September 1998 Volume 79  Number 9 "serving the protectors"
Cover Story Association's 18th Secretary
By Brett Williams

Andy Dunn: “...I think I can contribute more industrially than I can by being a police manager.”

Andy Dunn broke out in a cold sweat when his mobile telephone started beeping incessantly as he drove along an English motorway in June. He was expecting the results of the Police Association’s secretarial election in which he’d been a candidate.

His small, high-tech phone’s message bank seemed to be choking on an endless stream of correspondence from the other side of the world. But would his messages prove to be ones of congratulations or condolence? To find out, he had only to stop his hire car and read any one of them.

Feeling intensely apprehensive, he finally decided that “I’ve got to look”. “I pulled off at a motorway rest stop and went and got a cup of coffee,” he remembers. “I sat down with the telephone and the first message was of congratulations from Alex Zimmermann, who was also a candidate.”

Dunn, 41, had become the 18th secretary of the Police Association of South Australia. He was somewhat overawed. And his 847-vote victory completely humbled him.

But his awe soon turned to enthusiasm for his new job. He wanted to cut his overseas trip short and tried to arrange an earlier flight home. The price for rearranging his itinerary, however, was one he couldn’t afford.

Nonetheless, he was soon walking into the Association’s Carrington Street building for the first time as secretary. “It was like walking into the building for the very first time in my life,” he says.

“It was not like walking in as a committee member, or a member. It was something absolutely new.”

Dunn assumed the secretarial role with 24 years’ experience as a police officer and four years’ service as a Police Association committee member. So, why did he want what he regards as “an extremely important job in policing in this State”?

“I don’t like to sound trite about it,” he says, “but I had a great want to do something for the organization, the members and policing.

“I’ve always seen that I’ve had a future in police industrial matters - it interests me more than management. I think I can contribute more industrially than I can by being a police manager.”

And after three months, Dunn has only positive impressions of the job. “The more I’m here, the more I do and the more members I see, the happier I am,” he says. “You’re on the go from 7:30 in the morning until 7:30 at night and beyond, and I think that’s great.”

Dunn sees government reductions to the police budget and the second enterprise agreement as the most challenging issues currently facing the Police Association. He says that policing in South Australia has “taken a kicking from government” in terms of its budget.

But restructuring within government itself is of equal concern to Dunn. “There’s a lot to be said for the fact that the government has downgraded policing to a junior ministry,” he says. “The police minister is not a member of cabinet. Our last minister was the deputy premier.

“Is government simply saying it’s just changed its organizational structure? Sorry, I don’t read it that way, and I’m sure most other people don’t either.”

Dunn knows, however, that government isn’t the only body with which he’ll clash during his time as secretary.

To his election to office he expects a mixed reaction from SAPOL (South Australia Police) managers. Some, he suspects, will ask “what the hell the membership has done” by electing him, while others will welcome him to the position.

“I’ve found them to be generally quite accepting of me in my new role,” he says. “I think they’ve accepted the fact that I’m now secretary and they must deal with me as such.

“But if anybody was ever to say that industrial relations didn’t have a component called conflict, they’d be a liar.”

Dunn insists, however, that the thrust of police unionism isn’t one of “headkicking”. He says that the vast majority of industrial relations is “done by agreement”; that only elements of it result in conflict.

“Police industrial relations is not about arguments with the commissioner every day,” he says. “Many things that we touch are agreed upon.

“Unfortunately, it’s those issues on which we do come into conflict that take time and resources.”

Dunn is disappointed that, while the Association deals with current matters on “a common-sense basis”, SAPOL’s managerial decisions are being made “purely and simply on the basis of economic rationalism”.

In the meantime, however, he’s determined never to fail any Police Association member. “I don’t ever want to be in the position of having to say: ‘I delivered second best’,” he says.

“The greatest thing for members to know is that, when they come to us, they will get a result - and that will always be the best result possible.”