Toxic police culture in Victoria

Paul Dale twitched his broad shoulders nervously as he listened to himself lose his temper. "They're just f..king c...s trying to f..king ruin my life," the former detective yelled down the line to his mate Silvio Montesano. His fury was sparked by news that several police investigating Mr Dale's suspected involvement in an underworld double murder had just paid his friend a visit. "Mate, they've got absolutely no power in the world to f..kin' get you to make a statement," Mr Dale told Mr Montesano. "You have f..kin' done nothing wrong by knowing me."

These words, caught on a telephone intercept on July 3 last year and played back to Mr Dale in a public hearing this week, have returned to haunt the man suspected of involvement in the 2004 double murder that exposed corrupt links between Victoria Police and the underworld. Knowing Mr Dale has become a dangerous pastime, not just for criminals, but also for the detectives who worked with him.

This week, Mr Dale's most loyal mates inside the force - a small cabal of foul-mouthed, old-school, bully-boy coppers - were skewered by the state's police anti-corruption watchdog for putting mateship above the law.

For the Office of Police Integrity, it was the perfect sting. In April, they summonsed three serving policemen and Mr Dale to answer accusations ranging from leaking confidential information to interfering in a taskforce investigating the double murder for which Mr Dale is a prime suspect. Then this week, they called these same men back for a public hearing during which they played them telephone intercepts that in some cases directly contradicted their original evidence. The men sat stunned, squirming in their seats as they listened to their careers being shredded as the invited media took notes.

For the OPI it was a name and shame exercise, an ambitious attempt to expose a toxic culture in which serving police leak and exploit confidential information for their own ends. As former Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox said after the three-day hearing: "I am surprised and appalled at the looseness of the lips of so many people, particularly those involved in detective work in the police force."

But the hearing has also raised fresh questions about Mr Dale's suspected involvement in a crime seen as central to links between corrupt police and Melbourne's underworld. In May 2004, an intruder broke into the East Kew home of Terence and Christine Hodson, forced them on to their knees and pumped bullets into the back of their heads. They were murdered shortly after a police dossier was leaked to the underworld revealing them as police informants. As the OPI said this week, whoever leaked the dossier did so with the intent of provoking a murderous response. Mr Dale is a suspect because he had access to the dossier and a motive - Mr Hodson was about to testify against Mr Dale over his alleged involvement in a drug theft.

Mr Dale has denied leaking the dossier or being involved in the Hodson murders. But the OPI hearing this week revealed Mr Dale had been working to undermine the group of police, known as Taskforce Petra, who are investigating the murders and Mr Dale's suspected involvement. At a closed OPI hearing in April, Mr Dale denied he had interfered with witnesses and denied giving a warning to his friend, Mr Montesano, not to co-operate with police.

But Mr Dale was contradicted by a telephone intercept, played to the hearing this week in which he told his friend: "Do not co-operate in any way shape or form. I would be most disappointed if I ever see a statement with your name on it. Tell them to go and get f..ked." As a result, Mr Dale faces a possible jail term for misleading an OPI inquiry, which carries a one-year sentence. More serious perjury-related charges or charges of perverting the course of justice may also be recommended against him.

The OPI says Mr Dale was seeking to silence another potential witness when he told his friend, Detective Sergeant Dennis Linehan, to visit publican Mick Jesic to "give him a bit of free legal advice, if you know what I mean". Mr Dale said he only meant for Sergeant Linehan to assist the Serbian in understanding his legal rights. Sergeant Linehan has denied the event took place.

Telephone intercepts show Sergeant Linehan to be a loyal foot soldier for Mr Dale, with the OPI alleging that he interfered with Taskforce Petra to protect his longtime mate. In one intercept of July 23 last year, Sergeant Linehan is heard talking to Mr Dale about Taskforce Petra, saying he had "got a bit of an update for you which I'll give you when I see you". Mr Dale later told the hearing that Sergeant Linehan may have been talking about a camping holiday, prompting an exasperated Mr Wilcox to say, "Oh, come on."

The intercepts showed Sergeant Linehan, who was suspended this week, harboured a deep hatred of both the OPI and the police Ethical Standards Department, which he called "the filth". "F..k 'em. Hope they f..king die, the c...s. I hope they're f..king listening too. Every last one of the c...s dies."

This week's hearing is the second time in eight months that the OPI has alleged that serving officers have deliberately undermined an investigation into police links to gangland killings. However, the relief that comes from seeing this corrupt culture exposed is tempered with the realisation that it is also deeply ingrained.

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Teaching Kids about the Environment, Government Style

Interesting that the blue-eyed blonde is the villain in the graphic below. But putting the nuclear disarmament symbol on the chest of the Greenie is frank enough



University campuses receive a great deal of attention due to the political and cultural indoctrination and activism that some academics try to pass off as education.[1] However, government education bureaucrats are eager to ensure that their prescribed views are etched on the slate of the human mind at a much earlier age. For this reason, the most shameless political and cultural activism is often directed, under the guise of environmental and social education, at young children attending government primary schools.

In Australia, governments have adopted environmental education programs that teach children that human intrusion into nature is to be condemned and that man's life must be subordinated to the preservation of nature, by government force if necessary. Under this view, nature is not to be preserved for the benefit of man, but rather, it is to be preserved for its own sake against the encroachments of man. This is the philosophy of environmentalism, and the standard viewpoint of environmentalists, according to philosopher Michael Berliner:

Nature, they insist, has "intrinsic value," to be revered for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to man. As a consequence, man is to be prohibited from using nature for his own ends. Since nature supposedly has value and goodness in itself, any human action which changes the environment is necessarily branded as immoral. Environmentalists invoke this argument from intrinsic value not against lions that eat gazelles or beavers that fell trees; they invoke it only against man, only when man wants something. The environmentalists' concept of intrinsic value is nothing but the desire to destroy human values.[2]

Since explicit philosophical argument about the alleged intrinsic value of nature and the subordination of human values is too complicated for young children - and since explicit argument would demonstrate the environmentalist paradigm to be irrational - education bureaucrats instead adopt these principles implicitly as the normative basis for their environmental curriculum. This curriculum is not designed simply to teach facts about the environment - it is designed to alter behavior in ways that are acceptable to environmentalists and government bureaucrats. For example, according to a newsletter from the Cessnock City Council's Sustainability Programs Officer,

Changing any behaviour is difficult, which is why we try to instil the proper behaviours in our children from the very beginning. When it comes to the environment, knowledge on its own can be very disempowering. There has been lots of recent research on how to address the issue of "ecophobia" and in the school environmental education area you can't go past the work of David Sobel and B.B. Jensen. Sobel's work focuses on engaging the heart - learning to love the environment first then to protect it.[3]

Thus, rather than engaging the intellect of children to teach them basic facts about nature, education bureaucrats instead seek to "engage their hearts" - a process which is entirely antithetic to genuine education.

Planet Slayer - Government Funded and Approved

To get a taste of the approved "environmental education" activities of government bureaucrats, we can do little better than looking at a games website called "Planet Slayer," recommended for children under the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative adopted by various Australian governments.[4] This games website, hosted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and created with the assistance of Film Victoria (both government bodies), introduces itself as follows:

Get the dirt on greenhouse without the guilt trips. No lectures. No multinational-bashing (well, maybe a little . ). Just fun and games and the answers to all your enviro-dilemas [sic].[5]

To assist in their "fun and games" and answer all their alleged enviro-dilemmas, children are guided by the protagonist cartoon character, "Greena, the Worrier Princess." Greena is of course the archetypal image of bohemian environmentalist virtue - a spunky green-eyed red head with funky glasses and a nose ring, a khaki T-Shirt with a peace sign, green pants with eclectic colored patches, and sandals.

Greena invites children to use the website's Greenhouse Calculator[6] to "find out what age you should die at so you don't use more than your fair share of Earth's resources." This calculator helps children to determine how much of a "greenhouse pig" a person is by answering questions about how much the person spends and consumes. On the basis of these answers the calculator determines the person's CO2 consumption, which is depicted by making the cartoon "greenhouse pig" look bigger, fatter, dirtier and angrier. When the child has answered the questions they are instructed to click on a skull and cross-bones symbol to find out when the person should die, depicted by having the pig explode in a bloody cartoon mess leaving only a pool of blood and a curly tail. For example, according to the calculator, the consumption of an "average Aussie pig" is 24.6 tonnes of CO2 per year. At this level, the calculator states:

Based on the emissions from your greenhouse usage, you used up your share of the planet by the time you were 9.3 years old! . You should die at age 9.3.

Some trial-and-error calculations quickly show that most of the questions affect the outcome very little. However, the most significant factor affecting the calculation is the amount of money spent in the past year, with people who spend large amounts of money being condemned to an early death. Thankfully there is salvation for these high spenders, since the calculator allows a longer life to those who invest in "businesses or organisations that make environmentally responsible products."[7]

Aside from learning when they should die, children can also share in Greena's adventures as she battles against all sorts of politically incorrect villains. In Episode 10, which bears the subtitle "Meat Is Murder . But Who Is that Dodgy-Looking Sheep?" Greena sees a dim-witted skinhead eating lamb and drinking beer in a restaurant.[8] She consults her "Activist Tactical Field Guide," which tells her:

REMEMBER: Most meat eaters are total hypocrites. Try confronting them with a live version of their favourite meat.

Lumberjacks and skinhead meat eaters aside, Greena's real arch nemesis and the central villain of the website is a young woman called X-on (presumably a play on Exxon).[9] This insidious character is of course the exemplar of the materialistic bourgeoisie - a blue-eyed blonde in a pink shirt, short pink skirt, pink sunglasses and high heels, with a French poodle and a pink handbag.

In the "This is your Lifestyle" section children answer questions on what items they would choose to buy or consume. When asked whether they would buy their drinks in a plastic bottle, a glass bottle or an aluminum can, our hero Greena shouts "Forget the packaging, it's all cultural imperialism!" Forget the packaging? This statement is particularly revealing, since it demonstrates that the lesson that the website is designed to impart is not primarily environmental, but political.

In the "Planet Slayer" game, children can choose to help Greena save the planet by opposing logging, nuclear waste, war, consumerism, and other evils, and supporting such good things as composting, clean transport, solar power, and protesting. Whereas Greena is again depicted as the virtuous savior of the planet, her nemesis, the bourgeoisie X-on, tries to destroy the planet by supporting the various bad things mentioned in the website - she not only supports consumerism, as is obvious from her clothing and accessories, but apparently also supports nuclear waste and war! Of course, since war is not primarily an environmental issue, this is presumably included to show that hippy types like our protagonist Greena desire peace, whereas materialistic bourgeoisie types like X-on apparently enjoy war.

For those who suspect me of exaggeration in these explanations, I welcome them to have a look for themselves. You really can't make this stuff up (well, not unless you're being funded by the Australian government anyway).

What this tells us about government education bureaucrats

While the "Planet Slayer" website is a particularly galling piece of environmentalist propaganda, the dry rot of government education for young children goes far deeper than a single website. Rather, "Planet Slayer" is reflective of the standards and inclinations of the education bureaucrats who design educational policies and curricula for children.

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NSW Govt easing gun laws

The Greens have accused the New South Wales Government of courting the Shooters Party to help ease the passage of controversial legislation to ease the state's gun controls. The Bill, introduced to the Upper House by Shooters Party MP Roy Smith, would relax some safeguards and remove the 28-day waiting period for people with a registration waiting for a second gun.

Mr Smith says he expects State Government support, given the Bill has been drafted in consultation with the Police Ministry. "We drafted this legislation over a period of 12 months and we've had ongoing discussions with both the Police Ministry and NSW Firearms Registry," he said.

Greens MP Sylvia Hale says it is extraordinary that the ministry was involved. "That's amazing access," she said. "It indicates the Government is really keen to duchess the Shooters."

The Government allowed the introduction of the bill to be fast-tracked last Thursday. Ms Hale says that is suspicious treatment of the cross-benches. "This really does ring alarm bells. It suggests there's been some sort of conniving where the Government has agreed to let this Bill go through in return for some sort of deal," she said. "There are two deals at the moment. One is about electricity privatisation and the other would be the planning bills. I suspect it's the planning bills."

Police Minister David Campbell's office has confirmed talks were held between the ministry, the Premier's Department and the Shooters Party, but insists it in no way helped draft the Bill. A spokeswoman for Premier Morris Iemma says it is not unusual that the Shooters Party held talks with the ministry and the department. She says the Bill is yet to be considered by Cabinet and will have the same consideration as any bill proposed by the Greens

The legislation would also remove the need to register guns made before the 1900s and allow more people to apply for a self-loading or pump-action shotgun to use in clay target shooting competitions. Mr Smith says they are simple changes. "They are really just a tidying up of red tape," he said. "No-one's talking about returning semi-automatic military firearms to the community or anything like that." There would also be more exemptions for people without a licence to shoot at ranges.

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Paid maternity leave will 'cripple' small business

An industry-funded maternity leave scheme would cripple small and medium retailers, the Productivity Commission heard yesterday. The Australian Retailers Association said its members should not have to pay parental leave or be burdened by administrative costs of any compulsory scheme. "SME (small to medium enterprise) retailers simply can't afford it," the ARA's executive director, Richard Evans, said.

Larger chains would be more able to absorb the costs of paid parental leave, including administrative costs, but the 149,000 retailers with one or two businesses would find it difficult to afford, he said. "The compliance costs associated with an industry-wide maternity, paternity and parental leave scheme would be crippling for SME retailers and would seriously harm their economic viability and financial survival," he said. "We strongly dispute that such a scheme needs to be supported by employer contributions."

The ACTU and the Australian Institute of Family Studies yesterday endorsed a national scheme offering 14 weeks' minimum paid leave to all new mothers. ACTU senior industrial officer Cath Bowtell told commissioners all women would benefit from such a scheme, funded by the Federal Government at the minimum wage plus 9 per cent superannuation. The 14 weeks' pay -- plus existing paid maternity entitlements -- would then be topped up by employers to match the usual wage. Ms Bowtell said the cost to business would be minimal, though greater for those employing higher-paid women.

New research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies on mothers returning to work has found relatively little difference between those on paid and unpaid leave. "This should not be all that surprising, given that unpaid parental leave provides job protection and the paid leave that is available is generally for a relatively short period of time," it said.

The commission will release a draft report on national paid maternity leave in September, then hold more public hearings before its final report.

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