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Latest OPI report littered with double standardsThe Office of Police Integrity tabled its latest report in Parliament today, ‘Report on investigation into Operation Clarendon’. The report raises questions about the Chief Commissioner’s judgment in linking herself with discredited former Australian Federal Police employee and police informer Mr Kerry Milte, yet makes no definitive findings or recommendations. It is obvious that the treatment of the Chief Commissioner in this report is infinitely more favourable than any other police member it has previously dealt with. The report, littered with double standards, confirms The Association’s long-held views that the OPI plays favourites. The report raises more questions than it purports to answer: § why wasn’t the Chief Commissioner coercively examined or the subject of a public hearing by the OPI over her links with a discredited police informer? § why was the Chief Commissioner afforded the luxury of examining and responding to a draft of the OPI’s report prior to its tabling in Parliament? § why, as one of the key people mentioned in this affair and the only remaining member of the Victoria Police Force, is the Chief Commissioner not listed by the OPI in its report as a ‘relevant person’? Another noteworthy (and rare) feature of today’s tabling of the OPI’s report was that it was not strategically leaked to any media organisation prior to its official release. How is it with the history of OPI leaks that this report has remained water tight? It is too coincidental to be a coincidence. We call on the Government to closely examine the inconsistent methods adopted by the OPI in their investigations, particularly in the manner it questions witnesses and communicates its findings.
Greg Davies Discipline/Legal Manager |
26 June
