Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Katie spoke with Police Association President Paul McCue about the weekend's freedom rally protests

Transcript

Katie spoke with Police Association President Paul McCue about the weekend's freedom rally protests · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A bit early there.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: It is just eleven minutes away from ten o'clock. And
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: joining me live on the line is the Police Association
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: president Paul Mchue.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Good morning to you, Paul.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: Good morning Kay.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Now, Paul, obviously over the weekend, well, some pretty terrible
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: scenes I think you'd have to say that we saw
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: at that rally, and I know that the Northern Territory
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Police have charged seven people in relation to riotous behavior
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: is what they've called it in Darwen on the weekend.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: The vision on social media was pretty confronting.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: You can see police out a checkpoint, a large group
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: of protesters then attempt to break that police line, and
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: police say that protesters allegedly threw some kind of liquid
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: at them and a number of officers were injured.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Paul, what do you know so far?
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously, very disappointing scenes there over the weekend. And
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: obviously our police are out there to simply doing their job.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, they don't make the directions. They simply have
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: to go out and enforce, you know, what's required out
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: in the community from time to time. And we know
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: in terms of this particular rally, we know the Commissioner
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: made a recommendation for those individuals to postpone that rally
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: based on the restrictions that were in place. They ignored
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: that quite clearly, and very disappointingly, Katie, for the first time,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: clearly with intent, you know, armed themselves with either a
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: substance or some other form of weapon and with the
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: intent to harm those officers. And that's extremely disappointing, unforgivable,
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: that is very cowardly, and you know, those officers don't
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: deserve that, and they deserve the protection of the communities,
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: no doubt. I know.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: I've had some of the people who attended that rally
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: contact us here at the station this morning and say
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: that police shoes force and that they have tackled somebody
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: out of a wheelchair. Have you spoken to the police
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: this morning and what have they said to you?
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, look where you contacted some of those officers at
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: the scene over the weekend. And look, let's be quite
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: clear here, the rally took place when it shouldn't have.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Police are required to use force from time to time
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: if people are not following their direction. That's what they're
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: there to do, and that's what they're trained to do.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: So people shouldn't be surprised if police have to use force.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: There were seven people arrested aggravated assault, police writers behavior,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: failing to abide by a Chow direction. Some of that
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: behavior by those individuals was disgraceful. They should not have
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: been there. We all know that everyone, as I've said previously,
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: has a right to have a peaceful and lawful protest. Sadly,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: this time it turned violent, and right in the face
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: of that are hard working police officers who we represent.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: They're our members, and we absolutely support the comments of
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: the commissioner and condemn those actions. And very fortunately those
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: officers are making a recovery. But heaven forbid, could you
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: imagine Katie having a substance shown at you. It may
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: burn you, it may who knows what it was and
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: what that impact has on those officers in the line.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, the disappointing thing that I think is that
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: we keep hearing from from those who attend the rally
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: that they're doing things peacefully. I've seen several different versions
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: of that footage from the weekend, and nothing about it
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: looked peaceful in my opinion. I also, you know, they
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: keep saying that that they are not threatening or they're
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: not doing the wrong thing. Yet we keep receiving threatening
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: emails to us here at the station.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I know that we're not alone.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: So I think that if they want to sort of
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: run that line, then they've got to practice what they're preaching.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, quite clearly, you know. That's as we know, people
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: protest all the time. They do it in a peaceful
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: and lawful manner. But when it turns to violence, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: obviously police are directing you to do something, you ignore
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: that direction. They are required to then take certain action,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: and as we saw on the weekend, that resulted in
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: some of those people being arrested and sadly using violence
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: against police, which is never acceptable. And they're the ones
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: on the front line. They're the ones that have to
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: put up. We've been kicked and punched and spat out
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: all the time, and heaven forbid to have substances thrown
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: at them. It is them that are in harm's way,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: and people just need to do the right thing and
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: follow the directions of the police, as as simple as that, Paul.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: In terms of those injuries, were any seriously injured or
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: are they minus sort of injuries and is everybody recovering?
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I believe obviously they're doing some testing and
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: so forth. But obviously, like I said, when there's a
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: substance showing at you and you don't know what it
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: is and it does have an immediate impact in terms
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: of heat or burning sensation or whatever that may have been,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: that plays on your mind. So we were certainly monitoring
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: those officers involved. We know they were exceptionally prepared, as
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: they always are in terms of these events. But of
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: course when it turns violent like that, that that is
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: a really sad state of affairs for the Northern Territory,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: and we're monitoring those officers closely to make sure they
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: make a poor recovery, and I'm sure the police are
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: Paul, how is the mandate situation going from the Police's
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Association's perspective.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, obviously, the looming date is very near thirteth to
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: November is when the direction from the Commissioner flow on
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: from the chow direction is required for our members to
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: have their first vaccination. Of course, it naturally is causing
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: some concern from several members who obviously still have a
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: lot of questions that haven't been answered in terms of
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: what it means for them if they're in certain situations
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: where they can't get the vaccination by that date, there
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: are still a lot of questions to be asked. We're
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: obviously trying as quickly as we can to get those
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: answers for them, but of course, as we've seen into state,
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: it's inevitable. I would suspect that if you haven't had
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: that vaccination by that date, you'll either be faced on
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: leave or until such time as you can get those
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: answers or other action is taken. But we will continue
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: to help those individuals on a case by case basis.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Have you got any idea how many it's going to
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: impact how many people?
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: No, Look, it's very difficult to tell, to be honest.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I mean we've had, you know, obviously quite a few
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: people contact us. When I say quite a few, maybe
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: up to a dozen officers contact us. But of course
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: there are likely to be many others that are either
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: on leave at the moment, perhaps on attorney leave or
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: other forms of leave, and they'll also be wondering when
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: they come back what they need to be doing. So
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of people out there that this effects.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: But of course we do know there's a fairly high
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: uptake in terms of vaccinations for our members already as well.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Are you worried or are our police force worried come
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: the vaccine mandate sort of later this week?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Are they worried that we're going to see more.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Of the behavior that we saw over the course of
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: the weekend with the rally.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I suspect you know now that that behavior
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: did take place, I'm sure, and obviously up till then
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: there hadn't been that sort of behavior. Then no doubt
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: the planning for our officers will will include the likelihood
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: of that occurring, and we just certainly hope that doesn't
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: take place ever again. But of course we've seen it
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: in the jurisdiction bounce out, you know, where sadly those
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: have a protest have turned violent. It did here on
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: the weekend, and of course, no doubt the planning for
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: future protests will include that for sure.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Police Association President Paul Mchew, I always appreciate your time.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks very much for having a chat with us today.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: No, thanks, Katty, thank you.