From Shorts Media. I'm Ashlyn McGee. This is seven AM. The tasering of a ninety five year old grandmother, the double murder of a Surrey Hills couple, the Bruce Lherman defamation trial, and now the spike in domestic violence. These have been some of the biggest stories in Australia over the past twelve months, and all of them have drawn in this one very powerful woman, Karen Webb, the commissioner
of New South Wales Police. The veteran cops found herself at press conferences and interviews having to defend herself and the force to a national audience. Today, senior reporter for the Saturday Paper, Rick Morton on who Karen Webb really is and how she climbed her way through the viper's
nest of the New South Wales Police Force. It's Friday, May tenth, Rick, People all around the country would have been seeing a whole lot more of New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb than they're probably used to, So to start with, took me through the events that have thrust her into the spotlight.
I mean, I guess unless you're a seasoned cop watcher, the name Karen Webb really didn't mean anything to you, except for maybe a few grabs on the nightly news
during her first year as new South Wealth Commissioner. But I guess you can probably say that people started to feel a lot more of a almost exactly a year ago around this time in May last year, when the ninety five year old great grandmother, Claire Nolan was tased allegedly by New South Wales Police officer and she died a week later in hospital.
The elderly woman who was tasered by a New South Wales Police officer in the state Snowy Mountains region has died in hospital. The announcement came just hours after the officer who tasered her at her nursing home in Koma was charged.
Now Karen Webb, who's been in the job really just for a year at this point, found herself very early on defending not only obviously the conduct to the alleged conduct of her own offices, but also the early media release that was drafted by the New South Wales Police media team and the former spin doctor there, Liz Degan, and approved by the Deputy Commissioner David Hudson, which went out to journalists to indicate that something had gone on in Cuma at the nursing home there, but that release
made no mention whatsoever or the fact that a taser police tayser had been deployed, and it made no mention of the fact that an officer's employment was at that point currently under review.
Like start by saying that we all care for and share the concerns for what happened to missus Nolland in.
Cuma, and later said that this was because Nolan's large extended family had not been informed of the manner in which she had been hospitalized and that police did not want that family learning of it from the media.
Well, firstly, there is a need, with immediate need, that the family were notified first, and that was respect for the family. They've got a big family that is dispersed around New South Wales and other places, and that took some time.
But of course senior officers had already attended the hospital where Claire Nolan was at that point, and later that week on a Saturday morning, Web again found herself right in the middle of the media spotlight during this investigation when she was asked whether she should watch the bodycam footage and webtold reporters that that may twenty press confidence. I don't really intend to know.
I've heard what's in the body worn and I don't see it necessary that I actually view it now.
And of course that made a lot of people very angry, because it seemed to them to suggest a commissioner who just didn't want to see for herself the cold, hard reality of what had happened. Her defenders say that she was actually just trying to project this kind of impartial confidence in the investigative process, and that if she had to make a decision, she didn't want that to have been I guess infected by any of you that she
might have formed by watching that footage. But really, this is the first moment that she burst onto the public consciousness as the commissioner for the country's largest and oldest police force.
Evening the bodies of Jessebaird and Luke Davies have finally been found a week after the couple disappeared from a Paddington home, and then.
Of course after that, she becomes embroiled in more national global stories, including the alleged double murder of a couple in Surrey Hills. Buyer serving police officer.
Why did it take you three days to front up over an alleged double murder involving one of your own.
Yeah, well, dep as you point out, there's been a very active investigation and it's only been today that we've located the bodies of Jesse and Luke.
Then a spin doctor becoming embroiled in the Bruce Lherman defamation.
Trial and breaking news, and the senior media advisor just hired by the New South Wales Police Force has lost the job before he even got started.
The appointment the former Channel.
Seven journalist Steve Jackson on an interim basis has been marred by controversy.
This fad of stabbing attacks in Sydney.
About three point thirty this afternoon, mail with the knife entered the Westfield shopping center at Bondi Junction.
And of course, the greatest ongoing rolling crisis in policing, which is the spike in domestic violence, including the alleged murder of Molly Tyhurst in New South Wales.
The Premier has ordered an urgent review of New South Wales bail laws following this week's murder of Forbes mother Molly Tyshurst. Her accused killer was freed by a court earlier this month, a decision made by a registrar who was standing in for a magistrate, all of.
Which happened in April.
In so many of these stories, Karen Webb's becomes such a public figure and she's really copped it from some sections of the media and the public. Why do you think that is Rick?
She just hasn't really played the game that so many of her predecessors have played, which is courting particularly the right wing conservative media. We're talking talkback radio station two GB, the Daily Telegraph, which is the major daily tabloid in Sydney. She hasn't really done that in the way that her predecessors Mick Fuller and Andrew Scippioni did. But there's also
no doubt that some of her woes have been self inflicted. Now, if you go back to the double murder of the Surrey Hills couple, which happened right on the eve of Mardi Gras, you've got all this tension between the police and the queer community, and you've got this horrific act of violence which is allegedly conducted by one of their
own officers. And Karen again comes under increasing media scrutiny about why she's remained quiet apparently so long into this investigation, and then comes out and is asked about all of this stuff on breakfast television, and she invokes the touring megapopstar Taylor Swift to say, you know, haters are going to hate.
There will always be haters like to hate. Isn't that what Taylor says? But I've got a job to do. As I said, it's a big job. This is just one of many jobs. We actually had seven excuse me, seven murders last week.
And of course it's just so tone deaf in the context to what has just happened.
I'm the commissioner, like I said, the haters are going to hate, and I've got the confidence of the minister and the Premier, and I've got a job to do. And really, as I said, the important thing this is really about these families and not just the families, the friends and the gay community.
And of course this then segues into another element of the criticism, which is that Karen Webb doesn't know how to handle the media and has therefore blamed her own spin doctors for letting her down. So Liz Deegan, who we mentioned help draft the Claire nol and Taser police media release. She's been sacked by Karen Webb and now there's a new advice of being brought in in the
process of being hired. He's basically signed the documents they're doing final checks in his name, Steve Jackson, and he's just about to start when he gets dragged in by a bitter former colleague, Taylor Orbach, who signs an affidavit several apidavids in the defamation proceedings involving Bruce Lehman and
Channel ten. All Back makes no secret of the fact that he hates Steve Jackson and has been background in media about Steve Jackson's appointment to the three hundred thousand dollars a year job in Karen Webb's office, and Steve
Jackson's position is then terminated. This is her fourth spin doctor since she became commissioner in early twenty twenty two, and now after Steve Jackson was terminated, she is onto her fifth chief media advisor in just two years, and that is just a temporary appointment.
Okay, So she clearly has a bit of a media problem. She doesn't have good relationships with her media advisors or journalists by the sound of it. But parking that for a moment, what kind of police commissioner is she?
So this is where things get really interesting. That's the oldest police force in the country, as I mentioned, and she is the first woman commissioner in its one hundred and sixty year history. And there is this still after all these decades, this huge cultural and policy ship that needs to happen. And in saying all of that, she's kind of come into this position against two other blokes
who were vying for the top job. She's got it unexpectedly, and to rise through what many people call the kind of viper's nest of the internal politicking to get those top jobs is both an achievement and also a source of ongoing ammunition I guess for people who want to bring it down.
After the break, What does Karen Webbs rise through a viper's nest? Tell us about the kind of police officer she is? So rick this job of New South Wales Police commissioner. You've said that being in that seat can expose you to a bit of a viper's nest. Tell me more about why that's the reputation.
The job this is what I'm really interested about in this story. Like you know, there's really no one in politics who knows that better than Federal Green Senator and former New South Wales Upper House Member David Shubridge, who was actually involved in this series of ongoing inquiries into the newth Health Police Force, and he said to me, he said, some of the most unprincipled and aggressive internal politics that I've ever seen occurs in the upper reaches
of the New South Wales Police Force. The biggest example of this really, and it was kind of consumed so much of my early career when I was working in Sydney for mainstream newspapers, was the tussle for succession that happened when Andrew Scippioni was commissioner, and he was commissioner for ten years from two thousand and seven. Now he kind of had two popular choices for successor. His anointed successor was cat Burn, who at one time headed the
Internal Investigations Unit. She had a counter terrorism which is an important string in the bow of anyone who wants to lead the New Forth Health Police Force. But also she was going head to head it essentially with another Deputy Commissioner, Nick Caldas, and to say that there was bad blood between them doesn't really do it justice. They hated each other. The main source of anger between the two of them is two thousand Sydney Olympics. The city's
on show. Everyone's having the time of their lives, so I've been told I watched it at home in Queensland. But everyone was apparently very happy and the city was very proud of itself. But at that time, in September two thousand, there is a secret warrant drawn up. It's called the Bell Warrant to secretly tape bug and otherwise record covertly one hundred and twelve serving police officers and
two civilians by this kind of Operation Mascot. Now the team leader of Operation Mascot in the Internal Division of the New South Wales Police Force was cap Burnt. She was involved in authorizing this warrant. She had people more senior people above who were her bosses, but she was the team leader. One of the forty six people who were named on that one who should never have been on that warrant because there was no valid reason for them to have been on that warrant was Nick Kyldos.
Both of them became Jeoparty commissioners. Both of them have hated each other ever since. Cap Burne previously said that she had a reasonable suspicion that he was involved in corruption, which she admitted under parliamentary inquiries Deputy chaired by David Hubridge that that is now false and she accepts that that was a false suspicion, but she said that she
held it reasonably at the time. And Caldice of course says that cap burn used the secret power of that job to bring down her enemies and the enemies of her allies. He was cleared completely by that inquiry Deputy chaired by Schuebridge. His name should never have been on that warrant. The warrant was not validly held and it became this weeping saw within New Southwest Police that just never closed. Cawdice leaves the force very shortly after the
parliamentary inquiry. Cat Burne stays but doesn't get the top job. That goes to a guy called Fuller. So the two big contenders are just they're gone. And Mick Fuller reigned Supreme.
So that's quite a lot of drama for Mick Fuller getting to the top job. Is there as much drama to the story of Karen Webb getting to the top job.
Yeah, I mean, there was never not going to be right, So Mick Fuller. There are those who believe that Mick Fuller had his own favorites, as you tend to do when you're in those jobs. Now, Mick Fuller also apparently broke what is unwritten convention within the New South Wales Police is that if you know you're going, and he did. He'd announced his retirement by April twenty twenty two and
it was eventually brought forward. But he knew he was going, and in the twelve months before he left, he installed a bunch of people to very powerful positions. He elevated people to assistant and deputy commissioner levels across the force. Now that's a pretty big no no, because the idea is that you're meant to leave those positions for the next commissioner to shape the force they want. One of the people that he promoted was Mick Willing. And so
Mick Willing is this big figure. He's been groomed for the job, according to people who know him, and he was the only name out of the three candidates, including Karen Webb that actually went forward on the six person panel as the preferred candidate for the Commissioner of New
South Wales Police Now. Despite the panel's recommendation, the top job has always been a political appointment, and the New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrote, who was lobbied very hard to pick Willing, including apparently by the broadcaster Alan Jones. In one account that was given to me, Paraite wanted to go with someone different and he chose Web Now. Very soon after she was appointed, web tears up Mick
Willim's contract. It's a deputy commissioner still, she says, she phones him, and the version of the story I've heard from multiple people that she's phoned him to explain that he would no longer be employed by the force, that she didn't have to give him a reason, but that he's not part of the future. And his email was shut off about half an hour later, So you know, one of the main rivals of Karen Webb is effectively gone.
So's surprise pick. And there's some messiveness around how she gets into the top job, but almost everyone I spoke to agree that she's a generational change in the type of leader that New South Wales Police has had in
terms of her beliefs as a police officer. I think they're very important given the context that we've had this recent spate of violence, gendered violence against women, and she has from the very first day in the job, but also throughout her career, has made this one of her focuses.
She calls it the silent scourge of domestic violence, which now when she talks to people in her own force around the state, generally makes up about sixty percent of general duties policing across New South Wales, so it is the biggest thing they do and I do I do believe that she cares about it and that change can happen.
How quickly, how much, how soon, we don't know. And almost immediately after finishing writing this story, an officer in New South Wales was charged with stalking and intimidated offenses and illegally accessing information within the News of Police database, which just kind of goes to show that there is this ongoing problem and it lives everywhere, including within the force.
That came web now leads So Rick, whether the version that we're seeing playing out is sort of the I guess a fair representation of the type of police force she wants to be running or not. Put that to one side. There is no doubt that some sections of the community are really unhappy with New South Wales Police. Just how seriously do you think she has to take that? How seriously does New South Wales Police have to take that?
I think they have to take it very seriously, because I mean, you see this in examples around the world, but also in various studies and whatnot. Power just exerted for its own sake does not work, and so you can't just have a force that rules wide decree, right. You can't have cops just turn up and arrest people or lock them up because someone swore at them. And
that's what we see happening all the time. And I think someone Karen Web needs to take that very seriously because we are living in an extraordinary ear I think, where people are not inclined to trust institutions full stop, and certainly not ones with runs on the board when it comes to systemically or otherwise violating the rights of the people they're meant to be protecting. Thanks for your time, Rick,
Thank you, Ash appreciate it. Also in the news today, the federal government is facing criticism for its newly unveiled gas led transition plan, with some Labor backbenchers raising concern that Australia needs to be moving away from fossil fuels. Labour's future gas strategy includes initiatives to increase the extraction of gas and promotes controversial carbon capture and storage measures.
And the Northern Territory could be getting an AFL team within the next decade, according to a business case published by the AFL and the NT government. The report outlines aspirations for a Darwin City stadium where an NTAFL team would be based.
Seven Am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper.
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Our theme music is composed by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio and I'm Scott Mitchell, the editor of seven AM, will be back next week with the cost a look at the living crisis as we head into the federal budget