http://cecaust.com.au/main.asp?sub=articles&id=2016_06_20_Syd-siege.html Believe what you want to believe... http://cecaust.com.au/releases/2015_08_25_Syd_Siege_Inquest.html
Is it bad to get into specifics? What's going to happen out of this inquest is that the way police do things is going to change. We've seen the cracks appearing in the last few days. This is my take on it. The current organisational structure of the police is going to be found wanting. It's hierarchical and authority gets stronger as you go up the hierarchy. Now that's fine on a day to day basis but for critical incidents it's horrendous. There is no way known that the Commissioner, a Deputy Commissioner, an Assistant Commissioner is going to know what to do at an incident like this. No way known. Also whoever is overseeing the operation is well out of the way in a Command Post and not directly in touch with the scene. Radio is all very well but it's blind. CCTV even if available is very limited. The people on the ground at the scene are always best informed in making operational judgements. But they are always under the control of the senior brass in the CP. Brass will always be absolutely conservative and cautious in decision-making and I don't blame them. They don't have a clue what's really going on at the scene. The Tactical Commander on scene should not be under the direct control of the brass at the CP. The brass at that level are politicians, not operatives. They shouldn't be required to think like operatives when the experts are out there doing the job. The other thing is that in Australia the individual police officer is responsible for his or her actions. The sniper, for example. If the sniper shot Monis and killed him then that sniper answers to the law. Not the Tac Commander, not the Field Commander, not the brass, but the individual copper who decided to pull the trigger. The kicker though is if the sniper was ordered to fire and Monis was killed, the sniper would still have to answer. Even if the sniper fired against his or her better judgement, they would still face the law alone. There is no defence of superior orders where there is a killing of a human. The sniper can't say, "the boss told me to fire". Some years ago in NZ during the aftermath of the Springboks tour and a case in Tasmania during the Franklin Dam protests, the courts began to discuss applying the common law so that it recognised the authority of a senior police officer when working with other officers as a collective. The thinking was that the coppers were really just instruments of the senior police officer's thinking and so might be able to claim some sort of justification when acting under direct orders. Not much came of it legislatively though, too damn hard. So this is what happens when the inflexible and bureaucratic police organisation has to come to grips with serious decision-making in operational situations such as the Martin Place siege. I dealt with this some years ago in my old firm. I was asked to research the questions and gave the answers in much the same way I've described above. The result was my report disappeared into the ether. Too bloody hard. Well I think the time has come for new thinking and I would bet the NSW State Coroner has some ideas on this. The rest of Australia's police would do well to pay close attention.
Anything touched by a politicians grubby hands is a "cover-up". Politicians, and anyone they employ can never be trusted, because those people's loyalty will always be to the politicians who hire them - not the tax payers who pay their salaries. Stop paying their salaries, and see how long they are loyal to politicians.
Cant be the individual cop's decision as they are not privy to enough information to know when not to take the shot, as the situation can change out of sight, have unknowns (eg perhaps one of the patrons was a conspirator in hiding as a backup), or make a mistake which cannot quickly be remedied. The pollies just need to give simple yes or no clearances to particular courses of action and let the tactical command teams run it.
