Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not with any pleasure that I rise this evening but I do so on a matter of extreme importance, particularly in my home state of Victoria. It is said that one of the defining features of a civilised democracy is its ability not only to enact laws for good government and civil society but also to enforce them. An integral part of that is to have faith in an unblemished and uncorrupted police force that enforces these laws. In Victoria we are not immune. Many years ago, Victorians would make fun of the stories of corruption in New South Wales and Queensland. But what we have come to understand over the last few years is that Victoria is just the same, if not worse, because of recent denials.

We saw over 3½ years ago the state government and the police force dismissing links between organised crime, the gangland murders, which at that time were over 30, and the police force. But now we are told that this is not the case. We have the deputy commissioner saying:

I am happy to concede there is now evidence allegedly linking police corruption and organised crime killings.

And:

But the point is, we’ve found it, we will follow it.

It has been reported in the media for years, and the Victorian public has known it is there. Why has there been such gutlessness and spinelessness from a government that was elected to protect those very basic freedoms of Victorians and to ensure that the Victorian police force was not just hand in glove with corrupt organised criminal gangs?

The state government has consistently argued that there is no link between police corruption and organised crime, but people are not fools: if it smells like corruption, it is corruption. We are now told that it is not the case, which I suppose is welcome, belatedly—it is a far cry from the police top brass last week conceding for the first time that there was indeed a link. We have heard unsavoury details of corrupt police being involved in the cover-up of the death of a male prostitute in 2003 and other alleged killings. In Victoria, there is an Office of Police Integrity, which in effect is an organisation set up by police to investigate police. It is, quite simply, not good enough. You would struggle to find any objective Victorian who would say that this organisation will get to the bottom of this insidious sickness that has beset the Victorian police force. The new premier, Premier John Brumby—like his predecessor, Steve Bracks—refuses to contemplate a royal commission or anticorruption inquiry. What is he afraid of finding out? Why does he not let outsiders delve into this very serious issue?

Ironically, whilst the federal Labor opposition say they will now commission more than 90 new inquiries if they win government—and the Victorian Labor government has commissioned hundreds of inquiries to look into all sorts of things—Labor cannot bring themselves to commission an inquiry that will matter. They cannot bring themselves to commission an inquiry that will bring some benefit to Victoria and to good governance—that is, a royal commission to investigate one of the most important and pressing emergencies facing Victoria today.

I mentioned some years ago in an adjournment debate in this chamber that it is time to get to the bottom of this perversion that currently engulfs the Victorian police force. What confidence can Victorians have in their police force if they are held to account by some law-abiding police officer for some misdemeanour or another when they know that there is this endemic corrupt culture within the police force? What sort of confidence and cooperation do the Victorian government and the Victorian police force expect when people know—and they have known for years—that there are criminals dressed up as policemen in Victoria? (Time expired)