Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / NT Police Association President Paul McCue says the NT Government needs to address leaked information about the Police Commissioner to provide certainty to members and the community

Transcript

NT Police Association President Paul McCue says the NT Government needs to address leaked information about the Police Commissioner to provide certainty to members and the community · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now we know that the Northern Territory Police Association is
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: calling on the Northern Territory Government to urgently and directly
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: address the ongoing media reports that the Northern Territory Police Commissioner,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Jamie Chalker APM, has been asked to resign from his position.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: The Northern Territory Police Association president said that it's frustrating
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and disappointing that the Chief Minister has refused to clarify
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: these reports and he joins me in the studio right now,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Good morning to you, Paul.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Good morning Katie.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Now, Paul, tell me have you ever seen anything like
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: this situation that we're dealing with right now?
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I don't think I've seen this sort of a situation
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: nationally yet alone here in the territory. So it's a
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: very awkward position the government have found themselves in now,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: and I think it's important, probably from the outset to
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: just remind people this is not unusual timing in terms
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: of the contract for the commissioner. So his contract was
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: due up later this year, so obviously negotiations or discussions
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: you will commence early this year around it. So the
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: time is not unusual. What is unusual is having a
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: situation where clearly some information has been leaked out into
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: the public domain, and we're now in a situation where
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the government needs to either confirm or deny such information
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: on behalf of our membership. You alone in the community.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, the Chief Minister and Cabinet decide in confidence
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: whether they do or do not have confidence in the commissioner.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: It seems that they've obviously, you know, the Cabinet has
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: obviously made this decision, it's come out into the public domain.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: But I just can't understand why the Chief Minister is
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: not prepared to be really upfront about this and just say, yeah,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: they've lost confidence in the police Commissioner or they've decided
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: not to renew his contract. Yeah.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Look, it's clearly an untenable position really what they've found
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: themselves in. So it is a commercial and confidence process normally.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It's now some information has been as I've said, made
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  Speaker 2: it leaked its way into the public domain. The impact
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: that has of course the Commissioner himself, but also the
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: entire membership of the Northern Territory Police Force is damaging
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: because ultimately, you know, they've been under the I guess
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: leadership of Jamie Chalker since late twenty nineteen, he's had
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: a clear direction for that police force. Some have agreed
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: with it and clearly some haven't. But the fact remains
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: he has had a direction and they've been asked to
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: work in conjunction with that. And now we find a
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: situation where it's probably unlikely he'll be back because you know,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: whether you like it or not, this situation is untenable now.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: The government and him are clearly at loggerheads and we
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: need to get it resolved.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Does that mean that we've now got a police force
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  Speaker 1: that's floundering. I mean, we know that our police are
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: incredibly professional. They're going to do their jobs regardless. I
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: mean we saw that even on the weekend this story
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: broke on Saturday. There was an enormous amount of crime
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: around the Northern Territory on the weekend and the police
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: were out there doing their jobs like they always do.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: But is it a difficult situation to not know who's
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: running the show or.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: What the go is.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I guess it's not unusually in terms of we have
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: acting commissions all the time. So Michael Murphy's of course
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: taken that seat for the time being and until this situation,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: of course, is resolved. That's not unusual. What is frustrating,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: You know, what really our members really care about, Katie,
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  Speaker 2: is turning up to work and having enough staff to
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  Speaker 2: do the job right. They are fed up with turning
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: up and simply not having enough boots to fill vehicles
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: to respond to the public's needs. They are fed up
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: with that. That affects them morale more than anything else.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Of Course, the leadership issue is important. They need to
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: have confidence their stability at the top of the police
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: senior executive right now. Of course, there's uncertainty around that
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: until this is resolved. But we will do what we've
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: always done and we will work with Michael Murphy for
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: the time being in the best interest of our membership.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Paul back in twenty twenty two last year, the eighteenth
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of the eighth was when a survey was conducted. Now,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: at the time, sixty five percent of the membership, well
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: basically there was one forty four members that had taken part.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Was sixty five percent is my understanding of the membership.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: It was the highest ever general survey return rate at
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that point. Seventy nine point seven percent of those respondents
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: at the time had said that they do not have
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: confidence in the Police Commissioner Jamie Chalker Like at the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: time you and I had discussed that, I'd ask the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: government at that time whether his position was tenable. They
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: kept saying that they had confidence in him. Do you
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  Speaker 1: find it a bit ironic now that the Chief Minister
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: is not prepared to actually say if she has confidence
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  Speaker 1: in the Police commissioner when those results back then showed
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  Speaker 1: that a large number of the force didn't and she
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: supported him.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Then yeah, look, I think not saying anything is saying everything,
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  Speaker 2: isn't it in this situation? So I think you know,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: we did do that survey last year. It was extremely
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: well received survey in terms of numbers, as you've pointed out,
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: over a thousand of our members that she's our largest
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: ever return. Did return a result for that survey, of course,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: eighty percent demonstrating at that point they had no confidence
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: in the commissioner. The top three reasons of course for
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  Speaker 2: that surrounded the und move critical incident, the perception around
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: double standards, so that was the senior police executive of
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  Speaker 2: course treated differently to the rank and file, and then
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  Speaker 2: of course the failure to stop the bleed, stop the
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: resignation rate of over ten percent here in the Northern Territory,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: which was which is horrendous and has not slowed down.
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  Speaker 2: So they are critical factors that haven't been resolved.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Clearly now they haven't been resolved.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I mean when you talk about the number of people
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: that are on leave, the number of police officers leaving
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: the force, that those attrition rates are incredibly high.
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  Speaker 3: I want to ask you though about the.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Number of police officers that are on leave, because we've
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: had this number of four hundred bandied around earlier in
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the week. The Chief Minister had said to this said
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: to us on this show a few weeks back, that
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: was in the hundreds. How many police officers you know,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: would you suspect that are on leave at any one time?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And is that a big reason why we don't have
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: enough vans on the roads and while we don't have
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: enough police officers, you know, manning the watch housers and
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think it's it's somewhat irresponsible to throw
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: out a number of three or four hundred people that
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: aren't coming to work without putting some context to that.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: So my understanding is there's around one hundred and twenty
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: officers that are unavailable at the moment. The remainder of
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: those that may be spoken about over and above that
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: are probably on their actual recreation leave, which they're actually
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: entitled to take. Every single officer here in the Northern
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Territory is entitaled to recreation leave. Now out of those
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: other one hundred and twenty, forty or fifty of those
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: are on workers' compensation. That means the job has injured them,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: and the remainder are waiting for other issues to be resolved.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: It could be discipline matters, it could be any number
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: of things, or they're just genuinely sick. So context is
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: very important when you're throwing numbers like that around.
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  Speaker 1: So have we got a situation where there is a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: large number of police officers who are on leave because
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: they don't have confidence the police commissioner, Because I guess
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: that's sort of been maybe part of the insinuation.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's the case. I think we're more
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: in a situation where there are constant and frustrating delays
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: in resolving discipline matters. We've got some members who are
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: waiting over one or two years for an appeal to
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: be heard. It becomes damaging to their health to be
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: waiting that long to get a matter resolved. So of
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  Speaker 2: course those people don't have confidence in the system around
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: discipline or appeals, more so than obviously the Commissioner.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Paul, it's a really tough situation right now. As I
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  Speaker 1: mentioned just a little while ago, we've got terrible rates
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: of crime. You know, We've got a situation on the
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: weekend where there's all those vehicles that were stolen in
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  Speaker 1: Alice Springs, people driving erratically around the town. We had
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a family that was carjacked in the early hours of
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning. We've also had we've also seen, if I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: remember correctly, officers surged to another remote community due to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: some of the issues that we're seeing out there. You know,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: from a normal person perspective, a lot of people feel
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: like the issues of crime at the moment are out
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: of control and they're actually in step I think with
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  Speaker 1: the Northern Territory Police where they don't feel like there
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: are enough police to be able to deal with these issues.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: How big an impact then, does this situation that we're
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: in right now with the Commissioner have to play.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I guess it's challenging because what police will keep doing,
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: what they're doing. The rank and file members will turn up,
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: they will respond to the community's needs as best they can.
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  Speaker 2: There's some incredibly dedicated people out there doing that. That
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: will not change. It will never change. What really has
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  Speaker 2: to be resolved, of course, is the direction of the
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: police force and the government's I guess the situation they
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: found themselves in because ultimately the direction of the police
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: force and the feeling amongst the rank and file is
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: driven from the top. The senior police executive are there
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: to support the rank and file do their job. If
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: that situation is I guess, as it is at the
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: moment questionable, that does have an impact on the membership.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: For sure. We're too from here, Paul.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Well, Ultimately, there's obviously some reasons the government don't want
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to talk about this any further. It's a frustrating position
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: to be in from our membership's point of view. Ultimately,
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: as I said, they will keep turning up and doing
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: the job they always will do on behalf of the community.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: But you know what we want to see is I
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  Speaker 2: guess the Chief Minister show some leadership on this issue.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: For one reason or another, these negotiations have made their
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: way into the public domain. That is not a position
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: you want to have unresolved for any lengthy period of time.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: It is not healthy for us all the community.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: No, it's really not. It's quite unbelievable.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I think, you know, I cannot believe that we're in
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a situation that we are right now where the Chief
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: Minister is refusing to say what is going on with
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: the police commissioner. It's really not sustainable in any way,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: shape or form. The public deserves better and so does
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the police force.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, one hundred percent. And obviously, as I said, I
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: want the public to be really sure our members are
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: turning up. They're doing enormous amounts of overtime. That operation
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: in Palmerston over the last couple of weeks has all
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: been done on overtime. These are people working additional hours
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: to make sure the community's safe. That's how dedicated they
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: are out there. So be assured that will not change.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Paul any update. Like when it comes to the numbers,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: where our police numbers are at and how many more
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: we actually need, Yeah, we obviously sitting around that one
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: than six hundred and fifty total sworn members for the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: police force.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: We know the constable ranks are our real issue here.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: They've only risen around forty odd in the last ten years.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: They are the boots on the ground that respond to
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: the crime, which has obviously increased far greater than that rate.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: So you know, we know the government committed to a review.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: It could happen now, it doesn't have to wait for
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: the next eight eight months. But you know, ultimately we
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: already know. You talk to the members on the ground,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: they don't have enough to do the job. Ninety seven
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: percent of our members told us that, so we know
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: that's the fact.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Well, Paul Mcue, President of the Northern Territory Police Association,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: we always appreciate your time. Thanks so much for having
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: a chat with us this morning.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Thanks Coatie.