Speech to West Australian Police Union Rally

This speech was delivered by AWU National Secretary at the Rally of Police Officers outside WA Parliament House in Perth on 15 August 2006.

I am pleased to be here today.

I am pleased to be here today because for 13 and half days at Beaconsfield, I witnessed a very modest police inspector, help rescue 2 trapped miners and care for about the family of the deceased miner and the welfare of everyone involved in the rescue.

I am pleased to be here because this police officer 10 years earlier was the senior sergeant at Port Arthur. Like many of you, he has witnessed both the good and bad that humans do to each other.

I am pleased to be here because a very good friend of mine lost his younger brother - a police officer - to cowardly ambush in Melbourne's south eastern suburbs.

I am pleased to be here because I know that the community wants their police to make them safe but does not always know the cost.

I have always been told that police look after their own. But sometimes even the police need a hand because all of us in the community receive the benefits of our police.

Today it is time to help the police.

It is time that West Australian Police - a police force held in high standing throughout Australia- receive comparable treatment to all other police forces in Australia.

It is time because to eat breakfast and go off to work not knowing if you'll come home alive is not a common thing in our society.

• It happens to soldiers for maybe 6 months in a lifetime

• To firemen, on average, for ten to twelve weeks.

• To air-sea rescue personnel about the same.

To many policemen, and policewomen, it happens every day.

Last year 1383 WA cop on the beat, that's one in four of them, were assaulted, and that's an average year. So once every 4 years, if you're a cop, you'll be physically in harms way, and you may or may not survive.

Sometimes, assaulted officers never return to work, and are discharged as mentally unfit, with horrific consequences, both economic and emotional, for their families.

Last year, 296 of your brothers and sisters, thats 6 percent of the total, left the job.

That's 50 percent more than the previous year. This year, it was 203 by the end of July, or 25 percent more than last year. That indicates it could be over 400 by the end of December. But there are maybe a reason for this.

WA police, amazingly get no Workers Compensation.

Its a hangover from colonial days, when cops and soldiers alike were expected to take the risk, as part of their job description. All other states get compensation. This is crucial for when you leave the service.

In WA, even if you're horrifically injured, you get nothing when you leave the service, except if catastrophically injured the dubious reward of burning up your superannuation prematurely.

In WA, if you are mentally impaired, or shattered, you also get nothing. You have to scramble through somehow, selling your house, or seeing your spouse and family struggling to pay the bills for the specialist treatment, for palliative drugs, for surgery.

In my view, and in my union's view, and in the view of any reasonable human being, this is not fair!

A life lost in service, or a life half lost in service, deserves reparation!

In my view, and in my union's view, this loss should be compensated, without further loss, to compensate for the life sacrificed. Without I stress, further loss of conditions to "pay" or "trade-off" for reforms that are already long overdue.

These reforms include, and we ask for them here in this hallowed place, with no trepidation, with no hesitation, a few small murmurs of anger:

1. Payment of medical expenses, in full, without quarrel or cavil, during service and after it so injured knees, or overstrained backs, or slowly crippling hands, or other parts of you can be treated without costin any future decade of your life.

2. Payment of lump sum and medical service hospital bills straight away even for the new medical treatments, such as regrowth of cartileges, can work out better than traditional treatments; and,

3. A new board of review for future disputes about long-term medical costs, as part of an existing state administrative tribunal.

I am told by the West Australian Police Union that police command estimate these reforms will cost seven million dollars, or one percent of the current budget of WA police.

It's quite a bit. It's the cost, for instance, of ten two-bedroom apartments in Sydney. It's one quarter of what Mel Gibson gets paid to play an endangered cop in Lethal Weapon 4. It's one-twelfth of what CEOs usually gets paid to go way. It's 2 percent of what the Howard Government knew the AWB was bribing Saddam Hussein.

It's a tidy sum. But it means we have safe streets and a police force that isn't yearly haemmorhaging of it's talent abd it's dedication, and a just reward for service that lasts, in some cases, till the final moment of a young lifecut down in service to us all.

The West Australian Police Union report of 2002 said, in part:

"....there are numerous ex-police officers who are suffering financially with ongoing medical expenses when they either retired, resigned, or were boarded out medically unfit from the Police Service following their being injured or suffering mental disorders from their duty-related activities.

" The Police Service provided excellent assistance for officers whilst they are a member of the pPolice Service. However, there is no assistance available to them from the Service when they are no longer members."

" Some of these ex-members, who through no fault of their owncontinue to suffer and require ongoing medical expenses, find themselves in severe financial hardship involving themselves and their families."

This is one way of putting it. But there is another way.

I said at the outset it is time.

It is time to fix an old problem.

It is time to right an old wrong

It is time because we have a new premier with fresh good ideas.

It is time for a fair go for WA Police

A fair go requires that WA cops be treated like other Australian cops. Nothing more but nothing less.

A fair go requires that life-risking service be rewarded, not punished after that service is terminated by accident or horrific injury, or mental trauma, on the job.

A fair go is what we used to expect - especially before John Howard's unfair IR laws - from our fellow Australians.

And cops who go to work each morning not knowing if they'll be home for tea deserve no less than that fairness that defines us as a nation, and a culture, and a way of thinking and being.

Advance a fair Australia. Well done today.