When I was a young policeman all of my mates and I had a singular professional driving force - crooks. Chasing them, investigating them, arresting them, interviewing them, charging them, gaoling them, bailing them, fingerprinting them, raiding them, tailing them, getting intelligence on them - it was crooks, crooks, crooks and there was no shortage of offences.
Most of the study at the Academy was about Offences and Offenders. A young policeman's suitability for progression into the detective ranks was judged in large part on how busy he had been - and the measure of busy-ness for a young policeman was arrests and successful prosecutions at court.
I didn't think too much about victims, they were not the main game. The CPS or Community Policing Squad units, dealt with victims. Real cops chased crooks and dealt with the pointy end of the criminal justice system.
One morning my partner and I got a call to a pretty nondescript block of flats. Our complainant was a young mum, newly separated from an abusive husband and living along with her 5 year old in a one bedroom apartment over a garage. Life didn't have a lot of luxuries for the mum and that little bloke.
We'd been called because when the mum went out to go to work and drop the little bloke off - there was no car. It'd been knocked off and because it was an old VW beatle my partner and I had a reasonable idea of who might have been behind it. We explained to the young mum that kids taking older cars for joyrides were responsible for most of those types of thefts in our area - sometimes the cars were a bit smashed up but they were usually found dumped locally without too much damage.
I can still remember that morning like it was yesterday. I couldn't wait to get the details, get out of there and go and chase up the crooks. I was polite to the young mum - known as a "complainant" in police parlance, but I can see now that I didn't really see her as a victim of crime who'd had her world turned upside down. I saw her as someone who had all the details I needed to fill out the Crime Report and MO.
That is until genius me turned our portable radio up as the unmistakable sound of a police unit with his siren blaring came up "In pursuit". It was not a lengthy pursuit, how the kids managed it I've no idea but as we were listening we heard the police from Richmond tell other units to slow down and they called for the ambulance and other rescue services - the car they were chasing had gone into the Yarra.
One of the police went in after it and the young car thieves were rescued OK. Then he read out the rego and description. It was the young mum's car. I saw first hand what losing that car meant to her. She had no prospect of replacing it, it wasn't insured and it was her only means of getting her son to care and herself to work.
I remember the insult added to her injury when we had to go back a few days later to tell her about the towing and recovery costs that she would have to bear.
That small story has stuck with me for life. The courts, the lawyers, "the system" was focussed on the young hooligans in the housing commission flats who'd "gone bad" and their needs, their background, the likelihood of them re-offending and what we needed to do to help them.
And at the heart of it was a broke young mum - a victim - crying her eyes out because someone thought it was OK to steal her car.
The different attitude held by the police I've dealt with from Victoria's Major Fraud Squad is the precise opposite from my gung-ho mates and me. These police, in particular the detective in charge of the matter, have a more complete victim-centric-focus than I could have imagined possible.
I remember being impressed when the Detective Sergeant in charge of the squad working on the Wilson/Gillad/Blewitt et al matter contacted me to say that the investigation of my complaint had moved beyond assessment and that a team of dedicated detectives was assigned to it "and we will get a result". He went on to say that it was an offence to the good people of the State of Victoria that this matter had been a festering sore, never properly investigated and just left to fuel rumours and unhealthy suspicions.
But most of all he spoke about the victims. Every point had a victim-centric focus, the victims were the reason the police swung into action. I've often remarked since that this bloke has the best bedside manner of any copper I've known - and as a direct result of that focus Bob Kernohan is a different bloke today from the man who'd experienced some of the lowest ebbs life can dish out.
I've now met quite a few members of the Health Services Union. One lady came along to a speech I gave one night and was kind enough to introduce herself and explain her circumstances to the crowd. She only worked part-time in a nursing home for a bit of extra money, particularly handy at Christmas time with presents for the grandkids. But the way the indemnity insurance cover was worked out, she had to pay her HSU annual fee of $600 regardless - and that $600 was a pretty big chunk out of $18,000 in total earnings for the year.
Imagine what a difference $600 could make at Christmas. Now work out how many HSU members had to put in $600 to finance the $280,000 that went on ATM cash, hookers and the rest of it.
So in going back through the Industrial Registrar and then FWA investigations into the Health Services Union and its report of about $280,000 in real, hard-earned members money gone missing - the thing that strikes me is the abject absence of any thoughts for the rights of the owners of that money.
There were victims. They should still be the focus until someone is brought to account for taking their money. No one I know put in $600 of hard labour in a hospital laundry or scrubbing bed-pans to see that money float out the window - gone. If Craig Thomson said it wasn't him - then where was the action to find out who it was? How could they just accept it sitting there with no action for so long?
No one who was thinking about the victims could have let the HSU allegations fester like they did. No one who was thinking about the real victims anyway.
But that is precisely what the new "Your Rights at Work" Labor Party people did.
I'm amazed that they got away with it - until now. Thankfully, these things have a way of seeing themselves through to a just conclusion if enough people feel strongly enough about it.
I do, I know you do, and I think this new government feels strongly too. That's why I think a Royal Commission is in all likelihood swiftly on its way.
To whoever is working on the Terms of Reference for the Commission - please let the victims have the lion's share of the say.
And get them the justice they deserve.
(This paper from Dr John Lourens summarises what the HSU knew and reported to the Industrial Registrar - before Fair Work Australia took over and sat on its hands for years.)