An investigation by the Office of Police Integrity into allegations that senior members of Victoria Police leaked confidential details of the murder in June 2003 of a male prostitute, Shane Chartres-Abbott, might be far from complete, but the fact that it has led (so far) to the resignations of an assistant commissioner and the head of the police media unit, have again raised suspicions that for all the past talk of reform by the Victorian Labor Government, the force remains one of Australia's most corrupt.
That is one reading, at any rate. The other is that the success of this investigation illustrates the Victorian Government and Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon are wining the battle to rid the force of corruption; and that former premier Steve Bracks was right to refuse to set up a royal commission into police corruption in 2004 despite criticism over his government's piecemeal measures and half-hearted responses to police corruption. Bracks also refused to countenance the establishment of an anti-corruption commission similar to those already operating (with some success) in NSW, Queensland and WA.
Bracks's successor, John Brumby, has been equally as adamant on why Victoria does not need a standing anti-corruption authority, saying the Office of Police Integrity has more than adequate powers to prevent, investigate or detect corruption involving police, public servants, unionists and politicians. Indeed, Brumby is on record as saying that six royal commissions and 13 inquiries into police corruption in Victoria over the past 150 years achieved nothing more substantial than the conviction of three individuals.
There are many who would dispute the view that royal commissions into police corruption are largely a waste of time including Brumby himself, when as opposition leader in 1997 he wrote to the Australian Civil Liberties Union backing the need for just such an investigation.
But, as is often the case when opposition parties are elected to government, Labor shied away from its prior commitment when there were fresh calls in 2004 for a royal commission into alleged police involvement in gangland killings, the murder of police informants, and corruption within the drug squad. Bracks refused to order an inquiry, opting to strengthen the powers and increase the budget of the state ombudsman to inquire into police corruption.
Nixon, however, took up the cause, arguing that police royal commissions were expensive, had a lasting and negative impact on morale, and (in the case of the NSW and WA royal commissions) resulted in very few convictions. Nixon instead talked up the Ethical Standards Department and other (internal) investigators as more effective and productive in ridding the force of corruption.
That the Office of Police Integrity investigation has found a detective implicated in the murder of Chartres-Abbott was tipped off as to an internal investigation, suggests corruption in the force may be more entrenched, and extend further up the chain of command, than either Nixon or the Government are prepared to admit. Certainly, the failure of the original corruption investigation illustrates the difficulty, some would say impossibility, of the police conducting its own investigations.
The sensible stipulation of Justice James Wood (who conducted the royal commission into police corruption in NSW in 1996) that no serving NSW police officer be appointed to the Police Integrity Commission was not copied in Victoria, where the office's 97 staff includes a number of seconded Victoria Police detectives.
If the office has achieved anything worthwhile, however, it is to reveal once again the extent of the influence that the Police Association wields in the affairs of the force, and the ruthless tactics it employs to protect its members. Association secretary Paul Mullett has been named in connection with the compromised corruption investigation and is due to give evidence to the inquiry today. The extent of Mullett's high-level links to police headquarters (revealed by secretly taped conversations) has also led to queries about his contacts within Government indeed, the state Opposition has called for more details about the circumstances of a deal negotiated between the Police Association and the Government before last November's election in which the union is believed to have won an undertaking it would be refunded for its legal costs in defending police officers under investigation by the office.
One of Brumby's first acts as Premier was to announce that the office would be split from the state ombudsman's department, so his claim the organisation is up to the task of rooting out corruption within the force is to be expected. But that is not a universal view. Earlier this year, retired Supreme Court judge Don Stewart claimed the office was failing to deal with the problem, and that only a royal commission could resolve the deep-seated corruption that continues to bedevil the force. Those words now appear more apposite than ever.