Service of Trust

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

” A SUSPECT IN MY YARD “

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.

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

Is this strike two-or-three for VicPol or have we lost count?

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.

Where the hell are you VicPol?

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.

A WEB OF CORPORATE RUBBISH

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.

UNCONSCIOUSLY INCOMPETENT……………

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.

Not COVID–19, –the other epidemic

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.

Our new Chief has some challenges.

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.

Auditable Police Mismanagement

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.

A novel idea – how about a Vicpol AUDIT ?

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.

Police look to outsource guns, cars, dining. Unions call plan ‘stupid’

by CAA | Mar 3, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized

3rd March 2020

Police look to outsource guns, cars, dining. Unions call plan ‘stupid’ –Melb. Age 3/03/20

The Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA) totally agree with the Police Unions description of this initiative as “Stupid”.

Many of these functions are currently carried out by unsworn Police employees, so it is not a matter of efficiency or to put more ‘boots’ on the ground, no this strategy is to abrogate responsibility, have somebody else to blame.

Additionally, VicPol has an atrocious record of engaging contractors that has cost millions, the booze buses and IT are just two, the tip of the corporate failures.

If there is a need to trim costs, there are millions upon millions of dollars expended on Police legal actions that are generally unsuccessful, some spectacularly so. And surprise surprise no executive of VicPol is held to account for this shocking waste of our money. Some of these matters must border on ‘Misconduct in Public Office’, a criminal offence.

One would think that VicPol would have worked out by now that the ‘him over there’s problem’, management style is seriously flawed and the root cause of many if the ills of VicPol.

These embarrassing ills have been regularly exposed through the Royal Commission and in the Bourke Street Inquest where it became obvious that with over 400 Commissioned Officers within VicPol, not one stood up to take charge. The incident effectively spanned two days, so no excuse for not having an opportunity, a disgrace by any subjective assessment that cost lives.

Did anybody else notice that those that should have stood up but didn’t, rapidly came out from under their desks to criticize the poor sods left to handle the incident without leadership?

If the omniscient bosses won’t take responsibility; why should we, the troops on the ground; a refrain gaining traction throughout the organisation.

But the CAA has a solution.

The responsibility proposed to be relinquished needs to be calculated in monetary value and that value deducted from the executive salaries.

It logically follows that the value of their contract should be adjusted on a pro-rata basis to the responsibility they will no longer have –  that will save a couple of million.

In all good conscience, (an attribute in short supply) we would expect the executives would support this innovation whereby they are paid what they are worth – totally equitable and fair don’t you think?

CHIEF COMMISSIONER SLAMS POLICE VETERAN VOLUNTEERS

by CAA | Feb 16, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized

17th February 2020

In a letter to the School Principals, blatantly designed to undermine the Police Veterans School volunteers. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton sets out a wide raft of mainly reactive claims that allegedly are applied somehow to schools.

The problem is, schools generally know nothing about it. It can only be described as spin.

School principals that have contacted us are either angry or confused because what Ashton claims to be happening, they never see. That is why they had embraced the Police Veterans In Schools Program (PVISP).

The PVISP attraction to Schools is that it is designed to serve their needs and can become integrated into the school community.

Chief Commissioner Ashton, if you had engaged with the CAA as we have continually invited you to do, you would know that;

• While some veterans have been out for years, many of our Veterans have retired recently.
• The PVISP is a curriculum-based initiative with well-developed Lesson Plans (Designed by a highly qualified educator); engagement would have allayed any concerns of what was proposed to be taught,
• With engagement, you would also have known that the PVISP is targeting Year 4 students, and we are yet to find a nine-year-old student that would comprehend the Police policies and practices that you are concerned about.
• You would also know that the schools we have spoken to have gone to considerable trouble to engage with the Local Police, but at best, receive very inadequate, spasmodic and ad hoc interactions of limited long-term benefit,
• In short, what you claim to provide doesn’t happen in any meaningful way, but if you had engaged with CAA, you would already know that.
• Every school has different issues, some ethnic-based and all are behavioural with the common thread of a lack of long term and planned engagement with positive role models, that is measurable, but by engaging with us, you would have that knowledge.
• You would also know that engaging with nine-year-olds in the year or so before they are first exposed to gangs might just be smart. A better option than chasing around trying to lock them up later. We would suggest the Community may have something to say on this, had you asked.

Above all else, by engaging with the community, you would have discovered that telling schools what they will have, rather than asking them what they need, is a flawed VicPol strategy.

Your Spin Mr Ashton does not square well with reality.

Your letter has also angered the Veteran volunteers who without any pre-determined agenda are prepared to give up their retirement time to help the young people of Victoria

That sort of commitment should be applauded, not undermined and disparaged as your instructions to Station Commanders imply.

Chief Commissioner Ashton, can we respectfully remind you that in four months you will be joining the ranks of the Veterans you now deride.

Perhaps you might consider giving up some of your retirement time to help the youth of our State by joining the PVISP program?

Managing Police informers like Gobbo & Allen

by CAA | Feb 9, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized

10th February 2020

A recent article in the Herald Sun on the life and crimes of Dennis Allen, aka Mr Death, makes very interesting reading.

We are not fans of glorifying the activities of a low life, the likes of Allen, but if accurate, it is illuminating. Of greatest interest to us, in light of the Royal Commission into the Police Management of Informers, are the similarities between the handling of Allen and Gobbo.

It is interesting that the handlers of Allen back then ran the strategy of assisting him with bail applications to remain at large and therefore indirectly being party to his crimes committed while on bail, which would seem to be prolific. We can be confident in speculating that there were other inducements for Allen to continue to inform on other criminals.

Allen would have been considered a valuable asset, and just like Gobbo, the informing became a part of his life. Indeed, they both relished being an informer. It was as addictive as any drug.

Trying to explain the mishandling of Allen and Gobbo, and there would be others, is difficult, as police would no doubt believe they are using the assets to serve the greater good, to solve major crime, but are they misguided?

Cultivating and using Police informers is a legitimate tool of policing with evidence of its use as far back as records of policing exist. The line is crossed when the Police consciously and deliberately allow an informer to continue or to participate in anything unlawful. As soon as the Police cross that line, the informer has the whip hand. The crook knows of the Police indiscretion and can use it as an empowering bargaining chip in the ongoing relationship.

It is worth visiting the Oath that each Police officer undertakes-

“…from this date, and until I am legally discharged, that I will see and cause Her Majesty’s peace to be kept and preserved, and that I will prevent to the best of my power all offences, and that while I continue to be a police officer I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties legally imposed on me faithfully and according to law.(Schedule2 of the Police Act)”

There are parallels to Informers and Police relationships, with a Lottery. The punter buys a ticket hoping for the Million Dollar prize, and when it doesn’t come they buy another next week, and so it goes on, week in week out, with tantalising small wins the addiction eventually escalating over time and even when they win a good prize it is never enough, the lure of an even greater prize hooks them in.

The problem for Police is when the Police management loses sight of their role and becomes as hooked as the Investigators, the management then becomes a real problem because they lose objectivity and start directing activities, getting dirt under their fingernails.

Failing to recognise a loss of objectivity is evident in the Gobbo matter and a damming indictment of the police executives’ lack of competence. The buck, however, stops with the Chief Commissioner and in this protracted affair, no less than four Chief Commissioners failed to resolve or wheel in this train wreck and each of them took a similar Oath to the other Police involved.

It is worth noting at this point that the Gobbo informing stretched over fourteen years and would possibly be continuing today had journalists with the support of their employer not relentlessly challenged the matter.

As for the Police subordinates involved in this fiasco, we have sympathy for many of them who found it impossible to extricate from the situation because to survive in the Police organisation they needed to acquiesce to the leaders who hold all the power, especially over their career, and who have unbelievably deep pockets (with taxpayers money) to take on any dissenters.

That sympathy does not extend to those that wantonly broke the law.

There are even suggestions that the Government may have known. With all the parties and authorities that were aware of the issue, it comes perilously close to a State-sanctioned activity.

We have argued that although the matters canvased at the Royal Commission are very serious, the most damming aspect of the evidence thus far is that the executives failed to consider and apply an exit strategy for the problem they knew they had created.

The distinct probability exists that they lacked the skill to deal with it. Amongst the pleather of executives involved in this debacle, only one identified the problem and tried to do something about it. The then Deputy Commissioner Sir Ken Jones who paid a heavy price for his attempt to address the problem.

The question is, how can this problem be addressed.

An attractive solution is to go for more supervision, more checks and balances and more input from the legal profession, but that strategy is fundamentally flawed because as we now know with the Gobbo matter, there were senior Law Officers involved as well as Supervision at the highest level of Police and even the Police watchdog was actively involved.

To fix the problem, it is necessary for two things to happen. Firstly, those particularly in executive roles, both Police and Law Officers must be made an example of, and the RC must ensure that every senior Police member and Law Officer who have had any direct or indirect association with the Gobbo matter must be identified to ensure they lose influence within their respective professions – the price to pay.

Secondly, the culture of VicPol must be addressed, and that solution is too complex to deal with in this piece, but it must be dealt with. The key to that is having the organisation lead by somebody of faultless integrity and a deep understanding of the policing function, a genuine Leader not tainted by the demise of the organisation.

TIME FOR DISCIPLINE IN SCHOOLS AND ELSEWHERE?

by CAA | Feb 5, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized

Equality can become an Albatross

by CAA | Jan 29, 2020 | Library, Uncategorized

30th January 2020

The Productivity Commission has released new data showing 32.9 Police staff are female, just 1.2% below the national average. We assume they refer to sworn Police members rather than the total staff of Victoria Police because that figure would then be different. Additionally, the number of females sexually harassed during their career is one in four.

Former Chief Commissioner Ken Lay even went as far as subcontracting out the management issues relating to sexual harassment of female members to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission  (VEOHRC) rather than address the problem, and to date that would seem to be another waste of time and resources.

A basic premise of management is you cannot subcontract out your responsibilities as Lay tried to do, it never works well.

The VEOHRC is finally concluding its work after seven years without a lot to show for the effort, as the problem allegedly is still there. We, therefore mark this effort down as a fail.

The major problem with this assessment of Victoria Police is the blurring of lines of the two objectives and too many executives trying to be more woke than everybody else. Female recruiting numbers and sexual harassment are two different things and unrelated. More or less female recruits will not impact on the harassment issue.

While we assume most sexual harassment is male on female, it is not exclusively, so broad-brush statistics carry little weight.

VicPol has lowered standards in an effort to attract more females, and this practice must stop. It is not only dangerous to the applicant but also demeaning to the applicant.

To employ a person who does not meet a physical standard required to perform a task is irresponsible of the employer and leaves open the prospect of litigation by a person employed when they are injured physically or mentally because they cannot adequately perform the function of policing.

Police management chasing some nebulous gender quota is not the fault of those who have been accepted at a lower standard unable to do the work.

The allegation that one in four females have been sexually harassed during their career is very concerning and a different issue altogether from gender quotas. Although we do caution that these raw figures do not provide comparative data from other organisations, all be it that any sexual harassment is unacceptable in a professional workplace.

It is very concerning that VicPol is only employing, promoting and retaining leaders who, “Demonstrate a commitment to gender equality”.

That should only be one of the criteria, and all these woke phases are of no value while the managers promoted are not accountable with measurable, meaningful management targets set against appropriate Key Performance Indicators.

A good manager will stamp out any harassment, but they need to be good in all aspects of their responsibilities to gain the respect of all staff and provide leadership by example. A manger hopeless at leadership but strong on harassment will not achieve anything other than chasing perpetrators identified responsible for sexual harassment, not preventing the problem in the first place, which should be the priority. Ask any victim whether they would have rathered prevention than an investigation post-event.

These issues are one of the symptoms of failed management practices.

To fix VicPol, they need to start at the top and address the behaviours of the senior executive who have been subject to rumour and allegations of impropriety over recent years. Good leaders are rarely subject to an adverse rumour.

The CAA fully supports the function and responsibility of VicPol to provide a workplace that respects all and deplores any activities that are unfairly negative towards any person within, or outside the organisation based on gender, ethnicity etc. Deliberate sexual harassment is particularly repugnant.

The weight of this research by the Productivity Commission on gender representation fails to acknowledge that we are dealing with people and not mathematical equations.

It may not have occurred to those responsible for this data that many women are just not attracted to Policing.

Irrespective what backroom bureaucrats may think, policing as a career involves the prospect of getting regularly abused, belted or shot at, dealing with deceased persons, attending horrific incidents, facing violent demonstrators, and frenetic victims and is something the bureaucrats would not have the first clue about. Working Night Shifts and working weekends, dealing daily with the dregs of society is not an appealing prospect for many females, and for that matter, some men.

The same phenomena that cause the gender imbalances in Policing are replicated in Teaching, Nursing and other caring professions, not to mention Politics, and for that matter, the vast majority of professions in the community.

Victoria Police is the largest in Australia has 32.4% female while as a percentage of the overall number it is 1.2% lower than the national average however actual numbers of female employees may show Victoria actually employs more females than every other Police force. It is time for the critics to get off VicPol’s case on this issue.

Next step will be a push for conscription to meet quotas because that is the only way the numbers to satisfy the critics will be achieved as evident in every other Police force in Australia.

Making an Albatross out of equality will have unintended consequences.