Hi, I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM. The AFP is in charge of investigating the country's most serious crimes, terrorism, corruption, drugs and human trafficking. But a new report from the Commonwealth Ombardsman has suggested that the thing it's not good at is investigating itself. It's found that the agency is dismissing complaints that should be investigated,
including allegations of corruption and assault. Today journalist Karen Middleton on allegations inside the AFP and what they tell us about the culture of the agency. It's Wednesday, July twenty three. So Karen, you've been looking into the report just released into internal complaints at the AFP. Tell me what you've uncovered.
Well, the Commonwealth Ombardsman is responsible for overseeing the operations of the AFP and the Ombardsman files a series of reports every year on aspects of those operations. One of those is about its handling of complaints against its own offices and staff. And we've just seen a report tabled by the Obodsman in the last week or so looking at that. Now, there's a bit of a lag in
these reports. They aren't published for a year or so beyond the period that they look at, so this report is really from twenty twenty three to twenty four, and there was a change to the way the AFP managed its complaints in the middle of twenty twenty three. It went from using regionally based bodies right around the country
to one centralized body. But what this report suggests is there's a pretty chronic overuse of the power of discretion that is given under law to the Commissioner of the AFP to you dismiss complaints without any further action or investigation. Now that power is a delegated power. He doesn't exercise it personally directly himself. It is exercised by that complaint's body. But the list of complaints that are being dismissed has
gone up pretty dramatically. If we look at the figures in that report, they show that in the year before that centralization occurred, just thirty two percent of complaints were being dismissed under this discretionary power. In the year after it began, the rate was eighty five percent. And the
Ombudsman is very concerned about that. The Ombudsman's report says they found that in nine of the eleven instances they reviewed the use of the discretionary power was unreasonable, unfair and failed to meet the requirements of the legislation.
Okay, can you tell me what kind of complaints we're talking about, what sort of alleged conduct.
Well, I think the most prominent of the examples it gives is allegations of the personal misuse of police vehicles. So there's not a lot of detail about exactly what happened, whether these were marked or unmarked police cars, but the
suggestion was that they had been used inappropriately. The obitsmen found that when the police were asked to explain this, its response was that even though the guidelines for using police vehicles were clear, it had discovered that officers didn't understand them and that the practice of using police vehicles
personally was widespread, so they took no further action. The Commonwealth Combitsmen's taken a very dim view of that and says that it needs to be referred to the National Anti Corruption Commission for examination as potential serious systemic corruption. The example of the police vehicles dated back to before the switchover in the complaints handling, and also before the Anti Corruption Commission, which we call the NAC had been created.
Prior to that, there was another body that was responsible for investigating police corruption allegation see Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity. But in this case it was found that it was referred to them. Initially they sent it back to the police and said, look, you look into this, let us know if you find any evidence of wrongdoing.
The police did uncover what the Ombardsman says could have actually been admissions and a number of other pieces of information that were potentially useful, but it was never referred formally and that really was why the Ombodsman has decided that it needs proper investigation and the police have agreed to do that, and they've also agreed to set up their own separate external inquiry into the whole complaints handling system.
They've appointed a law firm to run that. They consulted the Obardsmen in the course of setting that up and that should start by the end of the month.
So that particular case is going to the knack now that the Onwardsman has I suppose pointed it out in their report, But tell me more about other cases that they identified where the AFP hadn't fully pursued an investigation where perhaps the Onwardsmen thinks that they should.
Have found well. The Obousman found one allegation of sexual misconduct against AFP personnel who had been dealing with a person in custody. Now that was also dismissed without further investigation, on the basis that the body cam vision that the police were wearing didn't substantiate the allegation. But when the Obodsman's office reviewed the footage, they found but nineteen minutes of it was missing, and no record that either the people who were accused or the specific complainant had been
contacted for their version. And there was another complaint about an officer inappropriately using a firearm in the workplace. Now that was dismissed on the basis that the person had already been counseled. But the Onbardsman has found that this
didn't reflect the seriousness of the allegations. It didn't properly consider comments that were contained in the complaint that other personnel felt unsafe when this had happened, and there seemed to be no if it made to establish whether this was a service weapon, a real weapon, or a training weapon a replica. So there were a range of concerns the onbitsmen had and said that needed further examination.
After the break. Why the AFP is allowed to decide not to investigate itself, Karen. Central to all of this is the idea that serious allegations of misconduct, at times or at least in one case, potentially reaching the level of corruption, have been identified but then dismissed or not investigated further within the AFP. So can you tell me a bit about how that decision is made.
Yes, So, this legislation that governs the AFP's operations, it's the Australian Federal Police Act, and there's one section in that section forty TF that gives the Commissioner the discretion to take no further action on a complaint. Even though that is a power that is ultimately the commissioners, it's a delegated power. So it's the complaints handling body that really exercises that discretion and makes the decision on whether or not things should be further investigated. So that seems
to be where these problems are centered. The almostmen found that these sort of first pass assessments that the body was doing didn't always consider a whole lot of other available evidence, you know, other verifying information, what other sources there might be that they could pursue, witnesses or other records. Didn't always consider that any available evidence might be highly
credible even though it was limited. Didn't look at whether more investigation could be required to establish the basic facts before making a ruling, or whether the seriousness of the allegations just naturally necessitated taking more steps to inquire about them before making a determination.
Okay, so is the ombudsman critical then of either the Central Complaints Body or the leadership of the AFP.
Well, Interestingly, he notes that there has been an old quote a particularly high repeat of issues over the last six years, and that is actually the time that the AFP Commissioner Rees Kershaw has been in his job. He started there in twenty nineteen. Now, as I say, it's a delegated power, so it's not a power that he
personally has exercised. But the Home Affairs Minister, when I asked his office about that timeline, has backed in the commissioner and says Commissioner Kershaw is an impressive leader and enjoys my confidence. So he's certainly not raising any concerns about the Commissioner.
Personally okay, But all of this, what does it tell you about the culture within the AFP at the moment.
Well, I think the concern it raises is the risk that there's a perception of impunity among the police about complaints against themselves. And of course the police is a very important institution, but they depend very heavily on public trust, and the ombudsman is saying that this is now looking like a pattern of failing to completely investigate or even
do an initial examination of too many allegations. When I ask the AFP for specific responses to what the ombardsmen found, it points to the fact that it's setting up this independent review and it says that this is to ensure the police force quote maintains a mature and defensible complaint management system unquote, and it also insists that the internal mandatory reporting regimes that it has on professional standards, which include allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct, are robust.
So do you get the sense then that what the omwardsman has found is being taken seriously by the AFP.
Yes, they've accepted the majority of the recommendations the obodsmen made, but there are a handful that they've only partially agreed to. And what isn't clear from the report is which bits of those they've agreed to and which they haven't. So there are some caveats on what they're doing. But they have, as I say, said, they will send that allegation about police car' misuse to the Anti Corruption Commission, and they've undertaken to re examine some of the issues that the
Ombudsman recommends looking at. What they haven't fully committed to is re examining some of the cases where the Ombudsman says that things were classified too low in terms of the level of the complaint. Some of those the Obodsmen thinks should have been upper category, which would have warranted a different kind of investigation and would have had potentially more serious consequences, and the Ombodsman Ian Anderson was concerned that things were being kind of downgraded to dismiss them
more readily. Now the police have said they'll re examine their way they categorize these complaints, but they haven't yet committed to re examining and reinvestigating if necessary, some of those key complaints that the Obotsman.
Raised, And so Karen, it seems like the AFP is tasked with the job of investigating itself in a lot of these instances. So do you think that there is a question there about whether or not that is appropriate.
Well, the Ombudsman hasn't specifically suggested that somebody else should be doing the job, but I think the implication in the level of criticism in this report is that the AFP should certainly be doing the job better.
Well, Karen, thank you so much for your time today.
Thanks Ruby.
Also in the news today, Pauline Hanson has nominated Independent Senator David Pocock for the role of Senate President. Pocock declined the nomine nation, saying he was flattered and surprised, but focused on his role representing the ACT. Labour's Sue Lines was returned to the role after beating the Greens Penny Almond Pain fifty five twelve and new figures show an alarming increase in the number of women and girls
seeking homelessness support. Homelessness Australia research shows there's been an increase from twenty four thousand, five hundred and seventeen women and girls seeking help in May twenty twenty two up to almost thirty thousand in March of this year. The figures also show an increase in the number of females at risk of homelessness. Almost half of women and girls looking for support had experienced domestic and family violence. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks for listening.