Hardliner with a listening ear

South Australia’s Democrats spokesman on police issues has always sought to bring heavy scrutiny and severe regulations to bear on cops. But, now, after speaking with some of them, he is concerned about their staffing, resources and morale.

Australian Democrats MLC Ian Gilfillan does not “by any means” believe that police work is the community’s toughest job. Not even the tragedy of SA cops’ deaths, at the hands of gunmen, drunk drivers and psychotics, dissuades him from that belief.

Just as a police officer could fall victim to a shooting on the job, so, too, he says, could a service-station attendant. And, in Gilfillan’s judgement, the incidence of police murders is “so rare” - despite the loss of one cop to a stabbing in 1990, and another to a cold-blooded shooting in 1985.

A “pretty bloody tough” occupation, according to Gilfillan, is that of social workers who operate in Adelaide’s northern suburbs. “Unremitting”, he says, is their role in dealing with human crises.

So, on the Gilfillan scale of arduous occupations, policing seems to lie somewhere beneath social work. With such a rating, this long-time politician of 72, with his history of frosty relations with police, is never likely to ingratiate himself with rank-and-file cops. But, ask him anything about police and, unlike most politicians, he will not give the standard, self-serving answers.

He does, however, express a range of views that seem almost to contradict his out-of-hand rejection of police work as society’s toughest job.

First, he acknowledges that he is a member of the “very complacent community”, which expects police to respond to “anything threatening, anything horrific in human behaviour”.

Then, he concedes: “We, and I, with the little cliché: ‘Well, it’s their job’, have expected police to attend, without putting ourselves in their shoes.

“I am conscious that police officers, on my behalf, are quite frequently confronting physical violence, which I don’t want to do.

“So it’s very callous of me, and cold-blooded, if I’m not aware that this is a job that ought to have an ongoing sense of appreciation from not only me, but the community at large.

“It’s almost impossible for me to conceive of a tolerable society without an effective police force.”

But Gilfillan remains comfortable with those periods in recent history when police saw him as their chief political detractor. His relations with them first strained in the 1980s, soon after his “interest was triggered” in allegations - mainly from interstate - of police corruption.

From that interest, he moved to set up an independent commission against corruption in SA. And, to achieve it, the man whose party labelled him the state’s “leading anti-corruption campaigner” launched a private member’s bill in 1999.

“South Australians deserve to have the assurance that allegations of corruption in the police...will be handled impartially...by specialist anti-corruption fighters,” he outlined in a press release.

Missing then, however - as it is today - was any evidence of systemic police corruption in SA. The commission he had longed for never came to fruition.

Today, Gilfillan believes he knows how the rank-and-file police, with whom he discussed his ICAC concept, were thinking.

“I think the police officers felt: ‘What right has a politician to imply that our force is corrupt, and needs this sort of entity (ICAC)?’ “ he says. “The force thought I was accusing them of all sorts of bastardry, and that I was the anti-police force fella. I don’t think they liked me. I wasn’t there to be liked, so I didn’t mind that too much.

“I think I earned a reputation - which I’m not unhappy about - as the scourge of the police force; that I was looking to find corrupt practices under whatever lid I could lift.

“(But) over 20 years that I’ve been involved in South Australian politics, (I) say that South Australian police are, arguably, of the highest standard in Australia, at least for minimum corruption and dedication to service. That is my current, firmly-held view.”

After his failed ICAC bill, however, Gilfillan continued to play the part of the zealous scrutineer of police integrity. In May 2000, he moved in Parliament to empower the Police Complaints Authority to “pursue investigations on (its) own initiative”.

He had announced that, as part of his move, he would seek to strike out the PCA’s duty to notify officers - in writing and before interviews - of allegations against them. “They should be told of the allegation only when the interview commences,” he insisted.

The major parties voted down his “free-the-authority-to-pursue-investigations” amendment. He would later say they had left in place “a powerful restraint on the otherwise independent Police Complaints Authority”.

While he might now regard SA police as essentially the best in the land, Gilfillan still sees it as his role to guard against not only complacency, but also resource and management deficiencies.

And, as a crusader for a more efficient police force, he already has a track record. Just last year, he moved to set up the Parliamentary Select Committee now inquiring into the staffing, resourcing and efficiency of SAPOL.

He had acted after listening to the deep concerns of former and serving rank-and-file officers who, despite the earlier strain in relations, had approached him in confidence.

They told him, he says, how the unfilled positions of officers assigned to projects and operations had caused chronic staff shortages, and that probationers were working the streets without supervision.

He also heard the “refreshing observation” that the shortages might have come about as much from poor staff allocation as they had from depleted police numbers.

Gilfillan, in a March 2003 press statement, went on to reveal that he had heard “disturbing accounts of police mismanagement preventing officers from effectively carrying out their duties”.

“Resources are too thin on the ground,” he proclaimed. “In the city, senior police are tied up with paper-chasing roles, while probationary constables are out on the street with little or no supervision.

“I am convinced there are overwhelming reasons for an independent review of SAPOL, and the Select Committee will fill the bill.”

Gilfillan would take his place on the committee - appointed in April 2003 - with fellow MLCs, Bob Sneath (Chairman, Lab), John Dawkins (Lib), Gail Gago (Lab) and Robert Lawson (Lib).

He says evidence so far taken indicates that understaffing has indeed come about through SAPOL’s failure to fill vacancies left by officers seconded to other posts.

“In certain circumstances, there is extreme pressure, and people go off with stress leave,” he says.

”PASA has presented admirably, and done its cause considerable good, as far as being up front, articulate and able to analyse.”

“I don’t think there’s any argument that, in certain areas of the police force, the workload is too high, too heavy. I’ve had complaints directly to me of short-staffing in the rural areas.”

Gilfillan has, of course, studied the Police Association’s 162-page submission, Foundations for 21st Century Policing. He has also heard two days’ oral evidence from association president, Peter Alexander, and his three-man industrial team.

The submission, he believes, has been “very effective”. “In some ways, it’s been a counterbalance to the Commissioner’s,” he explains. ”PASA has presented admirably, and done its cause considerable good, as far as being up front, articulate and able to analyse.”

But, despite all the months of evidence he has heard, Gilfillan still cannot - or will not - say his concerns about the management of SAPOL were justified. The “jury”, he insists, is still out.

He regards the two most substantial bodies of evidence as those that have come from the Police Association and SAPOL. So, after the jury comes in, he hopes to see the two organizations analyse that evidence and “then produce an improved modus operandi (for) and morale (within)” SAPOL.

Gilfillan fervently believes that to under-rate the importance of morale - within any police force - is to invite disaster.

“If the rank and file don’t have a substantial degree of confidence in the efficiency of, and respect for, the management,” he says, “the morale of the police force is damaged. I think pockets of that have emerged.

“If it breeds to the point where you have a large number of police officers who have lost confidence, then the whole of South Australia are the losers - not just those serving police officers.”

Gilfillan continues to confront these pressing issues while most others his age have already enjoyed around 10 years’ retirement. Of course, he remains junior to politicians such as 86-year-old US senator, Robert Byrd. But few in Gilfillan’s shoes would have resisted the urge to retreat to his Kangaroo Island home of 53 years, and allow the worries of the world, including SA politics, to pass by them.

Politics first drew the former St Peters College boy’s interest after he took part in a church-run campaign for fair play in international trade among developed nations in the early 1970s. And among his maternal ancestors was Legislative Council president of the late 1800s, Sir William Milne.

But, as a young graduate of St Peters College, Gilfillan could have pursued a medical career, as had his father, SA’s first dermatologist. Instead, he and his brother chose life on the land, and farmed a Kangaroo Island property their father bought at Antechamber Bay in 1951.

With his interest later sparked in politics, he joined the former Australia Party and ran, without success, for the Senate in 1974. After the Australia Party merged into the Australian Democrats, he again failed to win a Senate seat in 1977.

In 1982, he won an Upper House seat in the SA Parliament, from where he served until 1993. That year, he stood for the SA Lower House seat of Norwood but suffered defeat. He returned to his farm.

In the federal election of 1996, he again failed in an attempt to win a Senate seat, but became president of the Democrats SA division. With a victory in the State election of 1997, Gilfillan was able to make a return to the SA Upper House.

A scholar of theology, and devoutly Christian, the father of three, and grandfather of eight, finds his job “very rewarding” - even though it robs him of his downtime.

But no doubt his workout routine - to which he admits an addiction - helps him cope with the rigours of political life. He exercises daily, either in the gym or on the road, cycling from Norwood to Norton Summit or Eagle on the Hill.

Meanwhile, he continues to offer a listening ear to rank-and-file police officers. “I’m not at ease that the police service is dealing (well enough) with police who want to make revelations,” he says.

“I hope certain police officers would regard me as someone they could turn to if they had something constructive to say, or something abhorrent to complain about.”