More gross stupidity and disregard for justice from Australia's Federal police

And do they HATE admitting that they were wrong! It has to be forced upon them. They need a new boss at least -- plus wide-ranging remedial education in the rules of evidence. Latest on the best-known AFP bungle -- the Haneef case -- here. They were real Keystone Kops in that matter

Australian Federal Police agent Gerry Fletcher, a veteran investigator lauded for bringing down some of Australia's biggest organised crime gangs, was this week back on the job, working the phones. After a two-year fight against now-descredited allegations of corruption, the former narcotics strike-team chief was sitting alone, on the seventh floor of AFP offices in Sydney fielding tip-offs from the public.

Just three years ago, Detective Sergeant Fletcher, 54, was the pride of the AFP, awarded one of its highest honours - the Australia Day Medallion - for his "nationally and internationally" recognised work busting open drug syndicates. But it all turned horribly wrong in April 2005 when Fletcher answered his work phone and agreed to meet a mystery caller the next day at a cafe across the road from his Sydney office. His coffee companion was cocaine kingpin and then AFP target the now-dead Michael Hurley.

The 25-minute meeting, immediately reported by Fletcher to his superiors, led to the 30-year veteran's sacking in February 2006, which was overturned last June by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, but the reinstatement order was obeyed by the AFP only 10 days ago.

While Fletcher is not allowed to talk about his ordeal, his wife Jenny yesterday took the extraordinary step of going public about the "witch-hunt" her husband endured at the hands of Australia's top cops. "What was done to my husband was unconscionable and wrong," she told The Weekend Australian. "He deserves more than the dishonourable and disrespectful manner with which he has been treated by a very small minority within the hierarchy of the AFP. "He was suspended, reinstated and sacked without cause, being the finding of the AIRC, but maintained his loyalty to the AFP throughout."

With this week's announcement of the judicial inquiry into the Mohamed Haneef affair, Ms Fletcher called for a similarly independent review into the AFP's handling of her husband's case. "The disturbing parallels between Gerry and the Haneef case are striking - they tried to brick-in my husband like they did with Haneef," she said.

The Fletcher case is not the first time the AFP has drawn the ire of the AIRC, which in 2004 slammed its professional reporting and confidant network, under which agents can anonymously report on their colleagues but which has allegedly been abused to secretly smear reputations. AIRC deputy president Brian Lacy said the internal network of "clandestine informers" was dangerous, just as likely to contribute to corruption and unethical behaviour as eradicate it.

The system remains in place, albeit with some changes; not so the Federal Police Disciplinary Tribunal, which did not hear a case from 1999 until it was closed down in 2006. The tribunal - following attacks the top brass didn't want to air their dirty laundry in public - was meant to give natural justice to officers under investigation. Instead, they are forced to mount expensive litigation to defend themselves - an avenue that Fletcher was forced to take, to the tune of $60,000.

An old-style policeman, Fletcher was regarded as an investigator who spent time on the street rather than in front of a computer screen, building contacts and finding informants. In the words of former assistant commissioner Bob McDonald, who gave evidence on his behalf, Fletcher had a unique understanding of "who's who in the Sydney criminal underworld". But it was a style that occasionally brought him into conflict with his bosses. Within weeks of the meeting with Hurley, the crime boss was picked up on a listening device saying he had been tipped off to the operation into his activities. He then disappeared as police swooped.

Hurley was eventually caught, but died of cancer early last year before he could stand trial for masterminding a cocaine cartel that smuggled drugs into Australia through Sydney airport. AFP bosses suspected Fletcher was the source of the tip-off to Hurley. Fletcher told the AIRC that until he got to the coffee shop, he didn't know he was to meet Hurley, thinking instead it might be a retired policeman. When he realised it was Hurley, he immediately reported it to his superior.

Fletcher, suspended with pay, was eventually cleared by the NSW Crime Commission for the alleged leak. But it didn't stop there. As a result of the meeting, Fletcher was counselled and told he would be soon moved from his position with narcotics in Sydney. Later, he was accused of failing to uphold AFP standards and was in need of further counselling - which Fletcher rejected. He then went on the front foot with his bosses. He wrote back, saying that apart from Hurley he had never met with informants alone and remained committed to AFP policies and guidelines as to "human sources". The AFP didn't like it and said it no longer trusted the veteran policeman. He was then sacked.

Over the next two years, Fletcher fought for his career in various courts. Spectacularly, during the hearings, it was revealed that Hurley had spoken about his contact with Fletcher while under AFP interrogation. Hurley was asked what Fletcher's reputation was on the street. "100 per cent honest. I think he's locked everyone up you can talk about," he said.

Maybe it hurt Fletcher more than it helped. But for Jenny Fletcher, her husband's long record of arrests and commendations should have been enough. "He gave 30 years to the force and they treat him like this," she said. "Every man and woman in this country who has chosen a career in the AFP ought to have the peace of mind that that career will not be ripped out from under them 5, 10, 20 or 30 years on by personal agendas."

The AFP last night issued a statement saying Fletcher "has been fully reinstated at his substantive level into an operational area of the AFP".

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Bureaucratic bungledom

The tale below will sound familiar to anyone who has tried to get a large bureaucratic organization to fix something. Yet the Left want to saddle us with ever more bureaucracy! The only explanation which makes sense of such insanity is to say that their carefully-masked hatred of us all trumps the "compassion" that they claim

Last year I had a bizarre brush with the bureaucracy. I got locked in an argument with the taxman, and emerged with a fine for my trouble. Why? Because I had the temerity to tell him he wasn't charging me enough income tax. After I submitted my annual return he sent me an assessment saying I'd made an arithmetic error of $12,012 and enclosing a refund cheque for $3878. Phew. I'd been expecting a bill for $1948. But I knew it was too good to be true. I checked and confirmed there'd been no error in my arithmetic.

I could have let the taxman's mistake ride, but I had a feeling that, should it be discovered, the bureaucrats might find a way to blame it on me. In my position, I couldn't risk that. Or maybe it was just the pedant in me. Anyhow, I sat straight down and wrote to the taxman, explaining (wrongly, as it turned out) how I imagined the mix-up had occurred and asking for the $12,012 to be added back to my taxable income. Naturally, since the refunded money didn't belong to me, I didn't bank the cheque.

I heard nothing for almost three months. Then, on the very day I'd posted another letter reminding the taxman I'd had no response to the first one, I got a call from a woman in the Tax Office. From memory, she was in Brisbane. She called to tell me my letter made no sense and that the refund was correct. A furious argument ensued, with me insisting that, far from the taxman owing me money, I owed him.

I asked if she had my return in front of her. No, its content had been entered into the computer and it wasn't available. We argued back and forth until she asked if I'd claimed a $12,012 deduction for Australian film industry incentives. No, of course I hadn't. Ah. That $12,012 was the total of my supplementary income. Whoever punched my figures into the computer had mistakenly entered it one line down, the line for film industry deductions. So I win the argument and am complimented for my honesty. Leave it with me, I'll get it fixed.

I hear nothing for more than two months, when I get another phone call from another woman in the Tax Office. This one was in Parramatta (by now I'm keeping notes of conversations). She was just calling to say my letter made no sense and that the refund was correct. Another furious argument, but this time shorter as I produce my trump card: contrary to what you see before you, I made no claim for a film industry deduction. Another win. I explain that, since I knew I wasn't entitled to the refund, I hadn't banked the cheque. Oh. Then would I mind sending the cheque back to her? Really? Why? It's the Tax Office's cheque, so all you have to do is cancel it.

She was doubtful. Cheque cancelling wasn't done by her section. But she agreed to cancel it and issue a new assessment. At least she got on with it. Within a week I received an amended assessment giving me 26 days to pay $6028. Huh? Well, there's the $1948 I always owed them, plus the $3878 refund I wasn't entitled to, plus $202 as a "shortfall interest charge". The ungrateful blighters. They'd charged me interest for having the use of their money when I hadn't banked their cheque.

I fully intended to stand on my dig, paying the money I owed but refusing to repay a refund I hadn't actually received and certainly refusing to pay what amounted to a fine for being honest. But that would have required another carefully worded letter, and time got away from me. So I banked the cheque and waited (just to make sure they hadn't cancelled it after all), then paid up.

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Staff flee rotting hospital

ROYAL North Shore Hospital was in such decay that the floor of its medical records room collapsed and specialists were so demoralised they were fleeing to the private sector, leaving the public health system on the brink of breaking down, a senior doctor has told an inquiry.

The hospital's professor of medicine, Stephen Hunyor, told a public inquiry yesterday his cardiology department went a year without air-conditioning - which, he said, ruined experiments because of high temperatures - and staff complained for four years about poorly functioning toilets. "We've had bricks falling from the main building, we've had a floor collapse high up in the building where the medical records are being stored," he said.

Professor Hunyor, a cardiologist staff specialist who has been at Royal North Shore for 33 years, was giving evidence at the special commission of inquiry into acute care services in NSW public hospitals. He said doctors had "review fatigue" and the inquiry was the last chance to fix problems in the system before it was too late. "Your commission of inquiry is the last stop before some really bad outcomes," he said.

There was an atmosphere of "secrecy" over the $702 million Royal North Shore redevelopment, which would not have enough specialists anyway if the exodus was not stemmed before it was built in the next five years. "Morale is a crucial issue here at the moment and I think it's true to say many of the good specialists are fleeing to the private system," he said. "It's so easy now for these dispirited, demoralised specialists just to say it's all too hard and move to the private sector where they can earn substantially more money."

Executives at Royal North Shore did not last for more than 18 months, causing "administrative Alzheimer's", he said, describing the lack of corporate knowledge as "very dangerous".

Clinicians were constantly subjected to "mindless cost-cutting", while money was wasted on consultancies and plugging staff shortages for which bureaucrats remained unaccountable. "We see $30 million spent on locum people being flown, sometimes from New Zealand, to work in the emergency department for a weekend and being paid large sums," Professor Hunyor said. "We are very concerned that the doctors have no power, no influence in substantive decisions on the operation of their hospital and the medical system." He said specialists were expected to develop clinical services plans without knowing what facilities they would have at the new hospital.

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Detachment matters: Journalists are outsiders, not political players

WITH hindsight, we should have seen the warning signs when the ABC decided to call its Sunday morning political discussion program Insiders. As smart and witty as Barrie Cassidy's guests can be, insiders is a tag to which they should never aspire. Yet as former Liberal leader John Hewson argued in The Australian Financial Review yesterday, sections of the media increasingly "see themselves as significant players" rather than mere observers of the game of politics. In the run-up to the last election, Dr Hewson pointed out, a significant majority of journalists nailed their flags to the Rudd mast. This was evident in print, in the broadcast media and online. And it has important implications for the public, for the media and for politicians.

Commentary and opinion are important elements of the political discourse and enhance the democratic process. A detached and independent mindset, however, is always important, especially for those paid to scrutinise politicians.

Journalists need to guard against becoming too close to those they write about. Relying on a "drip feed" of press releases or strategic "leaks", at the expense of probing and independent analysis, demeans their profession and sells the public short. It can lead to a conflict of interest tempting journalists to turn a blind eye to the mistakes of those on whom they rely as sources. There are lessons to be learned from the US media's cosy relationahip with disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer. Like well-trained house dogs, much of the supposedly sophisticated New York media lapped up his crusader image, portraying him as a white knight. In their eagerness to flatter and build up what they had convinced themselves was the main story, they were apparently oblivious to the fact that he could be equally as flawed as those he pursued for white collar crime.

While Kevin Rudd and his close colleagues have much to gain from a pliable, starry-eyed media pack, they, too, should guard against becoming addicted to the none-too-subtle applause of the gallery. Tailoring political moves to keep the plaudits is a recipe for bad policy, especially when decisions that fly in the face of the majority of gallery opinion would be in the best interests of the nation. The interests and opinions of the journalists, who co-exist with them and their advisers in the bubble-like world of the parliamentary triangle, rarely reflect those of the majority of voters.

Dr Hewson's observations were timely, coming at the end of a week in which the Prime Minister played most of the media off a break over so-called teenage binge drinking and the Opposition was berated by a senior gallery figure for having the temertiy to ask questions in parliament. And in a soliloquy that rivalled Sir Robert Menzies's "I did but see her passing by" for pusilanimity, an experienced Canberra journalist who should have known better lauded Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard for "wit, charms and cheek" for her "word, gesture and gaze" and for a "compelling presence at the dispatch box" on issues from workplace relations to beauty parlours.

Many stories, by their nature, will inevitably favour one side of politics or the other. But balance and detachment are the keys. Politics, as Dr Hewson said, is played out across virtual 24-hour news cycles. This gives journalists even greater responsibility to keep a clear perspective and step outside their narrow world. Insiders, which plays a useful role in reviewing events from a broader perspective and canvassing different viewpoints, might be better entitled Outsiders. Because that is what journalists should be.

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