SLUG-GATE SLITHERS ON

by CAA | Sep 13, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

14th September 2021

The saga of Slug-gate was further ventilated at the most recent hearings of the Parliamentary Inquiry into the affair.

Due to time constraints imposed on examining witnesses, by the nature of these inquiries, means evidence to the public is limited. Without the evidence being adequately tested, an observer could well draw incorrect assumptions.

Examples presented by the Health Department and the City of Greater Dandenong Officers that needed scrutiny but failed to attract adequate attention were evident.

The evidence of genome sequencing of listeria found in a deceased patient who allegedly ate food supplied by ICooks and a link to listeria located in the ICooks facility gave the impression the facility was the problem.

The listeria, however, was found in Corned Beef and Ham at the facility. Neither products were produced by ICooks but bought in from national suppliers. This crucial evidence was omitted.

Evidence was given that this connection to the patient’s death was significant in issuing the Closure Order that ended the ICooks Business.

We know that this information was not conclusive and was not fully available to the CHO until days after the Order was served.

So how the issue of listeria played a significant role in the decision to close ICooks, is at best oblique, with the timelines critical to relevance omitted.

Omitted also from the evidence was that the listeria sample located at ICooks was 90% below the Regulated level for this pathogen to be considered a health problem. Under food standards legislation, the ICook sample levels are deemed to be safe for human consumption. Another critical omission.

The evidence instead inferred using selective adjectives that the patient and the factory sample were a close match or nearly the same. For professional witnesses to emphasise words in oral presentations to create a false narrative was inexcusable.

Health Department and Greater Dandenong Council witnesses should have given evidence that was fair and frank but was instead selective and deceptive.

Those witnesses had a Doherty Institute analysis that stated clearly that the match was probable, not the same, as the evidence implied. There is no such thing as a genetic fingerprint; the use of this term was a scientific fraud.

There was compelling evidence before the inquiry from an independent Environmental Health Inspector that investigated the listeria issue and found the patient who died never consumed any foods from ICooks.

During the inspection of ICooks by the Greater Dandenong Council, there was a high probability that the factory may have been contaminated by officials undertaking the inspection.

There is video footage showing the Heath Inspectors who obtained these samples routinely contaminating the site during their inspection, but the witnesses were not examined on this critical point.

Whether this contamination was deliberate, or incompetence will ultimately be tested in court.

Also of significance, a substantial quantity of evidence was presented from bureaucrats portraying that the Health Department Closure Order’s decisions, were distinct and independent from the Inspections conducted by local bureaucrats that resulted in the ninety-six charges against ICooks and later withdrawn.

This perception was debunked entirely, not by opposing evidence but from one of the local inspectors letting slip towards the end of her testimony that her superior was in constant contact with the Health Department during the inspection. An attempt to cover a conspiracy, blown.

There were many other anomalies or attempted manipulations of the evidence around the listeria issue.

• ICooks produced and delivered 120,000 meals, and in excess of 15,000 Salads and sandwiches to the most vulnerable in the community between when samples were taken on 01/02/2019, the elderly patient died (04/02/2019), and the factory was closed 22/02/2019. No other listeria (a reportable disease) was recorded anywhere in the food chains linked to ICooks or any of their suppliers. There were four other cases with a similar Genome sequence in WA and QLD;
• ICook Foods doesn’t sell to these States but these incidents were never investigated. This is critical as the listeria found elsewhere could have entered the hospital via any one of the other six food suppliers who service Knox Private Hospital.
• The patient arrived at Knox Private Hospital displaying listeria symptoms with that relevance being incorrectly dismissed by Health Officials based on the incubation period of the disease. That incubation period was completely erroneous. The patient was not in the incubation period when she presented at Knox Hospital; she was already symptomatic
• That a Knox Hospital patient died from eating ICooks Foods laced with listeria was emphasised by some witnesses as an absolute. This is again erroneous. The patient died, with listeria, not from it, and no link was ever identified between the sandwiches the patient allegedly consumed and those ICooks supplied to the Hospital. Suspecting or believing is in the realm of gossip unless substantive confirmation is obtained
• Unfortunately, the patient had severe heart problems and was probably in the end-of-life phase at 89 years of age.

• Of significance, none of the other food suppliers in the chain of the alleged sandwiches was tested or interviewed by officials.
• Six other suppliers had provided to the Knox Hospital Kitchen and the Hudson’s Coffee Shop that provides cakes and sandwiches to patients and staff on-site but no investigation of these possible sources of listeria were investigated: why not? What happened to the abundance of caution so regularly proffered by Health Officials?
• Of greatest significance, with Departmental witnesses emphasising that a listeria outbreak was averted. There was no plausible explanation given whether ICooks was the source and how nobody else who consumed the 135,000 meals, salads, and sandwiches supplied to the vulnerable in that period displayed listeria.
• That the hospital kitchen was never inspected or examined concerning this event is significant as it goes to the crux of this issue.
• Evidence from an independent Environmental Health Officer tasked by the Health Department to investigate the listeria issue gave compelling and emphatic evidence that the patient was on a soft food diet prepared in-house by the Hospital and not from external suppliers. His findings were provided to the Health Department; however, the Closure Order was issued despite this evidence.
• The Deputy Chief Health Officer in an email subsequent to the closure advised the Chief Health Officer and others, that there were two food production lines at ICooks and one line that food was pasteurised through could re-open but that advice was apparently ignored.
• The inquiry was repeatedly told that no one issue caused the formation of the decision by the Chief Health Officer to issue the closure order. The inquiry was never told what these ‘issues’ were.
• A picture was painted in evidence that ICooks lacked qualified food safety and hygiene staff for a facility of this type. Evidence to highlight this deficiency was derived from casual conversations with ICooks staff during inspections once ICook were closed. There was no food handling to observe, and the evidence was clearly designed to create a false impression.

• The health investigators knew that ICooks had on staff, a person qualified at the same level as the auditors used in the industry. The skills and training exceed that of a local Environmental Health Officer and having a person on staff at that level well exceeds any statutory or regulatory requirements for this type of business.

Oral evidence should have been fair and impartial from public service officers. Instead, it was biased in favour of a predetermined position. Any evidence that did not support their hypothesis was overlooked or deliberately manipulated to deflect that ICooks was targeted which when looking at the totality of the evidence they clearly were.

Alleged attempts by Environmental Health Officers to contaminate the factory are astounding given the breadth of video footage covering the Inspectors’ actions. Although they must be aware that they were under surveillance, as is every other person on the premises at ICooks, as part of their food security protocols, they chose to give evidence contrary to the vision.

And then there is the Slug. A nocturnal mollusc that is sensitive to chlorine (the floor cleaning product) swanning around the factory floor in a high traffic area forty-six meters away from the closest leafy vegetables identified initially by Inspectors as the access for the slug.

By the time the evidence was presented the route of the slug was changed to plastic bins a few meters away from the find.

The Variety of Slug was Limas Maximus. This Slug does not eat leafy vegetables; it only consumes rotting matter and is found in compost bins; it would not have come in with fresh produce; it had to have been brought in.

That it was planted was vehemently denied by bureaucrats. Still, there was equally strong evidence that the picture of the Slug used in the prosecution of ICooks had been photo-shopped to remove an incriminating piece of tissue. In that process the colour of the factory floor changed from grey to green.

Evidence that bureaucrats were observed altering the image of the slug photo was compelling from independent witnesses. However, the doctoring was explained away by an admission that they were editing body camera footage removing personal material.

That admission creates another problem. All the footage on a body camera is evidence, and any tampering is arguably Perverting the Course of Justice a serious criminal offence. A court order is required to remove anything from the recorded images.

The working hypothesis is that the targeting of ICooks was not motivated by health concerns but an attempt to remove the last competitor to the Local Government owned and run Community Chef, a company beset by financial woes.

ICooks was deliberately targeted by the Health Department and the City of Greater Dandenong. The evidence of this is overwhelming.

The sin of ICooks would appear to be being a commercial success when the competitor company, Community Chef, owned by the City of Greater Dandenong and fifteen other municipal councils, funded to the tune of millions with our money by the Councils and the Health Department, continued to fail even with preferred supplier status.

It is worthy of note that most commercial competition to Community Chef had been decimated with kitchens similar to ICooks supplying the same market closed putting many workers out of a job because of market manipulation by Community Chef, ICooks was the last impediment to total domination of the market.

Trumpeted at its inception as a GFC job building initiative, the net effect on employment was a substantial loss. Still, it moved the employment to Melbourne western suburbs, perhaps that was the plan all along.

In addition, ICooks had developed the world-leading technology that was patented to produce Texture Modified food. Technology that was valued in the millions of dollars and Community Chef were unable to replicate.

As a sole supplier and with this technology, Community Chef could charge what they wanted and reap millions in international technology sales.

This whole saga is about the money – greed the motivator.

The failure of the Community Chef experiment that had already cost taxpayers over $20m, cost Taxpayers a further $6m to bail out as it was closed and taken over by Western Health.

Why the Community Chef business was not placed on the open market to reduce taxpayers’ exposure is a question somebody must answer; that somebody is the current Health Minister.

This maneuver reeks of cover-up because the anomalies and any criminal behaviours would be exposed if Community Chef had been sold. By keeping the resource in-house allows for the cover-up to continue and be hidden within the giant Health Department bureaucracy and budgets.

When this whole saga is settled financially, the actual cost could well exceed $100m, and for what?

When all is said and done, apart from the rivers of gold flowing out of Community Chef this may also have been about servicing a few bureaucrats’ egos, and crime was not too high a price to pay to cover it up.

There must be people held to account, and perpetrators given lengthy jail terms not just as a penalty but to dissuade other bureaucrats from similar fraud on the taxpayer.

If this does not happen soon, a Royal Commission is the next step, and we are advised that the markers exist for that to happen. From what we know, there are some very embarrassing facts that will be exposed.

It was inserting in evidence before the inquiry by a former Health Minister Jenny Mikakos that a Royal Commission was warranted.

Evidence from Mikakos at a Royal Commission would be riveting.

Slug-Gate is a classic example of why we need the Community Advocacy Alliance’s recommended Recall Legislation, the communities’ weapon against government or bureaucratic corruption.

To register your further support for the Recall Petition, go to caainc.org.au and scroll down to the prompts.

OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF VICTORIA

by CAA | Sep 4, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

4th September 2021

The latest Covid infection figures are alarming.  However, while the temporary lockdown of some geographic areas may be required, we have seen the lockdown of rural areas that have never had a case of a Covid infection within more than one hundred kilometres, which is ludicrous.  Numerous areas in the Melbourne Metropolitan area are also in lockdown despite having no active cases.

More and more businesses will fail if lockdowns continue.  Unnecessary, draconian restrictions cause frustration, anger and a loss of respect for the Government, and, importantly, for police required to enforce these restrictions.  It will take many years for the Victoria Police to regain the respect it deserves that has been lost due to no fault of its own.

We have accurately predicted anti-social trends in the past. Currently, we are predicting that unless there is significant capitulation by the Government, civil disobedience on a scale never seen before will erupt. Already families are reconnecting despite the rules, using all sorts of clandestine techniques.

Did our leaders expect that the ingenuity of the populous could be suspended by fear indefinitely?  Experience from any form of detention throughout history shows that detainees will initially be compliant, but as their servitude extends, they dedicate more time to achieve any forms of noncompliance.

If you are prepared to look, the signs already exist. Road traffic has increased dramatically, and factory carparks are full, compared to earlier and previous lockdowns. The numbers of citizens walking the streets and parks without masks are growing. Talk within the community has shifted from frustration to palpable anger.

Government be warned, start releasing the community from purgatory now; take too long and social disobedience will spread more rapidly than the virus, leading to anarchy. And a real possibility you will be held to account for any outcomes of that nature.

The community that switched the gift of compliance on, will have no trouble turning it off. Once the gift is removed, the Government will never get it back.

The first step is to start lifting restraints on those who are double jabbed and pose minimal risk, something we are told is based on medical advice.

When that happens, the numbers of vaccinations will escalate dramatically.

Too many people are now suffering Mental Health issues, and the number of suicides exceeds the Covid death toll. Most disturbing is that the damage to our children may be permanent, socially, if not clinically.

It is time for a more balanced approach to Covid.

The response must always be proportionate to risk.

Policing-Service Delivery v Service Management

by CAA | Aug 29, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

30th August  2021

Two terms that are often confused.

Service Delivery is often referred to as an essential strategy of any enterprise. In many ways, it transcends most other corporate functions. It relates to the interaction between the service provider and the consumer of that service, a facet of all organisations, no matter their function, and is quantifiable, so success or otherwise can be monitored.

Service Management, however, refers to the whole of the organisation and how its function is targeted at delivering the service it produces. Resourcing, infrastructure, personnel, recruiting, training, management strategies, and policies form this function.

By its nature, it is introspective and global in the organisational sense. Its focus will tend to be influenced by efficiencies rather than consumer experiences or effectiveness.

Although at ‘first blush’ the difference seems subtle, Service Management is quite significantly different from Service Delivery which is very extrospective.

Service delivery is a component of business that defines the interaction between providers and clients where the provider offers a service, whether that be information or a task, and the client either finds value or loses value as a result.

‘Good service delivery provides clients with an increase in value.

We are encouraged that Victoria Police have identified that it needs to apply more resources to Service Delivery. That function is relatively new; early signs are that the function is weighted heavily to Service Management instead of Service Delivery, as the functional title infers.

In this symbiotic partnership, however, the Service Delivery function must prioritise above Service Management, and the best way to describe this relationship is by way of examples.

• Police Stations/complexes-

The telephone is an essential device to connect the Police to its community, a connection at the heart of good policing. In recent years the phone has been, in part, rendered redundant. It probably seemed sensible and saved valuable time absorbed in telephone reception functions. Service Management has spawned the development of the current practice of multi-choice options for callers. But when you apply Service Delivery, the following flaws become evident;

• Callers will not know which is the correct option for them.
• The call can bounce around an extensive complex sapping up resource time, frustrating the caller. When a connection is eventually found starts the interaction off negatively, a service delivery failure. Not to mention the resource waste in every bounce.
• One of the options never included is the Officer In Charge, option a trait within the organisation that separates those responsible; from the functionaries and outputs of the organisation.

VicPol is providing, in this case, non-service. Therefore, Vicpol’s responsibility to ensure the Service is appropriate from the perspective of those who are being served, not the organisation. That is a failing of Service Management.

• Police Headquarters

Believe it or not, but the main telephone administrative number for Victoria Police is no longer functional.

If you do not know who is responsible for your issue, your only option is the internet (if you have access), which leaves the public confused and not better off.

If you want to talk to somebody within headquarters or the Headquarters complex, good luck.

Recently a former executive member of VicPol wanted some very basic information and decided not to bother operational resources, 000, or 113444 with his simple request, so he tried to ring the Headquarters switchboard to find it no longer functions. After other futile attempts, he finished up speaking with a real person at Crime Stoppers.

His request was, what is the current title of what was called D24?

The answer given was, what is D24?

• 113444

A senior manager of the 113444 operations advised us that the issue of people not knowing where to ring was not the responsibility of VicPol; if they want our Service, they are obliged to make sure they are ringing the right place; really?

We do not blame that Officer but the culture of Service Management that has lost sight of Service Delivery, a culture that must be changed.

• Operational responses.

Did you know that if more than one person rings in to report an incident when the Operator asks whether you would like Police to follow up with you – it only takes one person to say no, and the ‘card’ is marked Police are not required to attend? And that is irrespective of what everybody else may request. So, if you have called the Police and said, ‘yes’ to see them, you may be waiting forever if somebody else says, ‘no’.

The card only has one option. Service Management again trumps Service Delivery.

By the way, do not expect a callback, either from the Operator or the police attending – there is no provision on the ‘Card’ for either. You can’t even get feedback on how; your card was marked.

For a service that relies heavily on community support to function correctly with near-daily requests for public help and demand for public compliance, it seems incongruous that the organisation with that essential reliance treats the public they want help from in the manner they do.

And this problem does not only beset VicPol. The mantle in this space is occupied by VicRoads who are operating at a level of Service Delivery that defies description it is that poor and illogical.

These operational approaches to Service Delivery are not the construct of VicPol but the product of misguided private corporations and the spawning of mammoth call centres (many offshore) as a supposed solution. It is easy to see how the management would be attracted to Service Management – internal efficiency at all costs.

Plenty of consultants will gladly fleece you and tell you how good you are for letting them ruin your organisation.

Poor quality Manager’s incapable of logical decision-making also feed this phenomenon. They are too frightened or cannot make a decision, so they get a consultant in to guide them. That’s called outsourcing management; why have that manager at all, is the efficiency question posed?

However, corporations are now on another path. They are moving towards ensuring customers or recipients of their service have easy access to face-to-face or real person contact experiences away from the previous trends that more often than not created false economies in resources and expenses.

They have realised that Service Delivery out trumps Service Management which regularly damages an organisation.

VicPol needs to be ahead of the game and make the move now.

Good service delivery is the cost of doing good business.

RESPONSE MUST ALWAYS BE PROPORTIONATE TO RISK.

by CAA | Aug 24, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

24th August 2021

The recent violent demonstration about Covid restrictions saw much vitriol aimed at police.  This was entirely misplaced.  The Government ought to have been the target of community frustration and anger, not the police.  Police are not an instrument of Government but an instrument of the people.  It is the people of Victoria who have elected this Government.  It is Parliament that makes the laws.  The police role is to enforce those laws made by Parliament, “Without fear or favour, malice or ill will.”  This police do to the best of their ability.  No one claims they always get it right.

If the general populace is so dissatisfied with their Government that they want change their remedy is at the ballot box.  The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) has vehemently argued that there needs to be a process to force a poorly performing Government to call an election.  We have a petition circulating calling for a recall petition process to be legislated.  Signing that petition may assist in this process being adopted. https://www.change.org/p/petition-to-the-legislative-council-of-victoria-give-democracy-back-to-the-people-with-recall-elections?

In the meantime, the CAA advocates that every legal means available should be utilised to make the Government accountable for the myriad of poor decisions they are making that are so frustrating to most of us.

While the temporary lockdown of some geographic areas may be required, we have seen the lockdown of rural areas that have never had a case of a Covid infection within more than one hundred kilometres.  This is nonsensical and has put many small businesses either out of business or teetering on the brink.

In the larger centres of the State, hundreds of small businesses have failed or will fail if lockdowns continue.  Unnecessary, draconian restrictions cause frustration, anger and a loss of respect for the Government, and, importantly, for police required to enforce these restrictions.  It will take many years for the Victoria Police to regain the respect it deserves and that has been lost due to no fault of its own.

The economic damage being caused by continual lockdowns will take generations to undo.  With rising numbers of those vaccinated it is time to remove many of the restrictions that are said to be based on scientific/medical advice that we, who are most affected, are never permitted to see or question.

Too many people are now suffering Mental health issues and the number of suicides is disturbing.

Closing playgrounds, golf courses and banning take-away food and drink, while supermarkets are open, is ludicrous.

It is time for a more balanced approach to Covid.

The response must always be proportionate to risk.

IBAC – Victoria’s Anti-Corruption Watchdog – Why is it failing?

by CAA | Aug 14, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

15th of August 2021

Extracts cited from the Annual Report of IBAC 2019-2020.

“Public trust is crucial for effective government and functioning of our public institutions. Preventing and exposing public sector corruption builds community confidence and trust in the Victorian public sector and builds confidence in the Victorian integrity system.

It is imperative that IBAC is visibly and practically independent from the government of the day, while being accountable to the Victorian community. IBAC has the powers of a standing Royal Commission. These are significant powers with serious obligations.

A strong anti-corruption agency must be independent, accountable and adequately resourced.”

Why is this not happening?  Why is IBAC failing to investigate the serious misconduct of public officials of which almost everyone in the State must be aware?

Why has IBAC not received additional resources as its workload increases?

Given the outcomes achieved shown in their Annual Report, the additional resources needed may not be a quantitative but a qualitative issue given IBAC’s apparent investigative skills?

Could it be that the Government is content to see an anti-corruption watchdog that has no teeth?

When the following matters are considered it is no wonder that the efficacy of IBAC is in question.

Red Shirt Rorts – The services of electoral office staff were misused, the minions on the ground were arrested and interrogated by police, the Government claimed they would fully cooperate with the police inquiry but did not. Police failed to arrest and interview a single politician involved.  Why?  The perpetrators of these frauds walked away scot-free.  It should be noted that when the Government was caught out a large sum of money was promptly repaid.  Evidence of guilt?

Cancelling the East-West Link claiming no compensation would be paid on legal advice that the contracts were invalid. It was true, it did not cost a cent, just $1.3billion. The so-called legal advice was never released.

Government chauffeurs used to ferry MP’s dogs. New political strategy evolves. Ignore any misstep by politicians and it will go away. The old news approach, later to be followed by the ‘I can’t remember’ strategy.

Travelling expenses rort – how two politicians can blatantly steal from the State by submitting false travel claims and then be let off by repaying the money in part- is one of the most egregious failures of accountability in Political history – if you or I did this we would be locked up. But as with the Chauffer affair, سكس the politicians were quietly moved out of politics to avoid embarrassing the government.

The ‘Coate Inquiry’. Supposedly designed to quell community disquiet about contracts for millions of dollars not being properly awarded and other matters.  Politicians and bureaucrats gave evidence to the Inquiry, notable for the number of, ‘I can’t remember,’ responses to limited questioning by Counsel Assisting.  The handpicked legal team that seemingly failed to test witnesses and certain phone records, documents and witnesses who should have had knowledge of events were not called to give evidence.

This Inquiry raises further questions.  The Inquiry was into the actions of Government Ministers and Senior Bureaucrats.  Who chose the Inquiry Head?  Who chose Counsel Assisting?  Why was the Government Solicitor’s Office used as instructing Solicitors?  While not suggesting any impropriety on the part of the lawyers involved, surely this process was totally unethical and corrupt.

I-Cook Foods is the latest scandal to surface with the obvious deliberate effort to destroy a legitimate small business and steal its technology. This scandal looks to be multiple Local Governments acting in concert with the State Government to destroy a small business by allegedly criminal activity.

How many of these cases involved corruption?  Very hard to know since IBAC apparently did not deem any of them worth investigating.

But they did find time to charge a highly decorated Policemen with telling his partner he was interviewed by IBAC. The State might be better served by IBAC readjusting their priorities to address what they are allegedly there for. Applying allegedly scarce resources to trivial matters hardly justifies demanding more.

The CAA submits that IBAC is failing dismally in its function and should be held accountable for this failure. Additionally, the Inspectorate responsible for oversighting IBAC must also accept responsibility for these failures.

We repeat the words from IBAC itself:

“It is imperative that IBAC is visibly and practically independent from the government of the day, while being accountable to the Victorian community. IBAC has the powers of a standing Royal Commission. These are significant powers with serious obligations.

A strong anti-corruption agency must be independent, accountable and adequately resourced.”

SLUG-GATE NEEDS RECALL

by CAA | Aug 5, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

6th of August 2021

How does Slug-Gate relate to Recall?

Your Rates and State taxes have been squandered on the alleged criminal endeavours perpetrated on ICook Foods, a long-standing family catering business in Dandenong South, by a conglomerate of Local Governments, sixteen of them.

ICooks were forced to close down due to a number of alleged criminal conspiratorial actions by bureaucrats putting over forty workers out of a job just because the bureaucrats wanted to have no competition to their business and to get their hands on technology owned by ICooks.

The story of Slug Gate centres on the establishment by the sixteen councils of a competing catering business called Community Chef established as a private company with a Board of Directors. We will be publishing more detail at caainc.org.au soon.

This was no ordinary business, established with Government grants and access to Government catering contracts with extraordinary life spans, without the nuisance of tendering, exempted from some taxes and fees usually attracted by these businesses, Community Chef was a dead cert to be a huge success, and a model governments could replicate in other industries.

The concept would be attractive to many who despise small businesses, particularly successful ones, and killing off the theory of free enterprise would be the ultimate ideological prize.

No small business and even some larger ones that contract to Government were at risk of similar treatment.

But it didn’t work out well for the architects. It was a disaster.

They didn’t account for Ian Cook in their criminal plans. The tenacity with which Ian has stood up to these bullies at huge personal cost has probably prevented many more businesses from being taken over by Councils.

After ten years of operation propped up by Government funding, the company, Community Chef, never achieved a profit in any of those years. It was an absolute basket case and was eventually sold back to the Government with its liabilities running into the many millions.

Why it took ten years for the Board of Directors to stop the million-dollar cash bleed is a question they will have to answer.

One councillor of one of the sixteen council owners was quoted as saying to the effect that the financial exposure of all councils is not yet known but selling the entity of Community Chef to the Government for $1.00 (with the multi-million-dollar debts) was still the best option, really?

Running the company properly and paying down debt would have been a better option.

That exposure he referrers to, we suspect, is a civil action by ICook Foods. Still, the exposure many public servants at State and local levels and employees of Community Chef do not comprehend yet is the consequence of their alleged behaviour, which is, without a shadow of a doubt, criminal, and very serious criminal offences at that.

Ironically it will be prophetic if many of them end up working in a jail kitchen.

As the Police investigation proceeds and they get a knock on their door at five in the morning greeted by a Detective, arrest warrant in hand, the penny may drop.

The offences these people are exposed to are all severe, with maximum penalties ranging from ten to twenty-five years jail time, and some may be exposed to multiple offences in that order.

That this type of abhorrent behaviour is allowed to happen is the responsibility of our elected officials who cannot be allowed to avoid accountability, the buck stops with them.

We the tax and ratepayers who fund this bureaucratic flight of fancy, have no power to force elected officials to take responsibility for this failure to manage our Government bureaucracies effectively.

That is where Recall comes in – even in this shameful artifice, a Recall instigated against the sixteen councils elected councillors and the responsible Government Ministers would send a strong message that we will not tolerate corrupt behaviours by governments, and elected officials must take responsibility.

We, the other victims of this bold artifice, which will eclipse in both the number of perpetrators and the ultimate cost to tax and ratepayers, the other most egregious abuse of power thus far, the Red Shirts corruption scandal.

It seems that our corruption watchdog IBAC is asleep at the wheel as it was with Red Shirts (notice any similarities?) but thankfully our new Chief Commissioner is up to it and we can at least thank VicPol for the action they are taking.

Would you please encourage your family, friends and partners to support this petition?

https://www.change.org/p/petition-to-the-legislative-council-of-victoria-give-democracy-back-to-the-people-with-recall-elections?

Donations when signing are entirely voluntary and is the last option on the change.org page.

If you wish to donate to change.org.au follow the prompts. If, however, you want to contribute to the CAA, go to caainc.org.au and follow the prompts.

TASK FORCES – SAVIOUR OR ALBATROSS

by CAA | Jul 25, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

25th June 2021

The use of Task Forces, or any other of the myriad of names given to Police investigation or operational teams, is another slow-burning issue of Police strategies arguably misused in times past; over time, they have created inertia of their own to the detriment of efficient and effective policing.

Dedicated units are an ‘easy get‘ for less competent managers. We have a problem; so, create a Task Force (or specialist group), problem solved. Some of these groups have continued for years.  Used in a wide range of serious crime targeting, they are a significant drain on operational resources impacting police capacity to respond to the broader policing function.

When Task Force’s become a fetish of management, this reduces the capacity of Police to respond more broadly and directly drives the need for more task Forces.

Not to be confused with Crime investigation Squads that target a particular crime category, Homicide, Drugs, Fraud etc., rather than solely focused on just one crime or criminal group.

This issue also raises yet another conundrum of whether it is more effective and efficient to have generalists rather than specialists in Policing.

It is an empirically established long-held policing philosophy that prevention is the most effective policing tool. Equally, as all crime has its origins in the community, effectively policing the community will reduce the frequency of all crimes, serious or otherwise.

The question here is not whether Police should, or should not, target significant criminals or crimes, but what and how resources should be applied. And how is the cost-benefit, in the dollar and social impact terms, applied to decision making and how continuous functions are measured and monitored?

We often hear that a serious criminal has been charged with multiple crimes and assets seized, and there is no doubt the community appreciates these outcomes. Still, the kicker is always that the investigation took two or three years to bring about the result. Which, of course, will take another two or three years to progress through the Legal System, so cumulatively, criminals can continue their unlawful activities for years, with Police in effect, acquiescing to the criminal endeavor to continue while they gather the evidence.

The community pays a sometimes-heavy price during this time of continued criminal activity as victims. Something often overlooked by Police in their quest, sometimes doggedly, to build successful prosecutions.

That is something the community (the victims) would no doubt have an opinion on.

In most cases, the community carries the risk to allow a successful Police outcome, which may not always be acceptable.

Task Forces can be very inefficient from the Policing perspective.  The drawdown of Police (usually the most competent) from the operational front line service the needs of a Task Force directly impacts the standard of policing at the community level and overall Policing effectiveness.

Successfully negotiating this and other vexed questions is not an easy task given the competing priorities faced by Police. Still, a solution would catapult Victoria Police to the forefront of leading Police services in this country.

An honest Police member who has served on a task force will tell you that although the concept of focusing exclusively on a target/s has advantages, it is incredibly inefficient as the downtime or inactivity for periods is boring and non-productive. Team members often create non-essential work to fill the allotted time.

We accept that downtime, to some extent, is unavoidable but needs to be better managed.

Rather than the Task Force model, the adequate staffing of Criminal Investigation Squads may well be the answer. A Squad can focus on a particular crime type and manage resources to achieve Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) in that crime category and prioritise multiple investigations targeting multiple suspects rather than focus on one suspect or just one crime. The broader approach ensures that resources of VicPol are more efficiently and strategically applied without reducing but improving effectiveness.

Individuals within a Squad or Crime Investigation Unit (CIU) can still focus on a particular target but perform other support functions in the Squad or unit. This model is currently replicated across the State in local Crime Investigation Units.

Skill sets of investigators are broadened, making it easier to up-skill and maintain effective management controls. Investigators can focus on more than one narrow field, maximising the efficient use of the resource.

The average Detective can deal with multiple issues and, in varying team scenarios working with one Detective on one case while working with another on a completely different case. Sometimes they hold the lead and others the support roles. Nevertheless, the fundamental skill of a Detective is the multitasking model, and we would argue that they are at least as good, if not more so than a Task Force or Squad Detective that is one dimensional.

The proviso is that they are properly resourced with support services as that is usually the only difference between a Local detective and a Task Force or Squad Detective.

With the advances in technology to follow the current model is not a good management practice.

The organisational aspect is but one part; the management is another.

The management of Task Forces, and their failings, was bought into sharp focus by the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants, the ‘Gobbo affair’.

Day after day, as many of us sat through the evidence, the one common thread we saw was repeated failures of management, particularly at the Executive level. The direct involvement of Senior Executives and the subsequent failures by them losing objectivity was laid bare.

They became embroiled in the detail, micro-management, instead of standing back and maintaining a global perspective. Task Force members became ensnared in inappropriate actions, which must be placed at the Executives’ feet who failed to perform their proper function. They were just too close to the action to see the failings. That assumes they have the skills to see them.

To emphasise the issue, there are many parallels in the current Government management failures in Victoria’s COVID response where the State Executive class has become totally involved in the function and failed to maintain objectivity.

Interestingly the Victorian Premier, in this case, after a hiatus of some months, recently returned to the job and early signs are that his views have become more pragmatic. He was forced to remove himself from detailed daily management and forced to adopt a global perspective. We can only hope that he has learned from the experience.

Now, and in just a couple of weeks, it appears evident that the Premier has returned to type, again losing objectivity which will inevitably create poor management outcomes. Furthermore, he is delving into micro-management the more severe affliction of this management malady and guaranteed to spawn failure.

It seems that leaders who suffer this affliction confuse leadership and management. We are yet to meet anybody who can do both effectively; it is not a dual interwoven function, but two distinct and separate ones.

These two examples amplify that if the executives get it wrong, the whole system fails. The unfortunate consequence is that the lower-ranking individuals in the organisation will wear blame and suffer consequences for the failure of executive management.

To illustrate the issue further, the actions of the executives in both the Gobbo debacle and the COVID response failures would be like the Chairman of a Board venturing onto the factory floor in an embarrassingly vain effort to help a forklift driver tighten wheel nuts on a forklift. If the executive had caused the company mechanic to intervene, it would have been discovered that the wheel nuts were reverse thread.

The purpose of these comments is to strengthen the argument for a solution.

There is, however, a solution that must be considered.

By adopting the Squad model, with very few exceptions, the management Teams responsible for the oversight of Task Forces will be reduced.

They, however, need to be replaced with an Independent Crime Audit team that can review the ongoing operations of a Squad or any remaining Task Force or any other like grouping anywhere in the organisation to ensure that they are meeting predetermined targets that continually measure the functions and outcomes.

A Crime Audit team must be outside the Crime and Operational departments and form part of the Chief Commissioners Office.

We have previously argued for establishing an Inspectorate within VicPol, which is where this function could lay.

An Audit Team would be essentially global in its function, and checks and balances would be needed to ensure the objectivity and impartiality of that team.

This work must be based on a careful Cost-Benefit Analysis where the fiscal impact is weighed against the social, resource, and legal impacts.

A successful audit team well-resourced with actuarial, research and legal expertise will ensure many members return to the coal face impacting all ranks. The Audit Team must also monitor that process to ensure it is not abused or manipulated.

There will be cries of anguish as some will see their comfortable existence and elitism under challenge by these proposals; however, the current model has not significantly impacted crime overall. Although there are specific successes, the global impact is somewhat opaque; they are less than optimum.

To allay any concerns that organised crime might flourish, the models in New South Wales and Queensland include a Crime Commission with substantially more coercive powers than the Police and much better equipped to deal with the high-end crime syndicates. As part of the reform in modernising crime-fighting in this State, serious consideration must be given to establishing a Crime Commission headed by a Judge on three-year rotations from a superior Court. Not some bureaucrat with a Law Degree given a Clayton’s legal title.

SERVICE DELIVERY – THE CENTREPIECE OF A GOOD ORGANISATION

by CAA | Jul 16, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

16th July 2021

Another of the very vexed issues confronting policing is the issue of police Service Delivery.

The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) has regularly received anecdotal reports of service delivery failure by police members.

We suspect some of the issues raised with us are because there is no mechanism that the public feels confident about bringing the matter to VicPol attention.

A couple of examples.

1. The proprietors of an Asian Grocery in a shopping strip were so frustrated with the amount of blatant stealing happening in their store they resorted to enlarging pictures to paste on the shop front and throughout the store showing perpetrators clearly identifiable in the act. A shaming strategy.

The store owners had become sick of contacting the Police, who never attended. The local Station Commander was notified, and he contacted the shop owners and advised them to ring his station. The owners tried, but found that extremely difficult and time-consuming as they had to wade through the myriad of options offered. They had no idea which would be the correct option to select. This was a small business with usually only the owner present, so hanging on a phone line for what seemed like an eternity was just too hard with legitimate customers queued up for Service.

2. A member of the CAA had to visit a police station. While waiting to be attended to, the person in front relayed a tale to the attending member on the not unsubstantial thefts that had occurred at his business perpetrated by an employee. The businessman was advised that those type of thefts are civil matters and was not a Police matter. No crime reports were taken.

At best, this was ignorance by the police member but more likely laziness and the knowledge that there would be no repercussions for his actions. Like in all matters involving behaviour, human or otherwise, unless there is a likelihood of a consequence for bad or non-compliant conduct, a correction is unlikely.

We have also received advice from a retired Chief Superintendent.

3. Travelling along a major thoroughfare at a slow pace because of traffic congestion, a vehicle charged out of a side street, turning left, sideswiping the ex-members car. The offending vehicle did not stop but took off at speed, weaving through traffic recklessly like a fleeing villain.

 Lo and behold, there just happened to be Div Van in the same traffic flow, and when the ex-member spoke to the members in the van, they claimed they didn’t see anything. Failing to even get out of the van, the members advised the ex to report it at the station as they were on their way to a burglary. The burglary was in the same area as where the offending vehicle had come.

The next day the ex, dutifully reported the incident at a Police station and handed over the number of the offending vehicle. The attending member made inquiries and advised the ex that the car that had sideswiped him was stolen. The attending member was clearly annoyed and did not attempt to justify the actions, or more precisely, the inaction of the van crew.

Any half-competent police member having only a moderate degree of situational awareness and experience should have suspected a link between the fleeing vehicle to the burglary. Of course, we have no way of knowing if it was, but most members would put a quid on it that it was the crooks.

Victoria Police has established a Service Delivery Command, and that is a very positive step; however, Service Delivery does not happen or is not measured at the command level but where the organisation interacts with the public, where the rubber hits the road.

There have been a number of corporate initiatives that seem to be of good value, but that is the wrong end to start to bring about change.

A couple of standout failures that, if rectified, would improve Service Delivery very quickly; the member’s attitude is one, but technology is the primary culprit.

Firstly, the telecommunications protocols set up of VicPol need a major overhaul.

We are strong advocates for the Police Advice Line (PAL), but unfortunately, the organisation saw this as a way to redirect all manner of issues away from the police stations.

Police stations got onto the wagon and designed answering services for calls offering a multitude of options to redirect callers within the Police Station. Always notably excluding the Officer in charge option.

The caller does not operate the station; the staff within it do, so all incoming calls must be answered by an assigned member, and they can redirect if necessary. In practice, this current approach has shades of the ‘send the fool further, and they will lose interest’ or alternatively ‘our work is too important to be answering phones‘.

The executive needs to make some calls to test the system. We suggest extending past Police Stations and try to ring somebody within the organisation using the police headquarters number. From a public’s perspective, a logical number in many circumstances. Provided the call is made during office hours and not during the one-hour daily shut down for lunch, they will find the operator unable to assist and, in our experience, exhibiting disinterest.

After hours, good luck. Not having an after-hours service is disgraceful in a State that now functions 24/7 and has done so for many years.

It may not be an issue for Police members; they have access to the police intranet to locate direct phone numbers. The public does not have a competent directory, online or otherwise. The online function at https://m.vic.gov.au/contactsandservices/directory/?ea0_lfz149_120.&organizationalUnit&6a9c1235-0bdc-401c-a080-dbbd19b5ac3c# only includes Command and refers only to the main switchboard. Bad luck if you want to talk to anybody else.

On the issue of a helpful directory, that is a matter that should be quickly resolved with accurate data with an online public directory.

The provision of mobile phones for members is another initiative strongly supported by the CAA; however, this has spawned a one-way communications system limiting effectiveness.  Caller ID numbers should not be blocked from Police phones; argued as a security issue, but the member can block any inappropriate caller at any time. Many members of the public will not answer calls with blocked IDs as marketing companies often use this to interact and harass customers.

Unfortunately, this problem was caused by Police operating in a Police bubble not understanding the community they serve.

Another technology, albatross, is demonstrated in most patrolling police vehicles. It is far too common to see the observer not observing but being a passenger, head down assumingly using an electronic device. This makes it look like Police are disinterested, not focused on the community they are supposed to service.

It is also not uncommon to see a parked Police car with both members, head down, engrossed in the issue at hand. We accept there has to be an element of this, but the overuse regularly observed is very concerning. Not only is the engrossed member not performing the observer role, but the Situational Awareness, or lack thereof, puts both members at substantial personal risk.

This behaviour must be curbed, whether their distraction is addressing correspondence, undertaking online training or focusing on tips from The Marketing Heaven for creating successful videos and keeping up with friends on social media. The use of headphones may help?

When addressing the Service Delivery issue, little progress will be made at the coal face while less than efficient members can take shortcuts and fail in delivering the police service with impunity, as is currently the case. It is not purely a supervision issue as Supervisors cannot be everywhere; this needs to be addressed culturally. Pressure from colleagues (concerned for their own safety) is the most effective way to solve this issue.

The Service delivery test is to identify if a member of the public experience’s dissatisfaction with the Police service and it be bought to the attention of the organisation in a measurable way.

Until that is achieved, all effort to fix the problem will be futile. A Police complaints or Service Delivery line is essential to identify where the weaknesses are occurring so that remedial action can be taken.

There is a long-held misconception, often trotted out as a quaint old-fashioned rationalisation, that has held policing back for decades. The belief that anybody that complains is ‘anti-police’.

We thought this nonsense was assigned to the Ark a long time ago, but behaviours today suggest the philosophy is alive and well.

A priority must be to establish a mechanism where members who fail can be held to account. Notations on their PDA would work.  It would not take long for the Service to achieve substantial improvements if a member knew that they might have to explain their actions and there are possible consequences for failure.

Good material in evaluating members for promotion or appointments.

THE COVID DISASTER -WHAT WENT WRONG?

by CAA | Jul 8, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

8th July 2021

The CAA avoids any party-political position, so we enter the COVID debate with the same values, fully realising many will view our comments through a party-political prism and try to align us accordingly.

The issue that most concerns us is the sheer incompetence displayed by Governments and the complete sidelining of experts that potentially cost over eight hundred (800) Victorians their lives.

Putting the COVID pandemic in perspective, the only event that surpassed the COVID deaths in the last one hundred (100) years was the polio epidemic in 1946. Over that period, numerous disasters of lesser magnitude (in lives lost) have been subjected to forensic scrutiny. Still, it appears the mere eight hundred (800) deaths attribute to COVID in Vitoria has not even seen the need for a Coronial Inquiry, let alone a Commission of Inquiry or a Royal Commission visit benzodiazepine addiction. The Coate inquiry was a non-event and did not count because of its restrictive terms and how it was conducted.

Victorians are entitled to know what went wrong, how and who was responsible and hold highly paid politicians and executives to account. We also need to understand what needs to be done to avoid future failures.

This article is not about the medical response because at the coal face that has been magnificent; our beef is with the bureaucrats and politicians.

The organisational response, or more correctly, the Disaster Management response, has been abysmal and poorly executed by people who have had no Disaster Management Training, much less understanding what efficient and capable disaster management might look like.

The whole function has been removed from the experts and taken over by the untrained politicians whose experience and knowledge of disaster management, if any, was most likely gleaned from media reports of disasters past.

The way the COIVID Disaster response was managed in Victoria will become infamous and used widely in training potential company directors in what not to do.

An analogy to describe the Victorian response would be a Company Board of Directors led by their Chairman moving on to the factory floor and making operational decisions on how things are to be done, and when challenged, claim they were just following advice.

The consequences could be horrendous, leading to exposure of workers and the public to a raft of risks too great to list here but including the company’s viability learn about the Detox center on their website.

The Board immediately loses objectivity and the ability to view the broader perspective and secondly their job, when the shareholders get to vote at the Company AGM .

We believe that the key decision-makers in the Victorian COVID response would not have known, or if they did know, chose to ignore a detailed plan that Disaster Management Victoria had prepared to manage any Pandemic, including an Upper Respiratory Pandemic.

This plan had been recently updated to deal with an Ebola Pandemic should that raise its head. If the plan was flawed, then replace the planners.

However, to understand how this State, and we would argue the country, got into such a mess has its origins in the early 2000s.

The disgraceful capitulation of the role of the Legislated State Emergency Coordinator by then Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon on Black Saturday, who swanned along with her social life while over one hundred and seventy (170) Victorians lost their lives, was one of the standout low points of public administration in recent history.

Nixon’s performance was Roman Emperor Nero-esque, without the fiddle.

This action’ cast the dye’ for many of the COVID failures that claimed over 800 Victorian lives. This connection to Nixon’s capitulation is neither remotely tenuous nor a long bow but explicit.

As with Nixon on Black Saturday, nobody is seemingly, or likely to be held to account for the COVID deaths, the highest loss of life in a disaster in Victoria in the last one hundred (100) years, second only to the polio pandemic of the mid-1940s that cost three thousand Australian lives.

Nixon created a massive problem for the Government of the day, what to do about her failure that bordered on criminal. In the end, they ashamedly did nothing. We suspect to avoid the wrath of the gender shield maidens who would twist facts to argue that the first female Chief Commissioner was being beset because of her gender rather than competency.

A change of Government followed, and the new Government were then saddled with the Nixon problem.

They then tried to find a solution to avoid a repetition of the Nixon disaster. They were placed under substantial pressure to remove Disaster Management from the Police and the Chief Commissioner. Much of that pressure predominantly and surprisingly came from Police

Rather than deal with the Nixon issue, the Government was cajoled into setting up a separate quango, Emergency Management Victoria, which replaced DISPLAN and effectively changed the structure of Emergency Management in this State.

The State Disaster Plan, DISPLAN, that was trashed, had clear lines of responsibility and management functions. DISPLAN was not broken. It was a casualty of just one person’s incompetence.

The COVID response was a monumental foul-up on so many levels under this new model.

With COVID, the politicians stepped in and took over from the ‘get-go’, far too prematurely and a serious error in our view, sidelining those that were supposed to know how to respond. Their next serious error was to give all the power to the Health Department bureaucrats for the overall management except for those ‘items’ cherry-picked by politicians who saw political opportunities.

The delegation to the Health Department as first and primary responders was right and proper. But the Government failed to understand the role of Disaster management and the role of the primary responders.

The Health Department should have been left with getting on with the emergency medical response, and Emergency Management Victoria should have handled the overall and ancillary matters as a coordinating body. Something they are trained and equipped to do.

Successful politics is built on opportunism, precisely the opposite of what is required in Disaster management, which must be measured, and pragmatic not influenced by extraneous pressures.

That is precisely why the wheels fell off, wrong people doing the wrong jobs. Given performances on accountability thus far, it is unlikely anybody will ‘remember’ who was given what and why. Remember the Coate inquiry?

Reflecting on the experiences in Victoria of the State’s COVID response and the subsequent death toll, the Emergency Management legislation makes for interesting reading with the following take-outs.

1. We have Emergency Management Victoria with two leaders, a Chief Executive Emergency Services Victoria, and we have the Emergency Management Commissioner. Still, nothing about who is responsible and accountable should things go pear-shaped. We do, however, have a plethora of committees to ensure no accountability.
2. We also have an Inspector General of Emergency Management who has a role with substantial powers to enable the provision of, amongst other things, assurances to the Government and the community of Emergency Management. That bureaucrat must be the phantom as they have never surfaced publicly to give us these assurances enshrined in the Act.
3. There are complex provisions for multiple committees at various levels, but nobody appointed to be responsible for the functions the committees are supposed to address. This approach provides the opportunity for so-called creeping assumptions throughout Emergency Management functions, the antithesis of good management.
4. A revelation that we have a State Crisis and Resilience Council of which the Secretary of Premier and Cabinet is chair (One of the plethora of committees) demonstrates just how high the level of the committee fetish has been allowed to evolve. We could confidently tip that this person’s knowledge of disaster management would be extremely limited to non-existent.

Heaven help us because these bureaucrats probably cannot.

5. Significantly the cornerstone of the dumped DISPLAN approach was the coordination of services; the coordination function, only mentioned once in the current Act, had the advantage of each function performed by an actual person, not a committee, fostering accountability and the capability for performance evaluations against the tasks required, to ensure the most competent were doing the job.
6. The new Emergency Service Commissioner can be removed for neglect, misconduct or being unfit to hold office; however, this provision does not apply to either the Chief Executive Officer, the Inspector General or the head of the State Resilience Council. They all are protected species against their failures. Remember, we are talking about Disasters where decisions can mean life or death. This work is so far out of the average bureaucrats’ skill sets as to make their input of little value. Most would find the scene of a motor car accident traumatic, let alone keeping a cool head in a disaster. That is why under DISPLAN, these functions were performed by Police. They are confronted with these issues daily, often at their personal peril, so their ability to deal with major disasters is well understood.
7. The way that the Act is worded allows Disaster Management Victoria to be directly usurped by the Government and all their planning bypassed. Under DISPLAN
8. and the independence of the Chief Commissioner as Emergency Disaster Coordinator, the Government could not so easily intervene in the Disaster response operations, avoiding the current shemozzle with too many cooks stirring the broth.

The move for a new quango Emergency Services Victoria (and the additional cost of many millions) to deal with the Nixon issue was the catalyst that led to the COVID debacle because the Emergency Managements Commissioner did not have the historical and legislative authority of the Chief Commissioner. If a Chief Commissioner is not up to the task, remove the Chief, don’t change a system that works.

It should also be noted that they have a similar approach to disaster management in New South Wales as the DISPLAN model. The NSW Commissioner is that State’s Disaster coordinator, and from this side of the border, NSW have done a lot of things right, and we wonder how much of that is down to an efficient State Disaster model.

The CAA calls on all members of Parliament to come together and ensure an independent judicial review of the response so far is commenced urgently and not be forced to wait until the Pandemic is declared over.

We have had enough of amnesia attacks occurring to witnesses under oath in other inquiries, so we need to act now to minimise that affliction.

There are 800 former Victorians whose lives had value, and it is the very least that can be done to respect their passing and ensure anybody responsible is held to account.

We have a mechanism stringently applied if just one death occurs on our roads to hold any person responsible to account, but at this stage, no accountability for 800 victims of COVID, a virus that escaped from a Government Quarantine facility.

Perhaps to some, those 800 do not have the value of a road fatality victim; to us, they do.

We call on the Government to immediately put together a team to review the Emergency Management Act and its application to move the management of State disasters to Police with the appropriate budget so we can return to having the resource of somewhere in the order of 3-400 trained Emergency Disaster Coordinators within Victoria Police as was the case under DISPLAN.

US POLICE DEFUNDING FALL OUT – VALUABLE LESSONS TO LEARN.

by CAA | Jul 1, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

1st of July 2021

Being rather parochial, we tend to favour homegrown solutions to guard against assaults on our way of life, our democratic principles. However, rather than cast a worldwide net to see if we can pinch an idea; thinking it through and developing a homegrown solution is always more effective.

It is more our faith in the ability of our community to logically and pragmatically deal with the problems that surface and an ability to cast aside the raucous views of minorities, progressive, reformists, liberationists, socialists and all the others hiding their communist ideals behind a veil of allegedly innocuous political ideologies.

It is interesting how some will lecture us on what we should do, think or say, but fail to keep their own house in order? Stones and Glasshouses spring to mind.

Hypocrisy is now endemic in the chattering classes of the elites and is so widely and regularly exercised as to become the norm and acceptable, at least to that cohort.

There is, however, growing evidence of pushback gaining traction.

Often referred to as the silent majority, the community are now finding their voice, and it would be a foolish community leader that ignored this trend, or worse, are in denial of it.

Recent activity on our petition, at https://www.change.org/p/petition-to-the-legislative-council-of-victoria-give-democracy-back-to-the-people-with-recall-elections?  is an example.

There is evidence that the political class is starting to listen because they realise to ignore the community sentiment, they do so at their peril.

We have many social issues that need to be addressed, none more pressing than in law and order, specifically Policing.

Contrary to my norms, an article by James Dudley[i], a thirty-two-year veteran of San Francisco Police, brought to my attention, certainly piqued my interest.

Dudley writes on the impact of the defunding push of Police Forces in the USA. He highlights the consequences and how ten (10) of the States that adopted that strategy have now reversed their position finding the consequences intolerable. Those States have now set about rebuilding their Police services, and that could take decades.

The most enlightening aspects identified by Dudley are,

• The act now, think later, approach to Policing by Politicians influenced by populist movements can have very dire consequences for the community, and ironically the causes that the populist movements promote.
• Political responses to minority disquiet can create a situation where a police force’s resources designed to deal with policing the whole community can focus too long on a social issue that takes Police away from their traditional role. This can cause greater long-term problems than those trying to be resolved. Failing to “keep smouldering problems from becoming raging firestorms”[ii] can be an extremely fraught strategy.
• Mental health, homelessness, alcohol and drug addictions and Domestic Violence (excluding the criminal aspects of these ills) are examples of tasks that have been lumped onto Policing and tasks for which they are not suited nor should be responsible.

On the last point, it has been too easy for those responsible to hive off their responsibilities to Police. Historically, there appears little push back from Police administrations, making Policing the dumping ground for problems by those who fail and who so readily abdicate their responsibilities. There is also a link to extremists promoting anarchy for ideological reasons. Hijacking what may be a legitimate community cause or concern and escalating it to achieve ideological goals completely unrelated to the original cause, is a strategy that is becoming far too common, and we must be alert to this behaviour.

Dudley provides sage advice within this article, and we should learn from the mistakes of others; however, the need for homegrown solutions remains an imperative.

Victoria is not at the stage of many American States that are now reaping the results of poor decisions, but we would be naive to believe ‘it won’t happen here’. Unfortunately, all the warning signs are already in place. We must be smart enough to recognise the signs and head the disaster off at the pass.

By quoting Gordon Graham, “Predictable is preventable,[iii] ” Dudley’s sagacity sums up why we need to take these issues seriously now and not wait for what would seem an inevitable outcome.

[i] https://www.police1.com/chiefs-sheriffs/articles/the-fallout-from-the-defund-movement-Llk9sMyCcpcrw34c/

[ii] https://www.police1.com/chiefs-sheriffs/articles/the-fallout-from-the-defund-movement-Llk9sMyCcpcrw34c/

[iii] https://www.police1.com/columnists/gordon-graham/

LEGALISE DRUGS? – be careful what you wish for

by CAA | May 17, 2021 | Library, Uncategorized

12th May 2021

The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) is forever amazed at the naivety of the proponents for the legalisation of illegal drugs as a solution to this epidemic, arguably responsible for more deaths than all other crime.

Unfurling the white flag of surrender is not the way.

Unfortunately, many proponents of Injecting Rooms and other strategies currently in vogue get influenced by the glib repetition, the spurious platitudes, and the cliches proffered as actuality. Sometimes, however, it is wise just to focus on the facts.

The first and most distressing fact is who will benefit from the strategies when most proposals do not benefit the people at the end of this despicable trade.

The vested interests of some proponents of certain arguments require scrutiny because the primary beneficiary of their argument is either themselves or the drug trade. Thus, many advocates should declare their vested interests before their views are given oxygen.

Let us talk about a few of them.

• Will legalisation work? Making it legal to get a hit will not work in any shape or form, as the addicts of drugs choose a way of life and are not forced into it.

Never believe, without independent confirmation, the stories that drug addicts present as justification They are consummate liars, their life is built on a lie.

Living on the edge in the drug scene can be a drug as addictive as the rubbish they consume.

• What of community backlash? There would be community outrage if illicit drugs were made available to all addicts, but what of young people using party drugs. It will be interesting to see how these drugs might be distributed, Chemist shops, Bottle shops, a Specialty drug stores perhaps? What will restrictions on availability be in place?

There will surely be the need for some rules, not’ open slather’.

Immediately somebody is outside those rules by age or whatever, they will revert to the illicit trade, and the whole exercise will change back to the mess we           have now.

• Will Legalisation dismantle the Drug tsars empires? If anybody thinks that the legalisation of drugs, even in part, will destroy the tsars and many of their ilk, you will have come from another planet.

They will not give up their ‘rivers of gold’ or power, so they will switch to other lucrative endeavours, like kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, and a raft of other             violent crimes.

Most significantly, all the victims of a drug crime will be the good citizens of the state and not those within the drug scene as most drug crime victims now                are.

• Kidnapping will become rampant. Inevitably and at substantial cost and inconvenience, Media celebrities, high-profile sportspeople, Politicians, Bureaucrats and Business leaders will all require 24/7 protection.

As drug legalisation takes effect, the risk factor of extortion and kidnapping to anybody with a high profile, perceived or actual, will rise exponentially.

The drug trade has developed sophisticated marketing strategies, most based on thuggery, and traditionally, Law enforcement and Governments have focused on the supply side of the equation. That activity should continue, but the demand side has not only been left unscathed but boosted by the infamous Drug shooting gallery strategy and moves to legalise illicit drugs.

The Solution

What to do with this societal contagion when everything that is done so far has failed?

We are coming out of the worst pandemic in modern history, and from that, we can learn a lot. And we have learned that Society has accepted that to protect itself from a contagion; Quarantine is an effective and acceptable strategy.

We could not imagine our Society tolerating the Quarantine of people in case they were carriers, just a few short years ago, but today it is well accepted.

Then why should we not learn from this and use Quarantine with a slightly different bent to address the ongoing pandemic of Illicit Drugs, targeting the demand side of the Marketing equation?

Reducing demand and the consequential disruption will hurt sectors of the drug trade. Some will move into alternative lucrative criminal endeavours, but that is not likely to be dramatic, causing turf wars over the alternate wealth sources for the tsar’s legalisation would indeed cause.

Attacking the demand side would create a slow burn which law enforcement might have a chance to keep up with, rather than a mass exodus to other crime that legalisation would cause.

Addressing the addiction of those trapped in its vice is undoubtedly the ‘holy grail’ that we all must search for.

Drug quarantine

Part 1 of the solution

Once anybody is suspected of being under the influence or adjudged by Police on reasonable grounds to have ingested illicit drugs, and a drug test on-site returns a positive, these people can be by Health Order immediately placed in Quarantine.

If ambulatory, they can be transported to Quarantine by Police, otherwise an Ambulance.

A place where they can be medically accessed and held on a Health Order for fourteen days while they are evaluated and their health adjusted before being released back into Society. Or to the legal system.

Taking drug-affected people away from Hospital Emergency Rooms must be one of the great positives of this strategy.

During this period, experts can work with the person to guide them to deal with any dependency or other health issues. They can access support if required and have them return to Society in a better condition than what they were, armed with how to escape their addiction and lifestyle.

Quarantine would be far more effective in this environment than applying diversionary strategies to desperate addicts arriving at an Injecting room and leaving as soon as they are safely on a high.

The focus of an addict or drug users on support alternatives in Quarantine would be absolute.

The facility will need to be as secure as any Quarantine facility with some added safeguards to avoid communication outside the facility and control any contraband intended for internal users.

The concept is to have strong security by a suitable agency and inside managed by Health professionals.

The key will be to ensure that persons in the facility are isolated and do not interact with others in Quarantine, leading to unintended consequences. The real advantage will be the addict will be focused on any clinician treating them.

If, however, a drug-affected person is a perpetrator of a serious crime. They can be referred to the facility and, on the expiration of the fourteen days, be transferred to the remand mechanism pending bail or otherwise.

It would be reasonable to presume they will be much better able to deal with any matters being as healthy as can be achieved in fourteen days.

There would be a number of positives cascading from this initiative.

• The significant and first impact will be on reducing drivers on our roads that use drugs and saving lives; this concept must apply to drivers. A driver detected positive sent to Quarantine would have a dramatic effect on the use of drugs behind the wheel. The effect will be almost immediate.
• Drug users, particularly in their early foray into the scene, will be discouraged from further involvement.
• The drug scene will be driven underground, a real positive, to keep it away from our kids. Anything that makes drugs more difficult to obtain is a positive, as necessary as being socially derided.
• Importantly the maintenance and access to quality data for research purposes would start to achieve data that can be relied upon as the depth and demographic associated with the problem becomes evident to allow targeted approaches.

Why will Quarantine work?

Will Quarantine move all away from drugs? Many will not, but the impact on their health and giving them a hiatus in their lifestyle might just have the desired effect on many. After fourteen days, they will have lost their position in the drug empire, so they will have to start again.

Disruption can sometimes be more effective than the current options and should never be underestimated as a counter to an illegal problem.

Removing trigger points for addicts over fourteen days would act as step one to recovery, and with the trigger points identified, it can be the start of a way out.

Rehabilitation

We accept the arguments for rehabilitation and the lack of the resources available to addicts; there does need to be an increase in these resources; however, pouring buckets of money into the rehabilitation of addicts will not solve the problem per se. The nirvana of a rehab center on every corner would add to the problem, not diminish it, the same impact as safe injecting rooms. They both play as a positive in the drug Marketing mix.

Our work came across allegations that a significant rehabilitation clinic in Melbourne allows patients to have communications, have visitors and roam out unescorted. We would argue that if these allegations are true and more widely spread, the rehabilitation processes of this state need urgent review as those activities only lead to poor outcomes for the addicts.

The consequences of no action  

The community is only too aware that community leaders’ efforts to manage the drug issue have failed abysmally. There are no forward-thinking strategies that we know of to overcome or, at the very least, a reduction in the problem.

More Safe Injecting Rooms means more addicts and growth to the drug industry.

Make no mistake, the explosion of Safe Injecting Rooms is seen as a pathway by some towards legalisation of Illicit drugs; it is merely step one.

We have to accept that while illicit drugs are a legal issue, the addiction is a health one, and the separation needs to be understood.

Incarceration within the Justice system only allows the addict to broaden their contact base. Given the innate ability of individuals to be innovative to satisfy human needs (including needs not listed in Maslow’s theory), we are not particularly confident that being in jail will necessarily mean no access to drugs.

While we strongly advocate the health aspect as essential to address, the criminal aspect must also be addressed.

Drug addicts do not commit a crime in some involuntary state, they may have strong urges to satisfy their addiction, but the offence is only the method to access the drugs. They are entirely cognisant that their actions are criminal. Often the crimes require planning, and that is not the actions of an addict in some involuntary state.

As we separate the health and the drug crimes, the courts must separate the addiction from the offence.

If a person commits a crime to service an addiction, the addiction should be irrelevant to any penalty. Deriving some benefit to penalty before the Courts because of an addiction to an illegal substance, is in our view, objectionable.

Part 2 of the solution

A Quarantine program is but one part of the strategy; the other is public awareness campaigns. The Quit campaign that altered community standards is a standout, but in this case, targeting the young to make drugs socially unacceptable in that cohort would be imperative. Take the ‘Cool‘ out of drugs.

Recent research suggests thirty lives per year, plus countless injuries involve drug-affected drivers.

The acting Police Minster Ben Carroll, referring to drugged drivers, was recently quoted as saying, “Any measure on our roads to save lives is worth taking”, and he is absolutely right. However, we need a new direction because what has been done to date has been a failure.

It is common knowledge amongst particularly young drivers that consuming alcohol and driving is too risky, but party drugs are undetectable (the integrity of this statement is questionable, in fact). So, they use drugs in lieu of alcohol with all the added risks—particularly the long-lasting effect of days, not hours.

The prospect of 14 days of Quarantine if a driver is detected with drugs would dramatically reduce the Drug Driver problem overnight.

It is time for a new approach, and Quarantine provides an attractive and effective deterrent and drug minimisation strategy.

LEGALISE DRUGS? – be careful what you wish for; you could rue the day.