This week shocking pictures were published in The Age showing the aftermath of allegedly unchecked police brutality. There were reports of suspects being hog-tied, beaten, and one young man left with brain damage after officers slammed his head against a wall.
You’d think the state’s corruption agency would be having a look at cases like these. In fact, it investigates less than 1 per cent of these reports.
One of new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll’s first commitments is to bolster the powers of the state’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission. But there is a glaring omission in this plan. The new government has again ignored calls to also strengthen the commission’s police oversight role.
Many Victorians would be unaware that along with its job of rooting out political and bureaucratic corruption, IBAC is also supposed to be tasked with handling complaints about police criminality and misconduct. This includes violent assaults, human rights breaches, discrimination, stalking, accepting bribes, dealing drugs and driving offences.
But due to a lack of resources and legal constraints, the commission’s police oversight role is treated as little more than an afterthought.
Reporting this week by The Age about the unlawful use of force by police in Gippsland – including chokeholds, Taser use and hog-tying – has again highlighted the failure of both Victoria Police and IBAC to investigate complaints**. **
Of the 2500 complaints about police that were made to IBAC in 2024, it investigated only 0.5 per cent. The rest were dismissed or referred back to Victoria Police to investigate themselves.
Unsurprisingly, when an organisation is asked to mark its own homework they get good grades. Victoria Police found that two-thirds of all complaints were unsubstantiated. When complaints were substantiated, the most common outcome by Victoria Police was “no action” or “workplace guidance” - that is a slap on the wrist. Only 1 per cent resulted in disciplinary hearings and a further 1 per cent in court hearings.
The figures reported by The Age are even worse: 2365 complaints were made about police in the Bairnsdale and Morwell districts between 2018 and 2024, but just 0.2 per cent were investigated.
This is a real problem when police are being handed unprecedented powers to stop and search people without a warrant, to control public events and rallies, and to enter people’s homes. Today’s police carry guns, tasers, pepper spray, and batons. They are authorised to use force.
If police have all these additional powers and weapons at their disposal, the public needs to know that allegations of misconduct will be fully and impartially investigated.
Throwing more money at IBAC won’t fix this issue. The problem is in the way IBAC works.
Current laws require IBAC to prioritise corruption over police misconduct.
In practice, this means that IBAC is unable to investigate most cases of police misconduct, as the law requiring IBAC to focus on potential corruption means serious matters of police misconduct and criminality are almost always referred back to police to investigate themselves.
Late last year, State Parliament’s Integrity and Oversight Committee recommended that IBAC’s police oversight role should be beefed up.
If there are any changes to the powers of IBAC, police oversight must not be an afterthought.
Hearings conducted by the committee last year were told horrendous stories about how in some cases, IBAC’s referral of a complaint back to police actually made matters worse.
In the case of Jana Katerinskaja, who experienced family violence from a serving police officer, IBAC was forced to publicly apologise earlier this year for mishandling her complaint after referring it back to police and ignoring her concerns about conflicts of interest.
Like Brodie Holt – who sustained permanent brain damage after an arrest outside a Traralgon hotel in 2022 – victims of police misconduct have been left with no alternative but to undergo years of arduous civil litigation to get justice because they were failed by a system that was meant to protect them.
People who face serious, even life-threatening injuries, because of police misconduct, should not have their complaints treated as second-order issues.
An effective and just democratic society needs to treat both corruption and police misconduct seriously. The two issues should not be put in competition with each other.
Victims of police harm have been waiting too long. The government promised legislation to reform IBAC’s police oversight jurisdiction would be delivered prior to the 2022 state election, with that promise deferred and then not met this term. The call echoes recommendations from Yoorrook Justice Commission and the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants. Another parliament is about to come to a close, and Victorians are no closer to having effective integrity oversight for Victoria Police.
In fact, we are further away. For if the premier brings in the follow-the-money IBAC reforms, there will be even less capacity for police violence and misconduct to be independently investigated.
If there are any changes to the powers of IBAC, police oversight must not be an afterthought.
As we head into a state election where law and order is sure to be at the forefront, there needs to be a balance between extra police powers to address perceptions of crime and ensuring the community is safe from police misconduct.
Without these structural reforms to IBAC - or even better, the establishment of an independent police ombudsman - then the job of integrity and oversight in Victoria will remain only half done.
Nadia Morales is chief executive of Inner Melbourne Community Legal, which runs the Police Accountability Project.
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