unless it is their way. It seems a lust fr Power for Power’s sake is the prime motivator, and while they cannot gain the Power, they crave from reasoned debate they use the tried strategy of their ilk, degrade the opposition and belittle those below forcing them to remain quiet. Punitive measures are used to quieten who they consider the rabble of ill-informed foot soldiers or lesser beings.
These individuals and the culture that it inspires are rife within VicPol to the detriment of the organization.
There is, however, early signs that the new Chief Commissioner may well be less inclined to support this culture within VicPol. There will be a mass exodus of mostly senior people when they realize their faux Power, bought to them by virtue of the ‘Cancel Culture’, is waning.
There has been to date a culture within VicPol that we at the CAA have had sufficient experience with, to know it is endemic to the organization and causes a deep flaw, listening, which is a little-used skill, but when it has been, it is with the intent, only to reply.
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” –Stephen R. Covey
The CAA for its part will continue to push back against this ‘Cancel Culture’, in our sphere of interest.
We encourage everybody else to join the push.
“Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice” – Steve Jobs
by CAA | Jul 15, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
16th July 2020
The Premier of Victoria needs to steel himself for an apology to all Australians for the COVID Quarantine debacle in this State that had led to the contagion spreading more ferociously than when the first outbreak occurred. The virus has already breached the border with New South Wales.
Outbreaks of cases in New South Wales has been gnomically linked to the Melbourne cases, and there are frantic efforts in that State to try to contain the virus. The breach is no longer a possibility but a reality.
As this breakout spreads an apology will not be enough from the Premier and the, “I take responsibility for the Government I lead” mantra from Premier Andrews, will fall well short of the required atonement. That mantra is already losing credibility in this State.
This resurgence of the pandemic can be traced to inept quarantine procedures and management of people arriving in the country from overseas the original pathway that bought the pandemic to our shores.
In breaking news, the string of COVID 19 in the Housing Towers has been linked to the Quarantine Hotels, and the Black Lives Matter demonstration. Which way the virus travelled is unknown and will remain that way for some time as the latest data which may let us know, has been deemed secret and held back for the Judicial inquiry ensuring that there is a substantial time lag before we know.
It seems deliberate plan that by the time Inquiry releases the data, the pandemic will have passed and we will, ‘have moved on’, and all will be forgotten. I am sure that this will not happen and we will all remember the wink and a nod from the Premier, that precipitated the demonstration of 10,000 people who spectacularly broke the rules in complete defiance of the risks to the broader community who’s lives would seem, do not matter.
The Hon Jennifer Coate AM has been appointed to head up a Judicial inquiry into Victoria’s Hotel Quarantine Program that has shamed Victoria throughout Australia. The inquiry starting almost immediately, with a budget of $3 Million, may well prove to be wasted money for Victorians and the time and effort for this esteemed jurist who is starting from an unassailable position to conduct an inquiry that will not be able to place blame at anybody’s feet.
Unfortunately, this inquiry is nobbled before it began.
The Age recently released leaked emails sent in March from bureaucrats to other bureaucrats raising concerns about the ill-equipped Security Guards and demanded the Department of Health (DHHS) call Police in, to take control.
These emails provide an insight into the failures and why the good Judge will struggle to get a result.
The much-publicised incident of a traveller leaving his room for a smoke at 3 am prompting Department of Jobs on the 30th of March’20 to send yet another email demanding DHHS request Police support as the Guards were not adequate. Remembering this is the same Department who hired them without tender.
This is also the same Department that said its only responsibility was to provide the resources, not manage, or be responsible for the quarantine operations.
Can you see the pattern starting to develop?
Our Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton was quick to deny that he was responsible and claimed he did not see the management of Quarantine (the source of our pandemic) as his remit.
Apparently, the role of our Chief Health Officer does not extend to addressing the cause but only the outcome. Allegedly providing advice to the Premier on what we all must do to stop the spread, but the cause, not his problem.
The pattern develops further.
Emergency Services Victoria who also got the same emails and responded by advising the Jobs Ministry the guards could ring 000; what a solution?
They would be the same guards answerable to DHHS or is it the Jobs Ministry, or perhaps Emergency Services who knows? We suggest the Guards themselves had no idea.
Who was responsible for the oversight of the Guards, ensuring PPE was appropriately used, and Quarantine protocols adhered too; there were quarantine protocols, weren’t there?
This Quarantine is the only defence Australia has to the incoming virus we didn’t create, so closing the borders was the smartest move, but the holes left by incompetence is why we are where we are today.
It is a Debacle of the highest order, but how did it get to that, and why only in Victoria.
Accountability here has more changes than Melbourne’s weather.
Most likely because of inadequate preparation, unclear lines of responsibility, decisions based on perceived political interests, both internal politics as well as external, and incompetent people doing a job they are not trained to do and do not have the capacity to perform. We are not referring to the Security Guards.
The Age reported that there were at least five agencies involved in the decisions concerning the use of Security Guards instead of Police and the Military as happened in every other State: Health, Jobs, Premier and Cabinet, Emergency Management and VicPol.
There is an apt adage about the committee that was established to design a horse; it produced a camel, a truism for this debacle.
We shudder and hesitate to suggest that this outcome was what would be expected from the application of Matrix Management Principles promoted by Christine Nixon when Chief Commissioner; where there is a committee they all decide on a course of action.
That way nobody can take the fall –incompetence is masked, and accountability is totally voided by the individual. It was the committee, and that is precisely what has happened here, and that is why the good Judge will find it near impossible to identify who got it wrong. This is why the Premier is so relaxed about an inquiry, nebulous groups, not individuals, will be the ‘at-fault’– it was the committee.
If Premier had asked we would have given him the answer for a lot less than $3Milllion.
by CAA | Jun 2, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
2nd of June 2020
Reported in the Herald Sun 2/6/20 that Victoria’s Sentencing Advisory Council wants more significant consideration to trauma suffered by young people in the sentencing structure, as well as a focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Notably absent in their reported recommendations is the safety of the community.
Putting rationalisations before a court to justify bad behaviour of a child is counter-intuitive. It simple reinforces in the child’s mind that they can re-offend again because of their circumstance.
This approach proposed by the Advisory Council falls into the category of a mother I recently saw in a supermarket with a very young toddler rationalising misbehaviour as a method of control. Understandably, the two-year-old had a glazed look and continued misbehaving unabated. The mother just didn’t get it; the child did not understand the message. Missing was the consequences of the behaviour that the child understood.
If parents, and in this case, the legal system do not know how to achieve behavioural changes then get them replaced with somebody that does, I lament the supermarket child’s future.
As a general rule children grow up knowing right from wrong. The concept developed in early childhood where they learn that if they undertake certain behaviours, then there will be consequences. To avoid adverse consequences, they learn good and safe behaviour. No child is born bad; it is a learnt behaviour.
One of the most ridiculous examples of inept management of young people was when Youth Detention centres were faced with what were called riots, but in fact, it was children acting out to achieve an outcome they desired. Instead of consequences, they were rewarded for their bad behaviour with Pizza’s and authorities wondered why bad behaviour persisted with inmates.go soft on thugs picture
– Bad behaviour = Pizza = more bad behaviour.
If the Advisory Council wants change to address the problem of delinquency in young people, and the adverse impact this has on their lives and future, then start addressing the issue before it manifests rather than trying to repair a broken child.
Make every effort to ensure they are not broken in the first place, or if they are subject to risk, equip them to better deal with the risks – it is also cheaper.
The Community Advocacy Alliance Inc. (CAA) has long advocated changing the current approach of focusing on the problems after they emerge, to one where the potential problems are addressed before they become evident.
We are not just flapping our gums; we are actually doing something positive.
On hold, because of the COVID issue, the Police Veterans In Schools Program is set to be restarted into as many Primary Schools that our resources will permit. Aimed at the eight to ten-year-olds, we plan to influence them before peer pressure takes over and provide them with tools to cope better with life’s hazards.
We are extremely heartened by the comments by Police Deputy Commissioner Patton who will become the next Chief Commissioner who has already flagged the future emphasis of proactive Policing, which encompasses the sorts of strategies to which we have been referring.
We would hope that the Government in considering the Advisory Councils recommendations at least allow Patton an opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of Pro-Active Policing – they might be pleasantly surprised at the result on the cohort that concerns the Council.
Unfortunately, many professionals adjudge that working with the younger children is child’s play and below their professional status; they are much better suited to working with an older cohort who have the problems.
The problem with this un-educated approach is that they have little to minimal impact on the problem cohort, and any form of success is extremely rare and is an inefficient use of resources.
by CAA | May 26, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
CHINA
By Blair Barker, 6 May 2020
Opinion Contributor
Blair is a former Army Officer, Executive Director of an HR consulting firm and Councillor for Elgar Ward, City of Whitehorse, Victoria and supporter of the CAA.
The Xin Hua bookshop, the official outlet of the Chinese Communist Party, sits proudly at the corner of Station Street and Carrington Road, Box Hill, flogging Beijing’s propaganda to the large Chinese population in the City of Whitehorse.
The shop has been there since 2009, and it bills itself as “a nice spot to satisfy your brain and heart”. From 10.30 a.m. until 8 p.m. daily it sells newspapers, books and videos carefully selected and censored in Beijing to spread the communist government’s message.
It is also, without doubt, a powerful and visible reminder to the diverse local Chinese-Australian communities that the Beijing regime is alive and well and actively watching their response to the Covid-19 pandemic that originated in China.
The audacious presence of the Xin Hua bookshop results from years of incompetence by Australian political leaders who have allowed and enabled Chinese communist party influence to creep from an epicentre in Sussex Street Sydney to Station Street Box Hill.
Now, in a diplomatically outrageous move, the Chinese Ambassador to Australia, Mr Cheng Jinye, has threatened Chinese economic retaliation against Australia following Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s call for an independent investigation into the pandemic and China’s initial response to its appearance in Wu Han.
As a Councillor for the City of Whitehorse, I am deeply perturbed by the Ambassador’s threat, which has properly been called “economic coercion” by Australia’s Defence Minister Marise Payne.
The City of Whitehorse, and Box Hill, in particular, have large concentrations of Chinese-Australian businesses. A small minority of them are loyal to the Beijing regime. But all depend on international students and tourists and would suffer devastating losses if Mr Cheng’s threat materialised.
Sadly, the vulnerability of these businesses is due to small sections of the community and “useful idiot” civic leaders. They have promoted Chinese communist party activities in futile efforts to build community harmony and resilience.
It might seem reasonable to assume that pro-Beijing sections of the Chinese diaspora might review their loyalty to the motherland given the Ambassador’s threat to harm them economically. Unhappily, their pride in their cultural heritage and ancient civilisation seems to prompt them to be vocal boosters for Beijing and its aggressive geopolitical activities.
Some have business interests in the PRC and feel compelled—like some Australian apologists for China—to express support for Beijing to protect their financial interests. (Naturally, our Chinese citizens from Taiwan and elsewhere do not share this self-serving outlook).
Subversion, threats, and political interference from Beijing are not new phenomena in this community. Last year an alleged “community” event saw the PRC flag raised over the Box Hill police station by local state MP Paul Hamer. Federal member Gladys Liu joined the celebration to cut a cake to mark Mao’s Cultural Revolution—one of Beijing’s great crimes and political/economic disasters.
I criticised these events as insensitive to the diverse Chinese and non-Chinese communities I represent. A newsletter published in English and Chinese smeared me as incompetent, ignorant of multi-culturalism and promoting fake news. I was also subjected to insults and subtle threats after referring to the gaoling of Falun Gong and Uighurs in China.
Now, in the post-COVID-19 world, there are calls throughout Australia for recriminations, changed migration policies, and reset diplomatic relations with Beijing. It is critically important that Canberra take effective action to stop the corrosion of community confidence, unity, and resilience caused by Beijing’s influence in local communities. New vigilance will be required to confront Beijing’s disruptive activities.
Strong and resilient businesses will be more important than ever during the economic recovery from the pandemic. So the federal government would do well to increase counter-subversion programs further. When it is safe to do so, it should support new marketing initiatives to attract and reassure international students and tourists.
In a recent article for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute emeritus professor Stephen Fitzgerald, Australia’s first ambassador to China, noted astutely: “Australian criticisms of China’s policies and activities at home and abroad are routinely met with accusations of racial prejudice.” A renewed commitment, alertness, and willingness to withstand the inevitable threats and accusations of racial prejudice from CCP subversives are now more essential than ever if we are to emerge as united and resilient communities.
Nothing in the Xin Hua bookshop offers any guidance on this critical issue. The brain and the heart must look elsewhere.
by CAA | May 22, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
22nd May 2020
A once in a generation, or perhaps once in many generations, an opportunity presents for there to be a meaningful attack on illicit drugs.
It is now entirely possible to bring together, those that see drug addiction as a health problem, and those that see illicit drugs as the criminal problem it is, all thanks to COVID-19
In response to the COVID-19 threat, the Government embarked on a major effort to increase the number of hospital beds to deal with the estimated number of people requiring hospitalization as a consequence of the Pandemic.
This has been an outstanding effort, and places like the old Peter Mac and facilities at Geelong and elsewhere have been established and fitted out to deal with the number of expected COVID patients that thankfully has not, and is not now likely to occur.
We now have all of these Hospital beds that we could repurpose creating more jobs and impacting positively on the management of the other Pandemic, illicit drugs.
Note we have said management not cure, but that could be the bonus outcome.
We have many addicts/users living rough, and all addicts/users live in a perilous half-light where the danger to themselves is ever-present from many quarters.
Equally and just as important is that drug addicts/users often have underlying issues, both physical and mental that are never addressed.
The flip side to the health aspect is the criminality that is ever-present with the illicit drug trade and the enormous impact that has on the broader community both from a financial impact and the personal safety of everybody.
With a lot of publicity that centred on the ‘Ice’ epidemic, there have been no meaningful strategies put forward to address the problem, and often those most exposed to the issues take the easy way out, hoisting the white flag and argue to legalize the drugs.
Even with the misnamed ‘Safe Injecting Room’ there is nothing safe about illicit drugs no matter how they are administered – it is not the delivery method that causes the damage, it is the drugs. This experiment should never have been allowed to trial, as the experiment fails to acknowledge that the drugs used by the addicts in the facility are financed by criminal activity. How a Government can be complicit in this activity beggars belief.
There are proponents that push to legalize these drugs to solve the problem but that is just nonsensical. Firstly most addicts enjoy living on the edge without responsibilities or accountabilities, opting out of the mainstream. They were called Hippies in the 1960s, or the unwashed, and if you think if drugs were somehow legalized the drug Lords of today, will just roll over and give up their rivers of gold the trade creates, you would have to be incredibly naive.
Any sudden move like legalizing drugs would immediately see the crime syndicates move to other lucrative crime, extortion and kidnapping will be the likely alternatives. The changes need to be incremental and slow to destabilize their market.
We now see the adverse effect on the fitting of cars with engine immobilizers. Because thieves can no longer hotwire a car, the thieves must access the keys subjecting the community to physical harm, home invasions or aggravated burglaries to obtain keys.
In the UK, one high-end car manufacturer introduced very clever fingerprint security technology. That has been discontinued and disabled on the cars fitted with it. Crooks were using the fingers of the victims to access the car, and they were not too fussed whether the victim was attached to the fingers or not.
The principle of unintended consequences, a trap to be avoided.
Our aim should not be too lofty, and a substantial reduction in the illicit trade and an improvement in the wellbeing of addicts would be an achievable target worth pursuing. Removing the trade from public places to reduce the exposure of our children would also be advantageous in the short and long-term.
We can repurpose the Hospital beds?
It will take a brave and innovative Government. The proposal is for amendments to the Health Act to allow Police to randomly test persons they suspect of being under the influence of illicit drugs whether pedestrians or drivers and if they test positive they must be immediately transferred to the Health facility for fourteen days in-patient treatment.
The immediate effect will be to drive the drug trade underground away from our kids, and with the risk of fourteen days treatment, effective immediately, will dramatically reduce the number of drug-affected drivers on the road.
The Health facility must be secure; however, the patients presented by Police should immediately undergo a more sophisticated drug test, and if that contradicts the random test, they are released.
This fourteen-day hiatus in their addiction enables the Clinicians to asses and treat any identified health matters and breaks the nexus of the addict’s associations disrupting the drug trade at a micro-level.
The outcome invariably for a large number of addicts will be to return to their previous lifestyle, albeit far more healthy than they had been, and they have had the opportunity to receive support to beat their addiction.
Addicts are more likely to choose to opt-out of their addiction if they find they are re-admitted to the fourteen-day program on multiple occasions. A couple of admissions might just encourage an addict/user to seek treatment for their addiction. We know for any treatment for addiction, the patient must be a willing participant. This initiative may encourage their willing participation.
There will be many voices in opposition to this approach based on human rights and other nebulous claims. However, we as a community were quite prepared to allow our Government to remove our rights for months without visitors and restrictions on our liberty not to treat but avoid a pathogen and we were not involved in any illegal activity.
In this proposal, it is withdrawing from a group of our community their Rights for two weeks for their own benefit, and this cohort are not merely possible victims of a Pandemic as we were, but in this case, they are the Pandemic.
Victoria is as ready as it will ever be to accept an initiative like this, given what this State has gone through.
We understand this paper is an overview of a concept that needs considerable work to implement however now is the time to start that process rather than the Hospitals being dismantled or purposed for other things that have less impact on our community.
by CAA | May 19, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
20th April 2020
YOGI’S LAW
It is not too often that a really good news story comes along that can have a huge positive and perhaps life-saving impact on others. In this case, first responders who gain the magical assistance of a trained PTSD dog, and those considering it. The outcome of this story, Yogi’s Law, has impact Australia wide.
The fight taken on by former Policeman Sergeant Ron Fenton, given Ron’s health issues, is a true story of courage and gritty selfless determination made more so because the financial impact did not affect Ron, but the principle and impact on fellow travellers on similar journeys will be monumental.
The fight centred on this four-legged guardian angel Yogi.
To fully understand the significance of this fight, you need to understand what bought Ron to this place and the role that Yogi now plays, written by John Sylvester in the Melbourne Age.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-crook-the-copper-and-their-four-legged-mate-20180524-p4zh7k.html
Knowing Ron (and Yogi) is a privilege beyond measure because knowing him and reflecting on his courage will snap anybody out of any negative inward retrospection.
In my book, Ron Fenton is a true hero.
The story of his latest battles is best told in his own words.
BEING STUBBORN PAYS.
“For various legal reasons, I had to wait till today, May 13, 2020, before I could post this.
Around three years ago I decided to stir up the possums (how out of character), and submit a claim to Gallagher Bassett, VicPol’s Work cover Insurer, acting as an Agent of WorkSafe Vic.
The claim was to have Yogi, my PTSD Assistance Dog regarded as a ‘Medical and Like’ Expense, and therefore to have the Insurer pay Yogi’s Vet and food costs. I claimed ‘Up to $2,000pa’, such figure per estimates from Assistance Dogs Australia.
At the personal conference, I had with my Case Manager and her Supervisor, it was all smiles and nods, and total verbal agreement that my claim was justified. Three weeks later, AusPost delivered the standard ‘Rejection of Claim’ letter.
Numerous calls and emails only got me as far as, “The decision was made by WorkSafe.” Then began the merry hunt for answers, which only resolved in, “We’ve examined the case in accordance with the Act, and our decision is made.
Left with no alternative, off we trot to the Accident Compensation Conciliation Service (ACCS). And this is where Paul Sambell comes into the fray as a guide and mentor (he doesn’t give legal advice), and helped me tremendously, even initially setting up this Support Group.
At ACCS we discover that…. (now it gets messy here….. WorkSafe based their decision on the current Department of Veterans Affairs Ruling, which in turn was based on an American STUDY. However, the findings of the study itself was currently under critical review. The study had concluded that “There is no empirical evidence to support that Companion Dogs provide any therapeutic benefit to the treatment of PTSD. And yes, I know, Yogi is an Assistance Dog, not a Companion. Just another word-game by DVA.
Neither Party would budge, so I was awarded a Certificate of Genuine Dispute which then allowed me to take legal action.
In the meantime, the Review of the American Study upon which DVA based its Ruling was produced, finding overwhelmingly in favour of Assistance Dogs as beneficial to treatment. At that stage, DVA decided to conduct its own four-year Study into Assistance Dogs, because now it needed Australian data.
All around, however, Assistance Dogs were appearing. Vic Ambulance had ‘Bruce’ and his team; dogs were consoling victims in Court. DVA saw the writing on the wall, and late last year created an Entitlement for Defence Veterans with PTSD to receive an annual amount to feed and care for their Assistance Dog. As such, WorkSafe’s last line of avoidance melted in the snow.
Later on, I instructed Counsel to institute proceedings against WorkSafe. Suddenly this report, and that report, and this examination are required, but I’m not surprised by the delays. Pretty predictable, I guess.
Then ironically, January comes along with Medical news that curtails all delay tactics and places the Court under the moral obligation to hear the matter promptly. As such, we were listed for a Special Hearing today, May 12.
Imagine my surprise when I get woken by my Barrister Fiona Ryan by phone yesterday morning. She’s at the Pre-hearing Conference between barristers for both sides. WorkSafe have walked in with a prepared offer. A set cash amount as recompense for past expenditure, nothing going forward, closure of the claim, and a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
Our response was that this, and any further offer that included an NDA would be automatically rejected, as would any offer that provided anything less than parity with the DVA Award of $560per quarter.
The rest of the day was spent negotiating back and forth, with me sticking to the same basics. With my Super at my call, and my Medical diagnosis, I made it clear that I had the funds to fight, and nothing to lose. Did they dare take a sick man before a jury because they wouldn’t pay for the upkeep of his Assistance Dog?
The answer is a resounding NO.
We won the case, and now WorkSafe must reimburse me all reasonable costs of the care and upkeep of Yogi from the day I brought him home until now, and ongoing whilst he continues to be able to perform such functions. And thereafter, should Yogi be unable to fulfil those functions due to death or injury, WorkSafe will pay such reasonable costs for the care and upkeep of a replacement dog, providing such dog comes from an Accredited PTSD Assistance Dog Provider.
It’s a deal better than the DVA Entitlement, and one which every First Responder who works for an organisation using WorkSafe Vic Agents like EML, MetLife, etc, AND has an accepted work-related PTSD Claim, AND has an Assistance Dog supplied by an Accredited PTSD Assistance Dog Provider can claim.
It’s been before the Court; it is now Precedent Case Law – Yogi’s Law
Enjoy. Its been a long battle.
Yogi’s offsider Ron.
by CAA | May 13, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
113th May 2020
Service of Trust
By Sue Ellson
As we lie in our bed tonight
Cosy and warm and out of sight
We will pause to remember our blessed opportunity
To be protected and safe in our community
Served by police
Through education and enforcement
Served by police
Who endure so much stress and torment
We admire their bravery
Their courage and valour
We respect their authority
Without fear or favour
They are there in a crisis
At the front line of chaos
They are there in the stillness
When tears are shed in silence
So much is unseen
So much is unspoken
So much we mourn
When they are broken
Carry on they will
Carry on they must
But let us never forget
Their service of trust
by CAA | May 11, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
11th May 2020
So now junior members of Vicpol have been suspended for their apparent involvement in publishing an inappropriate photo of an AFL figure. Not nice at all, and they deserve to be censured.
However, compare their conduct to the case where the High Court found police conduct regarding Informer 3838 was “reprehensible”. Nobody was stood aside – nobody. To the contrary, the only person who had the integrity to blow the whistle on this police misconduct, Sir Ken Jones, was himself forced out of VicPol.
By any standard the sheer waste of taxpayers’ money in pursuing the foredoomed effort to conceal that reprehensible conduct was disgraceful – but that’s OK, it seems, because it was the bosses who did that, not the worker bees.
Compare the Assistant Commissioner who flagrantly lied to protect corrupt detectives who framed a citizen because the (previous) Chief likewise covered up his own blunders. That Assistant Commissioner (a friend of a Chief) gets off scot-free, and the Superintendent and Chief Superintendent who refused to follow the Police Act – a sworn duty – in order to protect HIM, go on to bigger and better things.
By all means, discipline members who breach proper standards of conduct, for example by publishing embarrassing photos of people in custody, and by all means let the process be swift, but also, by all means, let our police leaders ensure swiftness in investigating fairly simple claims of theft and false accounting involving members of the government; let there be Equality of treatment for all classes of suspects in such an imbroglio.
Why are different standards of conduct applied depending on where one sits in the hierarchy?
The Victoria Police stands condemned of failing to follow its claim to Uphold the Right. It does not respect the principles of Equality Before the Law, and it continues to thrive on concealing from the public its manifold failures of management and leadership – including failures to simply obey the law.
STOP PRESS. Just as this paper was about to be released it was revealed that IBAC, the watchdog that achieves so little in improving police behaviour, is to take over this “investigation” – to see if there are “cultural issues” that underlie the disgraceful publishing of the objectionable photo.
IBAC has not investigated the cultural issues underlying the persistent refusal of Chief Commissioners to investigate complaints of police corruption – refusals that were and remain contrary to law. IBAC has refused to investigate the toxic and dysfunctional culture at the top, described before the McMurdo Commission by Sir Ken Jones. As did its predecessor, the Office of Police Integrity, IBAC chooses to ignore faults at the top, no matter how serious, how entrenched, or how destructive.
Unlike the OPI, IBAC does not break the law; it just breaches our trust.
So we also ask IBAC, why are different standards of conduct applied depending on where one sits in the hierarchy? Why are cultural issues important in influencing only the conduct of constables, but not the conduct of commissioners?
by CAA | May 5, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
5th of May 2020
(Please note that this article has been made available to the Minister for comment but no response has been received)
The Health Minister, the Hon Greg Hunt MP, is funding a drug counselling service, ‘Turning Point’, that is actively promoting criminal activity under the guise of illicit drug harm minimisation.
We have no problems per se, with the harm minimisation approach for drug addicts, but there is a line that must never be crossed, and that line is the law. It applies to Law enforcement and must equally apply to medical services.
Once the line is crossed, and practitioners in this field actively promote criminal offences, they are as guilty of those offences as the perpetrator.
There is often vigorous debate over the approach to the illicit drug problem, law enforcement versus harm minimisation, neither side of the debate can claim the moral high ground as neither approach has provided the panacea for the challenge.
The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) has long argued that there needs to be a new approach both legal and medicinal and central to that approach, there must be strategies developed which reduce the exposure of our children to drugs.
Trying to alter the behaviours of addicts is only marginally successful, so it is essential to influence the action before they become entrenched in the lifestyle and addiction. We need to focus on influencing children to avoid the behaviour in the first place.
Our children are exposed to the temptation of drugs from a very early age and are confronted consistently and in ways that parents are usually unaware, by smooth-talking addicts motivated to expand their own market to feed their habit. The children must be equipped to deal with this exposure, pressure and temptation.
Make no mistake this trade in illicit drugs is evil, and often closer than you could imagine as friends and acquaintances of your children, some of whom they grew up with, are the pushers.
The priorities for Law Enforcement should be to make it more difficult for pushers to ply their trade targeting the drug supply chain, damaging their marketing model that is central to their success.
The priorities for harm minimisation must be on the medical treatment of drug addicts aimed at reducing and or eliminating their dependency and use.
We are an empathetic society but facilitating drug use must not be acceptable in any circumstances.
The argument that forcing the pushers off the streets underground is a bad thing promoted by proponents of drugs defies reasonable logic when it will minimising the exposure to our children and is a highly desirable outcome.
However, harm minimisation proponents long suspected of being apologists for the drug trade, are now blatantly promoting themselves as such.
This accusation is vigorously opposed by the proponents. Still, the accusation has just gained considerable credence thanks to Professor Dan Lubman, the Clinical Director of ‘Turning Point’, a drug counselling service as reported in the Herald Sun and the Melbourne Age 28th April 2020.
You may be forgiven for assuming, as we did, that a counselling service would be a service that would assist and steer clients away from the problem and harm they face, but that appears not to be the case for “Turning Point”, don’t let the implication in the name fool you. This is a service provided to drug addicts and has just received additional funding of $1.5 million from the Health Minister, to scale up services during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Obviously not to ensure addicts remain 1.5 meters from their dealer.
While we are under house arrest thanks to COVID-19 drug addicts are receiving the following advice for $1.5m:
- “If possible, talk to your dealer about what might happen if your regular drug supply may be restricted and stock up on your drugs of choice.” (The drugs can be stored with the hoarded toilet paper no doubt.)
- “Avoid bingeing on drugs that you have stockpiled” (That has got to be an oxymoron)
And from our good Professor Clinical director, ‘doubling down’ on the hoarding drugs he allegedly said,
- “The reality is a substantial proportion of the community use drugs, and we’ve got a pandemic.” (Doesn’t he mean another pandemic?)
- “We need to give people strong, clear, practical advice on how to cope when the door is being shut and they (users) might not have drug supply and might end up going into withdrawal.” (Isn’t withdrawal the course that needs to be taken to escape the addiction, and that is somehow bad?)
The CAA demands the Minister immediately withdraws all Government funding of this Service as they are past totally irresponsible, they are arguably criminal.
By withdrawing the $1.5 million grant, we can at least be assured that none of this $1.5m will go to funding drug addicts to create the recommended stockpiles.
The Government is complicit in promoting the illicit drug trade by continuing to fund this organisation.
The continued funding of all these types of services must be pro-rata to the number of addicts that are cured. Public money promoting the continuum of the illicit drug trade must cease live resin vs distillate better.
Something that may have escaped the good Professor is just how the drug addicts will pay for their stockpiles, other than with the $1.5m; for that matter, how does he assume the drug addicts service their current addiction, it is with crime.
Yes, we get reamed out financially, twice. The poor victims, (us) not only have our taxes spent on promoting the drug trade but we pay for the crimes committed on us to service this trade, whether directly or indirectly through our insurance. But that is only the property aspect. The trauma of crime that, in many cases, is horrendous and life-changing for victims, who are sentenced to a lifetime of misery.
And now the good Professor wants all that to ramp up to avoid some drug addicts going into withdrawal, unbelievable!
The CAA cannot even get paltry funding to support a prevention program in our schools. We cannot achieve Government support for our Police Veterans In Schools program that is aimed at tackling this and other social issues before they manifest rather than spending a fortune trying to deal with the problem later. Instead of government support, the Police Veterans predominantly cover all costs from their own pocket. They are paying for the privilege of volunteering their time, to help the community.
This whole debacle brings into sharp focus just where the Governments priorities lie, funding the illicit drug trade and those who promote it.
by CAA | May 3, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
4th April 2020
After a stroll with the dog in the reserve that abuts my back yard, I came back to find my back gate ajar.
The dog, as is her habit, was quite a few paces ahead and as she trotted into the yard let out a couple of unusual barks. Not particularly savage or persistent, but something was not right.
As I came through the gate, as is my habit, I locked it and put in the security catch.
As I turned and started to walk towards the house, from between the bushes on the lawn, a male materialised, prompting the dog to bark again.
This man, in his mid thirty’s dressed in black with the regulation Adidas black tracksuit pants, (the crooks uniform) was far from relaxed at being confronted.
He claimed that he had thought this was access to the reserve. Given that a whole street terminates into the reserve 80 meters further south from my back gate, I knew, exactly what he was,—an opportunist thief, sprung.
It was pretty evident that he was drug-affected, displaying the characteristic twitches and avoiding eye contact. He reeked of cologne that he had bathed in probably to avoid washing, (there used to be a myth that Police dogs were put off by strong cologne – you wouldn’t need a dog to track this bloke most non-COVID suffers could do it). I knew from instinct (former plods never lose that) this encounter could end up a mess.
I warned him to watch the dog as he was in her backyard. This was no idle threat as he was in mortal danger from her licking him to death if he showed the slightest interest in her, a common trait of Labradoodles. But Bonnie stood her ground behaving differently to when she is typically confronted by a stranger.
For some reason, drug addicts do not like dogs and dogs return the emotion; it has to be the odour, and or the odd behaviours that make dogs warry which unnerves addicts and in this situation, she would have picked up on my demeanour.
I let him out the back gate without incident with him watching the dog intently as he skirted around me with my faithful dog now set at my side. He then made relatively fast tracks down the reserve path.
The purpose of this note is not really about the drug addict but me, I was now a Victim and standing in a Victim’s shoes. Although the event was minor on the Victim scale, the shoes nevertheless became uncomfortable.
I rang ‘OOO’, and the operator was fine and engaging, and to the choice as to whether I would like the Police to call in, I agreed. As a former plod, it is always good to chat with the current members, and apart from that, I had reported he entered the property from the front but had subsequently determined he most likely came through the back. It may have been useful additional intelligence.
So I waited and waited and waited, and quite a deal later having given up on a visit or follow up I saw the Div Van drive by, so at least I knew they had maybe a cursory look for the suspect. They would have my phone number so a call would have been easy on the drive back to the station.
My neighbour is a single mum, and strangely her dog, Friday, (weird name for a dog, but they have a cat called Barry so it sort of works), remained silent throughout the incident, and that was unusual, so I went to check on her.
Fortunately, she and her boys were fine, and Friday had been inside staring down Barry for the last hour or so, willing the cat to make a break for it so a chase would be on.
However, I discovered from my neighbour, who was told by another neighbour, that the person in black had been arrested by the Police and put in the van.
This convoluted story is probably repeated many times an hour right across the state. Still, the issue that gets me is the lack of Victim follow up (service delivery) and given the Police are always asking for public help; you would reason it would be a two-way street, but not so, apparently.
Although it is the members at the coalface that will cop the blame as being lazy and unprofessional, I know enough about Policing to put the blame where it should properly lay.
Clearly, and obviously, this is a management issue where the systems and accountabilities to develop good service delivery practises, either do not exist or are ineffective.
The excuse will no doubt be that they were busy, and it is all down to priorities, that euphemism that explains all Police failures to avoid accountability.
The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) has heard many stories where the lack of service is evident. The CAA position is that the allocation of resources is a significant contributor to this and other problems with insufficient Police staffing at the Stations and General Duties patrols. This problem will continue to exacerbate while the current staffing allocations and philosophies persist.
It is not the number of Police in the force, but the numbers of Police Policing.
Chief Commissioner, it is about time you fixed this essential Policing function; you might find greater cooperation from the public if you do.
by CAA | Apr 23, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
23rd of April 2020
The Chairman and members of the Board of the Community Advocacy Alliance Inc (CAA) mourn the loss of the four members who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Our thoughts and prayers go to the families, friends and colleagues of those so tragically lost.
We may not know your names right now, but you are our brothers and sister, and your current anonymity does not lessen the pain of your loss.
Rest in Peace; your duty is done.
The CAA commends the announcement by the Chief Commissioner that at an appropriate time we can all gather to pay our respects to our colleagues lost.
CAA
![Police productivity down over 30%]()
by CAA | Apr 17, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
18th April 2020
Police productivity down over 30%
Chief Commissioner can you please explain to Victorians why the Criminal cases that have been initiated at Magistrates Courts have dropped by over 38.5%, and why all the key performance indicators relating to crime have consistently and unabatedly headed in the wrong direction since you were appointed?
Policing has a number of core functions[i], and that is how the performance of Victoria Police must be measured. In turn, the Chief Commissioner’s undeniable responsibility is to ensure that Victoria Police achieves satisfactory performance measured against each of the core organisations benchmarks.
One of the key Policing functions is the “detecting and apprehending of offenders.”[ii] Which leads to perpetrators being put before the courts to determine their guilt and if necessary, administer a penalty.
While it is difficult to accurately correlate precisely the statistics from various sources, what is evident is that Victoria Police as an organisation from 2014 to the present has been catastrophically inept. The explanations that are proffered will indeed be interesting.
It is no wonder the community do not feel safe when the number of criminal cases initiated before the Courts has dropped, by over 30% according to the Magistrates Court Victoria’s Annual Report.[iii]
The community is much more adroit at picking up on crime trends than they are given credit for, and have serious doubts about the material they have been fed for a long time. The Chief Commissioner’s rhetoric never seems to match the crime reported in the media, and what people see and experience.
The Community are presented with micro snippets of the criminal trends as headlines, but the community recognizes they are not reflective of what they know, hear, and feel. With crime climbing 17% over the period and a 24% increase in the number of unsolved crimes, it is no wonder. They are big numbers.
Between 2014 and 2019 the number of criminal cases initiated has dropped, by an incredible 66,644 cases and unsolved crime rose by 24% or over 43k crimes left unsolved. That is some black hole.
That means, potentially 66,644 perpetrators never faced court and continue with their criminal pursuits, and if anybody argues more Police will fix it, “Tell ’em they’re dreaming” because the statistics do not bear that out. There were 4390 additional sworn members added to the strength over that period with no noticeable improvement, and not even a stabilization at any stage, just the decline.
Operational Police are spinning their wheels rather than performing their proper function. This is not a Rank and file issue as we have fine Police; it is the consequence of a deeply flawed administration.
We continue to argue that it is not the number of Police, but how they are used, that is the core issue
How does that all look when the statistics from 2014 to2019 are overlayed?
Variables 2014 to 2019
- Crime Rate up compared to 2014 by (all crime) 77,607 + 17%
- Total offenders up but falling since 2016 (adults only) 37,129 + 12%
- Court cases instigated compared to 2014 down by (adults only) 66,644 -30.5%
- Unsolved crime climbing compared to 2014 by (all crime) 43,205 + 24%
- Police numbers up compared to 2014 by 4,390 +26%
The CAA has argued since 2014 that policing has been going the wrong way and the data proves we are right.
Significantly, during Chief Commissioner Ashton’s tenure, the following has occurred and an inquiry needs to be established to answer the following.
- Why is the crime rate substantially higher at 17%, over that period and is trending up?
- Why are the total number of Offenders charged in serious decline and trending down?
- Why are unsolved crimes trending parallel with reported crimes, so no headway being achieved despite a substantial increase in police numbers?
- Of most significance, why are Cases initiated at Court trending down? They should be running parallel with offenders charged as the period started out. What happened to the 66,644 cases?
- With an increase of 25% in Police numbers, why are these key indicators in serious decline?
What do these figures tell us?
As VicPol rapidly grows with an extra 4,390 Police over that period, so does all the components that the growth is supposed to curb, an oxymoron perhaps.
More Police staffing is achieving,
- More crime.
- Fewer offenders detected
- Fewer cases initiated at Courts
- Fewer crimes solved.
Victoria Police are operating as an antithesis to a functional Police Force.
These figures indicate a crash in 2016 in the number of cases initiated at Court, and the only notable event apart from a Crime Tsunami predicted by CAA, was the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Family Violence.
It looks suspiciously like the Royal Commission made these recommendations without proper consideration of the broader impact on Policing. If it is the cause of the overall failure of Policing, this paradoxically, adversely affects the people the Royal Commission was seeking to protect.
These sorts of outcomes are predictable when the management of Policing is outsourced as with the Independent Review into sex discrimination and sexual harassment, including predatory behaviour, in Victoria Police in 2015.
The Chief Commissioner should have addressed both of these issues, and if the Chief Commissioner could not fix the issues, a replacement is in order. It seems erroneous functions placed on the Operations of the whole force, as fashionable as that may be, may have had adverse consequences for Policing more generally.
Anecdotal information from former and serving Police is that the recommendations from the Royal Commission have created an insurmountable workload and the police have been used as a tool of the Commission with Police performing jobs that are not a Police function. The personal toll this has had on Police has been dramatic and needs proper evaluation.
These statistics can also be an indicator of the failure of another critical core function of Policing, proactive crime prevention.
Many years ago when the then Chief Commissioner Kel Glare was faced with a rising crime rate and the Government who were unable to provide extra Police, he decided that his only alternative was to reduce crime in the first place, and embarked on building up the proactive/preventative functions of VicPol. These initiatives worked spectacularly, and far faster than even he imagined.
Unfortunately, Chief Commissioner Nixon for whatever reason later dismantled the proactive functions of Victoria Police, and her successors failed to recognise this error or rebuild this basic policing function, and now we are paying the price, reaping what was sown.
The Government cannot be blamed, as they seem to have supplied whatever resources the Chief Commissioner has wanted. They would it seems, have been sold the line, more Police will solve the problem. It has not solved the problem, and it is getting worse. However, they should have recognised the decimation of Pro-Active Policing and taken action. In their defence, the current Chief Commissioner routinely publicly confuses Pro-Active and Re-Active policing, an embarrassing trait for a Chief Commissioner to not understand basic policing philosophies.
A source of frustration for the CAA is the complete lack of understanding of Proactive policing and a failure to effectively engage with it by the Police administration.
The CAA argument, all the way along, has been, it is not how many Police you have, (within reason) it is how you use them.
It must now also be acknowledged that the much-lauded Victoria Police Capability Plan is seriously flawed because according to these statistics, VicPol lacks capability.
The ratio of Police to the population in Victoria is the highest in the country[iv] and arguably as a force, the worst-performing.
Victoria Police, as an organisation, in 2014 initiated the equivalent of 16.8 cases per annum for every sworn police officer, before the courts. A number floating around reasonable expectations, but when you step back and look at the performance of Victoria Police over the 2014 to 2019 period, the picture that emerges, it is not attractive.
The 2018/19 Annual Reports[v] shows the number of cases presented to the courts 151765,[vi] had dropped by 30.5% from 2014 and is clearly on an accelerating downward trend.
In 2018/19 the force achieved an average of just 10 cases per sworn police member, at an average of less than one case per month per sworn member for the organisation and as a measure of productivity, this is a disaster. In spite of a rise of nearly 900 in the Non-Sworn police, allegedly to free up police for their core function.
We also checked New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland (QLD) case figures.
NSW had 339219 cases[vii] in 2018/19 covering a similar period to when Victoria could only manage 151765[viii] or about 55% below NSW.
Compared against NSW, their sworn members achieve about twenty (20) cases per sworn member per annum, that is 50% greater output than their Victorian counterparts. That statistic is embarrassing.
Moreover, the cost must be a consideration; we are paying $23,000 as an average per case while in NSW it costs an average of $11,500 per case, again half what it cost in Victoria. That is a productivity issue and a job for the Auditor General.
In QLD, the picture is similar to NSW. A Police Force of 11880[ix] sworn Police with a budget of $2.6 Billion[x] managed 188706[xi] cases at a rate of 15 cases per annum per member. At nearly 33% better performance by cases than Victoria, at a cost of $13,700 per case, that is over 40% cheaper than Victoria.
Victoria Police’s performance as an organisation is nothing short of an embarrassing failure.
The CAA question is, who will take responsibility for this calamity.
Of the many apparent systemic failures, in our view, the most significant, aside from leadership, is the flawed administration of police operations.
Anecdotally we are aware of Police Stations who struggle in some cases not achieving the number of operational police on the street that they did twenty years ago, and that is just plain ridiculous, expecting members to function effectively with the resultant workloads is a recipe for staffing welfare issues.
It makes absolutely no sense to continue to throw more Police at the problem, (and ruin more Police lives) when clearly that will not work.
The additional Police provided to VicPol by the present Government will have no impact and will cost Victorians a poultice, for no return, and contrary to what the Police management may espouse, you just can’t arrest your way out, the data indicates this philosophy is a failure; it doesn’t, never has, and never will work.
We have argued for five years for an inquiry into the administration and function of Victoria Police as we have watched the organisation lurch from one catastrophe to another and goodness knows what is still ahead.
Ironically, it has taken that time for the statistics to surface to justify our calls.
These numbers point to an administrative failure of some significant magnitude that will be unfairly laid at the feet of the Government, and that is why the next Chief Commissioner cannot be drawn from those that formed part of the failed consecutive administrations of Nixon, Overland, Lay and Ashton.
To do that would be a Political folly and an own goal of epic proportions.
Like all failed organisations, the failures are unlikely to be confined to only one area, and so it is with VicPol, with two spectacular smack downs from the High Court of Australia and the looming findings from the Bourke Street Massacre Inquests unlikely to be complementary. The findings of the Royal Commission into Informers we suspect is also going to be very painful.
An inquiry into the numbers of police struck down with PTSD, and the number of suicides of serving and former Police would add weight to the assessment, that Victoria Police have a seriously flawed administration, and have had for some time.
[i] Victoria Police Annual; Report 2019 ‘Our Function’ page 1
[ii] Victoria Police Annual report page1
[iii] Magistrates Court of Victoria Annual Report.
[iv] Victoria Police Annual Repot 2019-Bureau of Statistics Aust.
[v] Victorian Magistrates Court Annual Report 2018/19
[vi] Includes cases from other agencies who have prosecutorial functions, but estimated to have minimal impact.
[vii] New South Wales Local Court Criminal Division Annual Report
[viii] Magistrates Court Victoria Annual Report
[ix] Queensland Police Annual Report 2018/2019
[x] Queensland Premier Press release June 2019
[xi] Queensland Magistrates Court Annual Report 2018/2019
by CAA | Apr 9, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
10th April 2020
In a damming unanimous decision, the charges against Cardinal George Pell, prosecuted or perhaps persecuted by Victoria Police were quashed. The seven to zero finding by the High Court is as absolute as it can be.
There are striking similarities to the embarrassment VicPol suffered at the hands of the High Court over the Lawyer X scandal. Both were deeply wounding to Victoria Police credibility, and both avoidable if proper police practices and sound legal advice had been followed.
VicPol had failed to successfully prosecute Pell on a number of occasions even going to the extreme and questionable practice of touting for victims. This whole scenario is now looking very much like a vendetta rather than good policing.
The case presented by VicPol was deeply flawed and should never have gone to Court, missing a very crucial and critical component, an absolute lack of any corroboration of the complainant’s claims.
The High Court ruled the burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt clearly was not met in the Pell matter. The other case of equal embarrassment to VicPol is the Lawyer X scandal which elicited a serious rebuke from the High Court and a major and damming indictment of the Police administration’s lack of good judgement. That is being examined by a Royal Commission, as the Pell case must now also be examined and those responsible exposed.
In the mid-1800’s Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Baronet was credited with the saying, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This idiom seems to aptly fit the performance of the Police Administration of recent history where they seem to operate above or despite the law.
The unsuccessful Pell prosecution will have accrued a multi-million dollar bill, and now that Pell will be entitled to claim his legal costs it will put this bill into the stratosphere and to that, you can add a substantial settlement yet to be determined. Money that should have been used to ensure that operational police were properly equipped and which may explain why some of the vehicles currently in the operational police fleet are well past their prime, overtime budgets are slashed, and members uniforms in many cases look shabby and ill-fitting.
There are also many former Police members who can attest to experiencing the same treatment as Pell. A common practice developed within VicPol using the legal system to punish anybody they felt needed to be kept in check. Referred to as Judicial Personnel Management, cases were regularly pursued against police members to force them out of Policing, for all manner of things, including some that could only be described as trivial.
The object of the legal action seems to have been to put the target through the process; a conviction was a bonus; it was the process that they knew would destroy the target.
Unfortunately, the depth and breadth of this practice are buried because the victims who sought legal redress and in most cases successfully so, settled cases on condition of confidentiality, of not only the financial aspect but all the evidence or lack thereof. The confidentiality of the facts of the case had no other function than to protect the hierarchy of Victoria Police from embarrassment and perhaps accountability.
The George Pell saga was a corollary of the Judicial Personnel Management scheme on steroids.
This result we will hope is serious enough to have the process of Judicial Personnel Management outlawed as the insidious and unconscionable process it is. Police must now accept some accountability where cases that are severely flawed are proceeded with.
For five years, The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) has continually demanded an independent inquiry into the maladministration of Victoria Police, and we are heartened by sectors of the media starting to echo our calls. We detect that noise getting louder.
We believe that the media noise will grow to a degree where the Government will be forced to act. However, waiting that long will only cause greater pain for the Government.
In our view, there should be criminal charges bought against a number of senior serving and former Police executives. However, beyond that, there will be the “Teflon brigade” who will need to be dealt with by the new Commissioner.
There are also many executives whose inactions are as damming as the actions of the coterie core, and must also be held to account. This inaction is as culpable as the action by the miscreants and a breach of the sworn duty of a police member.
In 2019 we saw a spike in the suicides of serving Police Members, but unfortunately, the death toll of recently retired members forced out by Judicial Personnel Management remains an enigma.
That spike of its own should have alerted the Government of the magnitude of maladministration and the urgent need for a review of Police administration.
As we fast approach a time when a new Chief Commissioner is to be appointed, we implore the Government to appoint somebody that is not indebted to the coterie that steered VicPol into these morasses and has the strength of character and skill to rid VicPol of the responsible coterie, permanently.
This is the shocking legacy that will be left by Chief Commissioner Ashton and will reverberate for years to come.
The performance of VicPol in the notable legal failures, and the deaths of so many Police members at their own hand, should be justification enough, but when you add the financial aspects of these actions wasting millions upon millions of dollars and a less than laudatory performance of managing the State’s crime, an inquiry is now overdue.
Lack of sound action at this time will leave the Government in a precarious position where a real danger exists for the development of a police force that is increasingly unaccountable to the Law and the State.
We are not as far from that point as many would imagine.
by CAA | Mar 31, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
31st March 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic is upon us but it seems not to have motivated a response by Victoria Police, requiring the Premier to step in and allocate five hundred Police to the function of community compliance to the Pandemic restrictions.
The Premier should not have had to do that if the Chief Commissioner was doing his job. The police response has been like a fire brigade looking out at a fire while it burns. They can see the smoke but are waiting for someone to tell them to respond.
Why all Police leave is not cancelled, members on leave recalled, and all non-essential duties postponed beggars belief. All ancillary functions to Police operations should be suspended, the wholesalebud site and that includes many operations and task forces and groups.
Many thousands of Police need to dust off their uniforms and get out there to ensure compliance. If there are not enough cars, hire them, if there is not enough room at police Stations, then hire caravans for the car park, the police cars will not need the spaces as the police cars should all be out manning roadblocks across the State to reinforce compliance. We are in an emergency.
Better to have a short hiatus in some police activities and protect the community.
It is very easy to tell what the Police reaction is now by how many Police cars are parked at Police Stations.
Crime is unlikely to run rampant as crooks are just as vulnerable as everyone else and most will not run the risk of infection. Police effort now will help shorten the pandemic. All the increased Police activity will probably reduce crime anyway.
That there is insufficient protective gear for Police should not interfere with talking to drivers and turning them around is they breach the Level restrictions in place.
Why the Premier has to step in, is an indictment of the lack of leadership from a Chief Commissioner.
![Police productivity down over 30%]()
by CAA | Mar 27, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
28th March 2020
From time to time, we receive anonymous material allegedly originating from within Victoria Police. The latest gem to fall our way is the ‘Community Web of Protection’, and we sincerely hope that this is a flight of fancy rather than a serious concept being considered to be flogged as some sort of BluePrint to protect the community.
We are mindful of the paranoia of Victoria Police to leaks, which is legendary. When it comes to operational matters, we strongly support confidentiality, however, that the paranoia extends to administrative matters borders on churlish.
The amount of resources applied to some of these administrative leaks is ridiculous and a distraction from the police core activity, something we find very hard to justify when it generally looks to be an effort to avoid accountability by the organisation, or embarrassment to the executive.
It has been our experience that a competent organisation does not hemorrhage administrative leaks designed to embarrass it. A happy workforce just does not feel the need, because they can openly question things.
We would be very pleased to be advised this is not a sanctioned concept.
‘What we are going to do’, How we are going to do it’, sounds very much like the lyrics from a rally chant we hear in the city nearly every Friday.
We would hope that this did not impinge on Police resources because if it did it is a wanton waste that could be applied more productively to the front line, and that is where the authors/s should be.
The accompanying note claimed that this concept was, ‘dreamt up in the bowels of Victoria Police’, and Operational police that have been exposed to the ‘Web’, respond with bewilderment. We can understand that reaction.
The CAA has been exposed to this sort of rubbish from within VicPol previously, and they all follow a similar pattern. The difference with this one is that it trumpets its uselessness in its own portrayal.
The common denominators of this sort of corporate rubbish are,
- Fails to say how it is to be done.
- Fails to say what is to be done.
- Fails to say who is responsible for it to be done.
- Fails to say when we know it is done.
- Fails to show a benchmark, so we will know it is being done.
- Fails to show how it will be measured to know it is done.
- Fails to identify the resources to be applied to get, whatever it is, done.
- Fails to identify the cost of having, whatever it is, done.
The only saving grace is there is no Police Badge on the document indicating it may not be officially adopted or sanctioned.
Let us hope so.
by CAA | Mar 25, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
26th March 2020 – Contributor
In a well-written article, by the CAA‘A novel idea – how about a Vicpol AUDIT ‘, presents an argument of great importance to law and order, within Victoria, now and into the future.
In the lead to your article, you described “The Peter Principle”. That concept was elucidated in the 1969 book ‘The Peter Principle’, by Dr Peter and Raymond Hull.
For those unfamiliar with this concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, it observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their maximum “level of incompetence”.
Thus, an employee is promoted based on their success in previous jobs [or nepotism] until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another.
Organisations “infected” by the Peter Principle cannot heal themselves – they do not know what they do not know, and do not have the skills to adequately operate.
Worse, incompetent individual operatives in such organisations fear discovery, and resist offers of help; cover-ups are rife.
They see the organisational culture as their friend, but in reality, it is a major contributor to their incompetence.
The solution, as often applied in private enterprise, is to strongly “flush” organisational incompetence by replacing sufficient numbers of apparently incompetent Administrative [decision-making] Staff, particularly the most Senior Staff and including some prominent middle-level Managers, so as to ensure a serious and major change of organisational culture which will reach to all Operative Staff. Neither are Operatives beyond reach of the guillotine.
How can this CAA article reach a much wider audience than that normally achieved by CAA articles…..?
It deserves a special effort to distribute it widely into the community.
I believe that most of Officialdom, [inside and outside VicPol] who are in a position to action the matters raised in the CAA article, will be affected by:
- guilt from past commissions or omissions and/or
- existing or potential conflict of interest and/or
- being inhibited from a moral response by their cognitive dissonance.
Therefore, a significant groundswell of community indignation will be required to cause Officialdom to act to sincerely and thoroughly investigate,
attribute accountability, and cause corrections, to straighten out VicPol.
Beware of the probability that some of Officialdom and Hierarchy will anxiously anticipate that the appointment of a new CCP will “fix” the problems, and thus allow numerous parties to “escape unscathed”.
The very carefully considered and widely-accepted appointment of the new CCP is absolutely critical to current law and order within Victoria, and such a person obviously must set a high standard for well into the future.
But consider the challenge to locate and appoint an individual who has the required basket of abilities, and who:
- likes to receive a poisoned chalice?
- has experience of achieving “mission impossible”?
- demonstrates senior-level policing skills, as well as wide lower-level working experience.
- can prove successful high-level professional business management experience.
- shows corporate political nouse, and unshakeable party political neutrality.
- displays genuine police competence, and a strong desire to flush organisational incompetence.
The role definition, election, and appointment of the new Chief Commissioner is far too important to the community welfare to be left in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats not competent to perform the task.
John Basham
ex-S/C15560.
by CAA | Mar 19, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
19th March 2020
We have been told that the Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) is made up of Police and civilian Neanderthals, but we have put our collective minds together with our four hundred years of policing experience and connected a few dots, that the Government and the Chief Commissioner should have a serious think about.
Unlike many others, including the Prime Minister berating us all as uncaring dolts, we should really have a think about just what is going on.
Firstly, we do not believe that the majority of Australians are uncaring and selfish.
Secondly, if this was just a matter of your average Joe simply hoarding for their own use, their financial capacity to hoard (and the space) would have been exhausted by now.
If you peel back the layers, you will expose that this is the work of organised crime gangs.
There is a pattern that has been developing where particular products are targeted to create a market shortage, whether real or perceived so that the Criminals can then make a killing selling on the Black market at exorbitant prices.
The latest, buying up of all children’s Panadol is a classic and cruel example, that is way over the top, trying to exploit the emotive relationship of a parent to their child, Australians are just not that selfish.
How can we predict with confidence that the criminal enterprises are behind this?
Where else would a sector of the community have ready access to the substantial amounts of cash, now in the millions, and with Supermarkets reporting they have supplied enough goods to service a population of seventy-five Million people, enough for three times the population of the country. As individuals, we just do not have the financial capital to achieve this.
So, who is behind this extraordinary event – the drug Tsars, of course.
The other give away is the teams travelling by bus to country supermarkets to crowd surge and empty them out.
We note that Peter Dutton has latched onto this. However, we have grave doubts much of this product is headed overseas when a market is being created right here, and the existing drug empires have a structure already in place for distribution by the drug mules and the heavies to enforce payments.
The Government is going to have to move very rapidly to create Black market retrospective legislation to control this other epidemic.
If this is allowed to go unchecked, masked by the fear of the COVID-19 Virus, the pain of the Black market could destroy our economy, apart from ruining many people financially as they try to survive the shortfall in necessities.
Many people may contract COVID-19, and we know the vast majority will recover, but the ones sucked in through desperation to the clutches of the Black market may not.
If the same strategy is applied to Black market products as is applied to drugs, the pushers will be initially, very generous to victims, but as soon as they are indebted, they are locked in, and the only way out will be to sell drugs or the contraband to others at exorbitant prices. That’s where the heavies come in.
The Tsars are opportunistic but also can play the long game.
This phenomenon has to be attacked by two strategies simultaneously – destroy their marketing model and prosecute perpetrators.
The speed with which governments have moved in relation to COVID-19 needs to be mirrored in this aspect of the pandemic- they are inextricably linked.
by CAA | Mar 17, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
18th March 2020
Chief Commissioner Ashton has suspended the Booze Bus operations based on medical advice and pressure from the union.
Announcing this action has just blown any deterrent effect that the Busses had.
The intelligent strategy would have been to suspend their use and not tell anybody, operational confidentiality.
It is odd that the Busses are suspended, but roadside testing is ramped up – what is the difference in contact risk for police, is there something about the ‘bus’ we are missing.
This pandemic could go on for months so it will be interesting in the wash-up as to how many Police members were calculated would have contracted COVID-19 and how many additional deaths happen on our roads. Given the Booze, Buses are a major part of VicPol’s Roads Safety strategy.
If there is a spike in road fatalities, we assume that will be classified as collateral damage, if there is not, the whole value of the Booze Bus strategy will be blown away.
Wonder if there is a market for Booze Buses, some brand-new.
The long argued effectiveness of Police traffic patrolling the roads will now be capable of assessment. The Booze Bus personnel must be detailed for traffic patrols to maintain safety on our roads, not simply swallowed back into General Duties, because without a visible Police presence mayhem will ensue.
Sadly it is unlikely anybody will have the foresight to take advantage of this situation and gain some targeted empirical data about the effectiveness of police resource management, rather than operating on guesswork.
![Police productivity down over 30%]()
by CAA | Mar 17, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
17th March 2020
As most with an interest in Policing and Law and order are aware, the position has now been advertised, and the advert is worth reading.
The CAA congratulates the Government on this advertisement and hope that the ultimate appointment reflects these values.
About the only matter that should have had a higher priority is Integrity, but it is reasonable to presume that integrity should be a given.
We were also a bit confused about the ‘Operational leadership in emergency services’ criteria. We agree, recent Chief Commissioners have not covered themselves in glory with this attribute, but the appointment of effective Emergency Management Commissioner for Victoria has been very successful, and our present Commissioner Andrew Crisp is doing an outstanding job.
Unless there is a proposal for police to assume that role again, as in the past it would be very counterproductive leading to all sorts of issues in a crisis to have two leaders responsible for emergency management – which one does what? And which one is accountable for what? A bad management practice.
It would also be obvious that many who were named or appeared in the Royal Commission would have difficulty with the integrity characteristic and should be automatically precluded.
Additionally, the impact is far wider than those who made headlines at the Commission. There is a large group of support staff and other Senior Officers that would have, or should have been aware of the impropriety of the lawyer X matters, with one exception, Sir Ken Jones. None of them saw the need to take decisive action.
That they may have been at personal or career risk by taking action is not an excuse as there is Protected Disclosure Legislation to protect them, and they did all take an oath that must be honoured. So applicants that fall into this category must be overlooked, as their actions are counter-intuitive to leadership.
As a starter, this probably wipes out most of the senior executives of the past ten years.
They were happy just to move along through the promotion chain without taking any responsibility – that demonstrates a lack of integrity.
There are some other interesting take-outs from this add.
The first is the order of the attributes – Leadership, Community Policing, Crime Prevention at the top of the list, followed by Detection. A philosophical concept of Policing established with the Peelian Principles and a philosophy that the CAA has been strongly advocating for five years.
It is also a policing philosophy roundly rejected by recent administrations, so the concept of the Peelian Principles is foreign to many police, including executives.
An exercise that some readers might enjoy is reflecting on how many of the Chief Commissioners in recent history would be ineligible for the job given these advertised criteria.
It is also clear the Government is looking outside the current serving aspirants.
If the Government follows through on these criteria, they will gain substantial support from the Community. This appointment is a watershed moment for Policing in this Sate – the selection process has started out on the right foot – delivering on this criteria is the challenge, and we wish the Government well.
by CAA | Mar 15, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
15th March 2020
Perhaps one of the more vivid examples of serious, even catastrophic, mismanagement arose over the police informer named Gobbo but originally given the identity 3838,
It has become clear that very senior officers were closely involved in what the High Court has called “reprehensible conduct”; conduct that then Deputy Commissioner Sir Ken Jones and others warned contained the seeds for a Royal Commission; conduct that could conceivably cause people to be wrongfully sent to prison.
This mismanagement would be serious by any standard, but it is now obvious that the police “managers “have fought tooth and nail to cover it up at our cost.
The Director of Prosecutions (DPP) had put the police on notice that he intended to give several convicted prisoners information that might give them cause to appeal and to challenge the evidence on which they had been convicted, on the grounds of the lawyer/client relationship between them and 3838.
It seems apparent that the police had not disclosed to the prosecutors, in a timely manner, information that possibly should have been disclosed to certain accused persons pre-trial. It is also apparent that the DPP was doing his duty in trying to belatedly correct that situation.
Instead of recognising and supporting that dutiful disclosure by the DPP, the police chose to cover-up the whole scandalous affair through a series of protracted and very expensive lawsuits, culminating in the High Court’s ruling.
That is, the police tried to prevent the DPP from doing his duty in order to avoid exposure of their own failure to do theirs, all at the expense of the public purse, and inevitably distracting the DPP officers from their proper functions.
From an audit perspective, it might be regarded as ‘Misconduct in Public Office’ for police to knowingly breach the rules of legal procedure in pursuit of a conviction, no matter how serious the alleged crime.
From a wider social perspective, it was utterly disgraceful if the police conduct led to the wrongful conviction of one or more people otherwise entitled to be presumed innocent.
This is an attack on the legal framework of our democracy that has attracted substantial Public expenditure. Victorians are entitled to demand an Audit to ensure transparency.
by CAA | Mar 8, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized
8th March 2020
Pondering the intricacies of Police management can be a tedious exercise, but there is one common denominator that has been exposed. If Management, Police or otherwise fails spectacularly in one area, it is guaranteed not to be isolated; it is inevitable that management has failed overall and the various problems of an organisation will start to surface over time, showing the breadth and depth of the management failures.
The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) has been calling for an inquiry into the management of policing in Victoria for five years. We identified serious problems back then that have not abated, but more have been piled on, and the normal principles of bad management are manifesting slowly as more bad practices are exposed. The inevitability of this contagion spreading is a reality. There is also an inevitability that the focus will ultimately shift accountability to the Government of the day. We have no doubt there are more problems to come.
The mismanagement that has ended up spawning a Royal Commission can be seen in other aspects of the Police functions. Legal services expenditure, procurement malpractices, and personnel mismanagement.
With police members suffering PTSD at near epidemic levels with many cases caused or substantially contributed to, by the mismanagement of staff, rather than exclusively the exposure of Police to operational trauma the human cost outstrips the material considerations.
Additional failure to manage effectively the core functions of the organisation, crime detection and crime prevention coupled with the road toll, make this a sorry and embarrassing tale.
Recent extraordinary revelations about Police mismanagement at the Royal Commission and the Bourke Street Inquest is probably an unfair characterization, as mismanagement seems to be the norm rather than being extraordinary.
What has been amazing is, that while the Royal Commission and the Inquest have proceeded, the Auditor General has not been tasked to conduct a shadow investigation into the financial impacts and procedures associated with these two events plus the other identified failures.
Exposing who authorized expenditure for what, would identify just who is pulling the string that empties the fiscal bucket of VicPol.
We were very surprised when it was reported in the media that a Deputy Commissioner claimed he, ‘authorized’, the alleged $4.5m to protect the identity of Lawyer X, Nicola Gobbo, but legal circles have told us that this amount probably only related to the High Court Challenge against the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). All the other legal steps taken would make the legal bill somewhere north of $30m. The question is, how does one senior executive authorize and commit the Police budget to that sort of exposure?
Given the amounts involved, one would expect that Ministerial approval would be required, but was it sought.
The other issue to consider about this action was VicPol v The DPP both Government entities, so win lose or draw, we the taxpayer were,’ toasted on both sides’. This has the whiff of a power struggle with us the loser, whoever won.
VicPol sought Ministerial approval for the ex gratia payment of around $2m to Nicola Gobbo, but it would seem, not the bigger legal bill.
We can estimate that the costs to suppress evidence that might damage the Police hierarchy at the Bourke Street Coronial inquest could exceed $1.5m and two civil cases unsuccessfully pursued by VicPol recently have cost the Police budget (or some budget) somewhere close to $4.5m each. That is only the ones we know about.
With legal bills somewhere north of $40m just for these known actions, and probably with associated costs adding another 25% that would be somewhere about $50m.
A serious question must be asked as to what processes and what accountability exists to authorize incurring these costs given that VicPol, it can be argued, failed to achieve its objective in each of the actions.
The question of the objective is a pertinent one because on the surface it would give the impression that the way these legal issues are dealt with, is more to do with protecting the hierarchy of VicPol rather than the furtherance of law and order for the State.
$50m is a hell of a lot of money, blown for nothing.
Equally irksome is that the true cost of legal actions is unable to be identified in the Police Annual Report.
The question also raises the quality of the legal advice to VicPol and whether it was properly considered, and what additional costs were incurred where VicPol failed to comply with the Model Litigant Rules that apply to it.
We know that most of this massive expenditure could have been avoided by competent management and it could be argued that most, if not all the $50m, was just wasted on questionable rationales, rather than furthering the Police function.
VicPol has an ordinary record when it comes to the use of our money. The $100m unaccounted for in the IT area and the multimillion-dollar debacle called the Booze Bus Scandal, when linked with the legal expenses exposes a common thread; nobody is held to account.
Any executive whether sworn or unsworn, that authorized transactions that came under an audit microscope would not escape scrutiny even if they are no longer serving, a precedent set by the Royal Commission.
The outcomes of an audit could disclose, ‘misconduct in public office’, a criminal offence. Any successful prosecution could also result in the Crown seeking restitution rather than penal servitude.
At least the former Senior Police and non-police executives have their superannuation to fall back on, and the Taxpayer might recoup some losses.
After all, if somebody authorizes something they are not entitled to, it becomes a personal authorization and would incur personal liability, and they could be acting outside the protections of, ‘Vicarious Liability’.
When the selection of the new Chief Commissioner is undertaken there are many qualities for the successful applicant to possess in relation to Policing operational skills, and we do not argue to minimize the importance of those attributes; however, there needs to be equal consideration to broader management skills in relation to Governance, personnel management and fiscal responsibilities.
Just think of the resources that could have been made available to Operational Police on the front line if the millions squandered had been applied to the policing core function – serving the public.
We might also have been able to get police when we needed them.
Victoria Police has the highest ratio of police to the population of any force in Australia and is probably the most expensive, but it is unable to deliver a service that the community expects. This is a very serious failure and indicates again management failures that no doubt cost money.
The CAA has invited the Auditor General to investigate the governance and management of Police expenditures over the last twenty years and bring to account, by identifying those who have abused the trust of the people of Victoria by mismanaging their money. And further, where maleficence is identified, the individual is referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions for consideration of criminal sanctions.
Interestingly, any culprits may not have the shield of unlimited taxpayer-funded legal services to defend them; that proposition might just grab their attention. How could VicPol fund a defence for ripping off the Police purse, our taxes?
The areas of concern are, but not limited to;
- Approval processes and evaluation of legal actions, criminal and civil. initiated by VicPol.
- Approval processes and evaluation of defending civil actions against VicPol.
- What objective test is applied to these decisions?
- What costs are incurred by failures of VicPol to comply with the Model Litigant Rules?
- Is there a competitive tendering process for engaging Legal Services on a case by case basis from the Government Legal Services Panel?
- Are reasonable cost estimates provided to VicPol prior to litigating and are these cost properly evaluated objectively?
- The accuracy of these cost estimates for legal actions.
- Whether legal advice is properly evaluated on a cost versus outcome risk basis?
- Is there an effective post-evaluation process of Legal Services provided?
- The use of Judicial Personnel Management processes and the cost.
- The efficacy of the procurement processes, procedures, review and oversight by VicPol.
Within months a new Chief Commissioner will be appointed, and we can only hope that the successful applicant will have the capacity to resurrect a failed administration.
It would be appropriate that the future fiscal performance of VicPol began with a clean slate, or at least the new Chief Commissioner knowing what the issues are that need to be addressed.
