In a hugely embarrassing turn of events, Acting Chief Commissioner Rick Nugent has announced he will not be applying for the top job after being hand-picked and parachuted into the acting role.

As disappointed as many of us are in his decision, he may well have done Victoria Police and Victoria a considerable service, highlighting and shining a light on the role and failures of Victoria Police Command, forcing the State to take a new approach to selecting its senior executives because by any measure the current process is an abject failure as history shows.

Without major surgery on this selection process, it will be like the adage of ‘doing the same thing tomorrow and expecting a different result’: the definition of insanity.

To fully understand the failure of Police Command, we need to look no further than the Police Oath of Office that all Serving Police, irrespective of rank, must take and abide by, but as history has now shown us, this oath only applies to some within the organisation when it suits them and is breached with regular monotony when it doesn’t.

The VICTORIA POLICE ACT 2013 – Schedule 2— sets out the Police Oaths and affirmations and has four key points within that oath.

The Oath commits Police to perform their duties in a particular manner,

1. …without favour or affection, malice or ill-will,
2. …will see and cause the peace to be kept and preserved,
3. …will prevent to the best of my power all offences,
4. …will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, discharge all the duties legally imposed on me faithfully and according to law.

When applying these key points to the performance of Police Command over several years, the score is abysmal and indicates many examples of wanton disregard for this Oath.

We are not suggesting that all Police commanders have been tainted over the last two decades, but the buck stops with the Chief Commissioner and the Command team. They bear ultimate responsibility for the performance and activities of the organisation, but the litany of breaches from which there have been no repercussions against those responsible is staggering. Adding to the dearth of leadership, unbelievably, many police directly involved in these issues have since been promoted.

How can we have a Police Force where poor performance is rewarded?

The following list is accompanied by the number allocated to each part of the Oath above.

• A Chief Commissioner, as the then State Disaster Coordinator, having dinner with friends while Victoria burnt and Victorians were dying. A State disaster with the coordinator missing. Deserting her post in a crisis.(4),
• A Chief Commissioner accepting free flights from an airline. (4)
• The Gobbo affair. Multiple Chief Commissioners and others created, facilitated or turned a blind eye to this issue. No police were disciplined for their roles or failures, but some were promoted to high ranks.

The severity of the poor behaviour by Police, particularly senior members, was set out by the High Court.

[Ms Gobbo’s] actions in purporting to act as counsel for the Convicted Persons while covertly informing against them were fundamental and appalling breaches of [her] obligations as counsel to her clients and of [her] duties to the court. Likewise, Victoria Police were guilty of reprehensible conduct in knowingly encouraging [Ms Gobbo] to do as she did. They were involved in sanctioning atrocious breaches of the sworn duty of every police officer to discharge all duties imposed on them faithfully and according to law without favour or affection, malice or ill-will. As a result, the prosecution of each Convicted Person was corrupted in a manner that debased fundamental premises of the criminal justice system.

That nobody was held accountable for this debacle is part of the leadership problems in the force. How can subordinate members act professionally and ethically when they see their superiors not subject to the same rules usually applied? (1), (3), (4).

• Stealing from the State. Two Politicians committed fraud on the state by falsely and unlawfully claiming accommodation travel expenses but were not prosecuted for the theft. (1), (3), (4).
• The ubiquitous Red Shirts saga in 2019 failed to see any prosecutions after blatant interference in the electoral process. It should be noted that the Office of Police Integrity (OPI) decided not to prosecute, but the head of the OPI was later appointed as Chief Commissioner. (1),(2),(3),(4).
• COVID-19 saw the worst performance of Police senior management in the force’s history, only challenged by the Gobbo Affair.

Whether it was the refusal of the Police to provide supervision of the quarantine facilities, which claimed over 800 Victorian lives, or how the community was controlled, from handcuffing a Mum in front of her children for relatively innocuous online comments, accosting old ladies sitting on a park bench, using live ammunition on people demonstrating against harsh and unrealistic restrictions, and activating ‘tea bagging’ control strategies forcing demonstrators to crowd together was the opposite of the essential medical advice for the disease. The over-the-top responses did nothing to achieve objectives other than a perverted sense of authority as displayed by the Government. The argument that the Police only applied the government health order is ridiculous. A Government cannot force a member of the Police Force to breach their Oath of Office; however, throughout the pandemic, it regularly did, and the Force Senior management chose to play along with the Government and defy and ignore their Oath of Office. No disciplinary or criminal charge was laid against breaches by the Police. Albeit that senior command neglected to follow their Oath, all police involved each had a sworn duty and should have been able to exercise their right not to breach their Oath.(1),(2),(3),(4).

• A very Senior Officer accepting a free first-class trip to America from another Government Agency aggravated by yet another Senior Executive permitting the girlfriend of the Officer, employed by VicPol in a different department, to accompany him. The conference they were slated to attend had no relevance to their roles in VicPol. An all-expenses-paid junket. (4).
• A social media troll outed as a senior officer using a non-de-plume to distribute foul material on social media aimed at colleagues. (4).
• A Senior Officer castigating a junior member on social media. (4) also berating health volunteers in public (4) and instigating a Road Rage altercation in a school car park (4). It took so long and so many indiscretions before he was advised his contract would not be renewed. That no action was taken against this senior office was a disgrace and a poor reflection on the relevant Chief Commissioners (4).
• Slug-gate was another disgraceful episode in Victoria’s policing of this state. The ongoing issue started with an alleged slug being placed in a food factory by a municipal health inspector, which closed the facility and caused 44 employees to lose their jobs. This was significant because it came to light that the alleged relationship between the CEO of the local council and the local Area Commander was very close, breaching professional norms. Still, no investigation was ever carried out to determine if that relationship had conspired to damage the food factory, a competitor of a new factory set up by the Government, of which the local Council CEO was a director. The principal Police officer was promoted, a common thread of miscreants in the Force.(1), (3), (4).
• The mishandling of the ‘Bike Boy’ incident involving the wife of the former Premier showed again how the influence over the police operations was directed not by the sworn duty of Police but by some other imperative. Senior Police should have immediately become involved to ensure proper processes were followed. We are still waiting to see who will be promoted by this Police inaction.(1), (3), (4).

What does stand out in this list is the number of Police who were involved who were promoted in what has the look of quid pro quo? Protect the guilty, and you will be rewarded; by any measure, this is corruption. This seems to be part of the reason so many incompetent Police achieve exalted ranks. It’s not how good you are at your job but how good you are at protecting individuals in high Office.

There are other incidents, but what is common is that when browsing the list, the offences of Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice can be applied in nearly every case, as can Malfeasance or Misconduct in Public Office in every example, not to mention numerous disciplinary offences.

The picture painted shows the depth of criminality by senior police or, at best, the sheer incompetence of senior management in running the force. Inevitably, the applicants from VicPol will include some who have been tainted by the issue listed herein. Avoid, at all costs, ‘putting a fox in charge of the hen house’.

Poor selection processes and partisan political interference in the appointment processes have driven this.

To appoint somebody who has no direct knowledge of this particular Force and the players (knowing where the skeletons are hidden)  will flounder and fail no matter how well they’re credentialed. We can only hope that the previous poor performance of former Federal officers in executive roles in VicPol will not be repeated. Federal Police leadership has very limited, if any, experience in running a community-based force. Crime prevention, central to community-based Policing, is an anathema in Federal policing. No matter how good they are in the Federal sphere, to appoint one as Chief in Victoria will be another retrograde step.

Avoiding this advice will inevitably cause political pain no matter who is in power.

The options available to the Government in the short term are that the appointment is made via a partisan arrangement, and that should be very attractive as any failures in policing can’t be sheeted back to the government; they can still revel in Police successes.

The other option is a Police Board to oversee Police operations; it must be by partisan appointments to be effective.

The current government has some electoral difficulties and can ill afford another failure at the top of VicPol.

Repairing the Force is a massive undertaking, and the successful applicant will have their work cut out and need all the support that can be mustered. Hence, the attraction to a Board comprised of former police and civilians from a broad cross-section of the community is not dissimilar to the success of the Community Advocacy Alliance (CAA), which adopted this approach and has become a powerful voice of reason.

Many Former police are attracted to these roles as they are no longer impacted by the pressure of working politics in the police environment and all the pressure for promotion. They are still morally bound by the good ethics of Policing.