2024-08-15
This afternoon, Rod Roberts, former One Nation Party MP brought a Matter of Public Importance in the NSW Upper House of Parliament to launch an extraordinary criticism of NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb. While the allegations of misconduct levelled at Commissioner Webb are serious and concerning, they ignore the broader, ingrained culture of impunity and lack of effective accountability and integrity oversight of the New South Wales Police Force.
Key stats:
Questions on Notice to the Police Minister - 2019-24 internal police investigation stats broken down by Department/Area Command
Over 20,000 complaints since 2019-2020, of which around 7,000 were investigated
Certain police commands investigate as few as 25% of complaints made against their officers
Yet where investigations are undertaken, adverse findings are made more than half the time
From the LECC’s Analysis of complaints made by or on behalf of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people - an observations paper (June 2024)
Of 707 allegations triaged by the NSWPF, less than 10% were recommended for further investigation
Police declined to investigate almost 80% of allegations of excessive use of force
Police determined 117 complaints did not require notification of the oversight body, the oversight body disagreed in 73 cases
Greens MP Sue Higginson and spokesperson for justice said “We can’t lose sight of the real, documented, and ongoing harms arising from an entrenched culture of impunity at NSW police over a few bottles of gin,”
“The Commissioner must take responsibility for her failures, including her wrongful threats against pursuing whistleblowers, but we must not accept easy answers to the structural cultural problems of the New South Wales Police Force,”
“Police investigating police simply does not work - if it happens at all. Some local Police Commands investigate as few as 25% of complaints made against their officers, and police routinely fail to meet their statutory requirement to report complaints to the oversight body, the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (LECC),”
“Last year, NSW police blew more public money settling and losing misconduct matters than the entire operating budget of the LECC. This is of serious significance to the state and the Premier of NSW needs to answer to this”
“Is it any surprise there’s no faith in Police internal investigations? We wouldn’t need to prosecute this matter in Parliament if we had effective police accountability and integrity infrastructure in NSW, but we don’t,”
“The LECC does extraordinary work, but it is reactive, has limited resources and powers, and is routinely obstructed by the police executive, who would sooner drag the LECC through the courts than comply with their requests in investigations. A police force we can trust requires a watchdog with proactive powers and teeth,”
“But as it stands, members of the public and police must rely on journalists, members of parliament, and the courts to pursue justice when police do the wrong thing,” Ms Higginson said.