Australian police too afraid to get tough on criminals

They are NOT on the side of the public

We know what happened in Mumbai, and in Jakarta last month, can happen anywhere. Plots to blow up our sports stadiums, assassinate our prime minister and cause mayhem on a Mumbai scale have been uncovered in recent years. This week four men were arrested in Melbourne, accused of being part of a Somali Islamist plot to attack an Australian army base.

If anything, it highlights the importance of competent police and intelligence services. Yet, in an era when we are facing unprecedented threats, we have been steadily lowering our defences and nobbling the effectiveness of our police services.

After the latest terrorist raids, for instance, we heard from the Victorian Police chief, Simon Overland, who presides over a police force so incapable of protecting Indian students from being bashed that Melbourne crime has blown up into an international scandal. At a press conference about the raids, Overland was preoccupied with apologising to the Islamic community for having arrested Muslims, telling journalists: ‘‘Don’t blame the Muslim community.’’ As if they were. He declared the obvious – the accused men were entitled to the presumption of innocence – and attacked the media for reporting the raids.

Overland is the model of a modern Australian police commissioner, who has politically correct spin on the list of priorities, along with actual crime-fighting. No wonder, then, that the Victorian police are enthusiastic participants, with the Australian Multicultural Foundation, in the "Lexicon of Terrorism project" announced by the federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, last month.

Based on a similar "linguistic realignment" in Britain, this is an Orwellian attempt to change attitudes by excluding from official language certain words such as "war" or "jihad" when talking about terrorism. Phrases such as ‘‘Islamic extremists’’ and ‘‘Muslim terrorists’’ are reportedly suspect. Unfortunately, even if we are no longer permitted to mention them by name, Islamic terrorists continue to kill innocent "infidels" and Muslims alike.

But this is Australian policing now. Faced with a threat from A, our authorities feel compelled to defend A from what they imagine the populace is thinking, and from any police officers who might mistakenly believe their role is to protect the populace from A.

A case in point is the NSW Police Service in the 15 years since the Wood Royal Commission began its work, as summarised in the former detective Tim Priest’s new book, Enemies of the State, to be launched today (and to which I have contributed the foreword). Priest forensically attacks the commission, which he says employed dubious practices to "utterly destroy the morale of police", throwing out good police with bad, and allowed the Carr government to ‘‘wrest control of the police service … It’s been a basket case ever since".

As a result, organised crime in NSW has flourished, and policing has become weak, cowardly and selective, Priest argues. He cites the "recent outbreak of outlaw motorcycle gang violence and the emerging threat of Middle Eastern criminals".

NSW police are "almost ‘impotent’, too frightened to take on organised crime lest there might be corruption again". Priest targets the commission’s preoccupation with so-called "noble cause corruption", which in the commission’s final report includes: "unofficial or unauthorised practices such as putting suspected street drug dealers onto a train and banning them from an area". For Priest, who once served in Australia’s heroin capital, Cabramatta, "That is just good old-fashioned policing."

His most explosive chapters deal with a Kings Cross heroin dealer, KX15, who was about to be charged by NSW Police Task Force Bax but who became a protected witness and was given a "green light" to sell drugs 18 hours a day. Priest reports that 23 days after he became a witness, the commission discovered people were "dropping in the streets" because of the purity and strength of the heroin KX15 was supplying; 14 people died. When the commission got wind of the "hot heroin", it issued a warning but it didn’t stop the operation. No police were ever charged.

When the commission ended, Task Force Bax restarted its investigation of Kings Cross drug dealing, but as it began to examine those heroin overdose deaths Bax was raided by Internal Affairs. Bax’s commander, Geoff Wegg, and his officers were arrested and their careers destroyed. One officer was convicted of corruption unrelated to Bax. Charges against the rest were thrown out, and 10 years later, Wegg and colleagues won an apology and a settlement reported to be $10 million. In the end, "the public of NSW lost 32 experienced and dedicated detectives with over 500 years experience and dedicated service. You cannot replace that, ever".

Priest’s book is full of such tales of good police officers destroyed because they were on the wrong side of history, when we decided policing was about placating and appeasing the bad guys.

Original report here. (Via Australian Politics)



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