Few political doors were open to the Police Federation of Australia when it kicked off its life in Canberra. But, with smart use of the media, and the imposing presence of its branch chiefs, it soon gained access to the highest offices in the land.

Taking cops’ issues to the top

Some of Canberra’s power-hungry lobby groups and industry bodies have come to envy the Police Federation of Australia for its political clout on Capital Hill. No doubt they wonder how this national police union, run by rank-and-file cops, came to wield influence in the cut-throat world of federal politics in only a few years.

Perhaps they do not know of its 50,000-strong membership, and that its affiliates include every state and territory police union across Australia.

The PFA itself might never have known the true extent of its power and influence had its visionary president, Peter Alexander, and his board, not decided to set up shop in Canberra early last year.

But when Prime Minister John Howard strode into the organization’s $1 million building in leafy Griffith on a typically cool evening last September, most realized that the PFA had truly arrived.

After a board-guided tour of the office, the PM declared the building open before an appreciative crowd of PFA officials, members and supporters. He even stayed afterward to mingle and share a drink with them.

How right the board’s decision to relocate from Sydney and descend upon Canberra had proved.

Even before the prime ministerial visit, Australian Defence Force chief, General Peter Cosgrove, had called in on the board – at its request – to discuss the role of Australian police in the troubled Solomon Islands and East Timor.

The PFA had held concerns that, in these two nations, the military might have intended to push its way into police-specific roles. On this issue, board members thought it best to hear personally from the man atop the ADF tree, and so invited the general to its Griffith office.

Says PFA chief executive officer, Mark Burgess: “He turned up one night mid-year last, came into the room in full uniform, and was just the nicest, laid-back sort of guy.

“He was quite happy to engage us, and it was a very fruitful meeting. We understood very clearly where he was coming from; and we made sure he understood very clearly what our concerns might be.

“It (the meeting) certainly allayed any fears we might have had that there was a push from the defence force.”

Beyond its ability to draw the heavy-hitters to its formal functions and special meetings, the PFA continues to command the attention of the nation’s key political figures, on and around Capital Hill.

Burgess these days walks the Parliament House halls of power almost at will. Traversing from office to office and chamber to chamber, he pursues the same influence and connections that every lobbyist seeks in Canberra.

And, for the PFA’s members across every Australian police jurisdiction, he succeeds. Just two months ago, he and PFA vice-president, Jon Hunt-Sharman, called in on Shadow Homeland Security Minister Robert McClelland.

The trio discussed the Labor Party’s position on the Federal Government’s intention to set up a national anti-corruption body. From that meeting, Burgess and Hunt-Sharman walked directly to the office of Justice Minister Chris Ellison, with whom they discussed the same issue.

From Senator Ellison, the pair won a commitment to receive a PFA submission on the anti-corruption body four days later.

Burgess naturally performs his Parliament House rounds in sitting periods – after hours. Most of his visits require an appointment, but he concedes that, on some politicians, he can – and does – call in unannounced to discuss issues that trouble the PFA’s members.

The energetic CEO has even held meetings with the federal directors of both major parties, and the Greens. So, be it a politician, bureaucrat or lobbyist, virtually every major player on the federal political landscape knows the PFA – and its objectives.

Burgess saw evidence of the organization’s high profile on one of his recent evening visits to Parliament House, with PFA consultant, Chris Hayes.

“They had obviously called a division in the House of Representatives,” says Burgess, “and there were quite a number of politicians coming down the corridor, heading towards the chamber.

“The cry came out from among them: ‘Oh, the cops are here again’. That’s very important. They might be having half a dig, but they know we exist.”

The PFA’s strong standing in Canberra comes as no surprise to former ACT deputy chief minister, and now high-profile consultant, Paul Whalan. Before the PFA hit town, his Manuka-based firm, Endeavour Consulting Group, gave it “strategic advice” on how best to exploit its opportunities in the capital.

“I always expected they would go the way they’ve gone,” he says, “and that’s based on my early experience in dealing with them.

“I got to know Mark Burgess pretty well and Peter Alexander in particular. I recognized that they had the commitment to follow this through.

“It’s always a difficulty when you start effectively from scratch. But it was clear that they had the motivation and skills to follow it through. I was impressed with the speed at which they grasped the opportunities that were available to them.”

Clearly, Whalan was right about the success he predicted for the PFA’s future. But he was also right about the difficulty of starting from scratch.

“We struggled to talk to ministers,” says PFA consultant, Chris Hayes. “People didn’t want to have anything to do with us. We were just seen as somebody else turning up, and probably just another trade union.”

Burgess remembers the challenge of trying to make politicians understand “who the hell we were” and “what we represented”.

His attempts to explain in those early days earned him quizzical looks, ahead of questions such as: “Who are you?” and “Oh, you’re with the Australian Federal Police?”

And, when it came to the PFA, the Canberra press corps seemed to share the politicians’ knowledge vacuum.

“We had functions here (at the office) for the media, and invited the relevant players,” says Burgess. “But it took a long time for them to understand who the hell we were.”

However, the challenges encouraged rather than deterred the police-managed PFA.

One effective strategy Burgess and Hayes used to continue to build the organization’s profile was to visit Parliament House with the members of the board. As well-known presidents of their state and territory police unions, each was recognizable to at least politicians from his own jurisdiction.

“When we started taking the elected presidents, and describing them that way” says Hayes, “that had a huge impact on the politicians around town.”

And politicians began to take the PFA with complete seriousness once they learned it had bought a Canberra office building.

Says Whalan: “Being on the spot is really important. Quite a fundamental aspect of being here is that it’s a clear message: ‘We’re here, and we’re here to stay – and have an impact’.”

So, despite its early battle to win exposure, the PFA broke through and evolved into the peak union body it is today. Now, it has ongoing – and already a history of – contact with party leaders, access to senior ministers, and respect from other lobbyists.

“Other large political lobby organizations are awe-struck,” says Burgess, “because, in a short time, we’ve been able to open pretty much all the doors in Canberra. Some come to us and say: ‘Can you assist us? Who do we talk to in such-and-such a place?’ “

Whalan explains this incidental capacity of the PFA to advise others in the same way as does Burgess. “People have observed how effective they’ve been in the relatively short time they’ve been here,” he says.

It seems that practically everyone who matters in Canberra sees the PFA as a strong, slick union operator. But it has not existed since 1997 just to look scary to its opponents. Even before it set up in the capital, the PFA has fought, and won, on the industrial battlefield.

One of its victories, which came last year after a long-running battle with the Federal Government, brought exemptions for police officers from fringe benefits tax.

After the introduction of the tax in the late 1990s, country cops who lived in government housing, and other officers who took police cars home for on-call duty, found themselves slugged with “grossed-up” group certificates.

The government had classed their cheap rent and use of police cars as fringe benefits. Burgess speaks of one officer who lived in a police house and, to his group certificate, found $23,000 added.

So the PFA launched a campaign to secure exemptions for its members and, in so doing, targeted federal MPs with marginal seats. It also fought its battle through the media, winning the support of talkback radio king, John Laws.

On his syndicated morning programme from Sydney, Laws broadcast live-to-air interviews with Peter Alexander. “Once John Laws carried those interviews, it soon got around town here (in Canberra) that we were a group to be spoken to,” says Hayes.

“It wasn’t us knocking doors down to get in, but rather invitations to come in and talk.”

The PFA not only won the fight, but also helped the government draft regulations to allow for the exemptions.

Another of its victories came in 2001, after it had lobbied long and hard for a national police memorial. Prime Minister Howard had considered the recently opened emergency services memorial sufficient to honour fallen police officers.

But, the PFA, intent on a police-specific monument, gathered support from some commissioners and state governments, and continued its push. The PM finally agreed to allow construction of a $2.4 million police memorial on Lake Burley Griffin in King’s Park.

To the PFA, these battles, and others, reaffirm the need of all Australian police for a national trade union. Burgess argues that fighting an FBT-type battle would, for a state police union, “not be that easily done”.

He also explains that the September 11 terrorist attack on the US has brought a “more national approach to policing”. “Hence,” he says, “the development of national competencies, and a whole range of national standards for police officers.

“So there needs to be the ability for police associations across Australia to come together (in a national body) to ensure their voices are heard in those debates.”

Peter Alexander asserts that, had the state unions not formed the PFA, the police occupation would never have won “appropriate representation”.

“Criminals know no boundaries as they move around the country,” he says, “so national police task forces are set up. Policing has had to reflect that, so it was just a matter of time before police unionism also reflected that change.

“We are a truly national voice for 50,000 people. And that’s highly significant, because none of the state commissioners, or the federal commissioner, has that capacity. We speak for all the states, territories and federal police.”

To “speak” for others in an industrial sense, however, is really to negotiate. And, in that endeavour, the PFA has so far avoided hostility. It prides itself on taking well-researched arguments to federal politicians, and negotiating calmly.

Burgess insists that the PFA does not “flout its clout”, and adds: “We might be blunt, but in a professional manner. We don’t threaten, point fingers in chests or yell at each other across tables.

“We make it clear that, if they’re not going to deliver on our expectations, we will reconsider the way we approach the issue. If we’ve got to get a bit tougher, we tell them that that’s what we propose to do.”

But, before the PFA could ever succeed as a negotiator, it first had to win the right to federal registration as a trade union. Members of its forerunner, the decades-old Police Federation of Australia and New Zealand (PFANZ), had supported that objective for years.

Ready to thwart the move, however, were the governments of WA, Victoria and Queensland, several police commissioners and the industrial division of the AFP.

“They believed it tended to threaten their authority as state employers and commissioners,” says Alexander. “They also believed policing was very much state-based, and that there was no capacity for a national industrial dispute to occur.

“Of course, we know that’s wrong. In hindsight, the opposition to it (federal registration) was ill-founded.”

But the governments, commissioners and AFP were to be disappointed in any case. By 1995, the issue had made its way to the High Court of Australia, which ruled that the PFA indeed had the right to federal registration.

Of course, the governments and their co-objectors launched appeals, which delayed a final outcome for two more years.

Then, in 1997, came a landmark victory for the PFA in the High Court: a ruling against the objectors.

“When the High Court decision came in 1995, it was exciting,” says Alexander. “The court ruled unanimously. All seven judges ruled that there could be a police federation of Australia.

“The federal registration issue was enormous in terms of identifying that the police occupation had gone national.”

Police Federation of Australia

• The PFA represents almost 50,000 sworn police officers throughout Australia. Those officers are – at no cost beyond their local union dues – members of the national body by virtue of their state, territory or federal union membership.
• The New Zealand Police Association is an associate member of the PFA.
• The PFA is made up of a federal council, an executive board, a CEO and office administrator, a consultant and two sub-committees
• A system of proportional representation is used to fill 28 positions on the Federal Council. Each union affiliate is entitled to one delegate for its first 1,000 financial members (or part thereof), and one per each successive 2,500 (or part thereof).
• The Australian Electoral Commission oversees elections for the organization’s board positions at each year’s Federal Council meeting. Each current board member is the president of his state, territory or federal police union.
• To finance the PFA’s running costs, the CEO, administrator and treasurer prepare a budget for executive approval and subsequent council endorsement. Each affiliate covers a share of the approved sum proportionate to the size of its membership.
• The PFA operates from the two-storey office building it bought at 21 Murray Cres, Griffith, for $950,000 in January 2003. It occupies only the top floor and leases the lower one out to two tenants.

On the PFA agenda

• Continue the campaign for legislation change to enable police officers to retire at age 55 with full access to their superannuation.
• Give support to the introduction of a process which would allow sworn police officers to transfer across state borders (inter-jurisdictional mobility) at rank.
• Ensure the integrity of the system under which PFA members in the International Deployment Group operate abroad.
• Raise $800,000 in funding for the construction of the national police memorial in Canberra.