THIN BLUE LIE - PART 4
Meanwhile… Hayley Ernst
dies under incredibly suspicious circumstances, in her own home, after she
allegedly falls down and hits her head on a coffee table while her estranged
boyfriend is there breaching an Apprehended Violence Order issued against him
to stay away from her. The news footage showed him out the front of the house
speaking with police. Max Spencer looked shifty, with tattoos on his arms,
neck, and up the side of his face. Before the AVO was even mentioned, or his
role at the house, people like me knew exactly what he was, what he’d ‘allegedly’
done, and what his bullshit story would be.
What Spencer had actually
done didn’t really matter. In an environment where we have come to expect women
to be brutalised, terrorised and murdered by gutless ‘men’, with a fatality
rate of around two every week, his presence and story seems suspicious. More so
given he violated the AVO to stay away from her. But it’s not just women or the
occasional male that suffers this vile treatment. It’s kids too. A toddler in
Northgate made the news next. She suffered extreme scalding. Her family was
known to child protection. Within days her parents were charged with her
torture and murder.
But it’s not just abusive
parents that are the problem. Predators freely roaming about our community are
a constant threat to the safety of children. Over just two weeks there were
five attempted abductions in Sydney alone, and they were only the ones that
were reported. In one incident, the offender was a male in his sixties so
brazen that he was accompanied by two younger men, paedophiles working in a
pack. And why are they not being incarcerated? Most of the police are doing
their jobs, arresting suspects, but defence lawyers and rotten judges are
making excuses or otherwise helping these predators continue doing what they
do.
Even so, there are
members of the police and other public service agencies who are supposed to be
helping victims and investigating crimes but who choose to do the exact
opposite. In Queensland, the former Crime and Misconduct Commission, now known
as the Crime and Corruption Commission (and still as inept and suspiciously
inept as their previous form), is currently investigating the actions of Assistant Commissioner
Mike Condon, who was head of homicide in 2003 when 13-year-old Daniel Morcombe
was abducted and then murdered by Brett Peter Cowan.
It has been alleged that
Condon not only failed to investigate Brett Cowan when detectives made it clear
he was a person of interest, and that the reports indicating this were then
‘lost’, but that Condon went out of his way, with the assistance of other
officers, to attempt to discredit those detectives when his actions would
likely be revealed to the inquest. Had that report been followed up when it was
submitted, just two weeks after Daniel vanished, Cowan may have been arrested,
and Daniel’s body found, earlier than the miserable eleven years that
eventually elapsed, his family’s suffering getting worse by the day.
But Condon appears to be
indifferent to what has happened. He denies the allegations, despite evidence
to the contrary, and insists he was very comfortable with the decisions made at
the time. It took eleven years before Daniel’s remains were found, Cowan’s
story of concocted lies and excuses spilled, and that vile piece of shit to be
incarcerated for a piss-poor duration before he’ll be out raping and murdering
kids again. Condon defends his actions by claiming there was no direct evidence
implicating Cowan at the time.
You
would think a cop, a detective, would be bright enough to at least understand
that evidence doesn’t just appear out of thin air. You don’t get evidence
without investigating, and that the longer you wait, the more that evidence is
likely to be lost or be considered unreliable due to the passage of time. But for
reasons unclear, Condon decided not to investigate Cowan. He let years pass. An
entire decade. Why is that? Was Condon just inept? An idiot? Lazy? Or motivated
by a more personal reason? Has anybody bothered to investigate the relationship
between Cowan and Condon? Was Cowan being protected, and if so, why?
If you
think Condon’s efforts to cover-up a crime and protect a predator, deliberate
or otherwise, was an isolated incident, think again. It is by no means a rare
event, though the true scale of this kind of rotten, festering corruption can
never be known. The agencies at fault are protected by the policy of ‘internal
investigation’, able to bury complaints, isolating and silencing victims so the
media and public never hear about problems, conceal and enable predators,
crime, systemic failure, and injustice. Worse, politicians are protecting this
corruption, preventing any real positive change, out of their own
self-interests.
How did things get this
bad? How, in this age of so-called Enlightenment, is there still so much
injustice? How is this possible? How can right-wing governments convince so
many that tearing down all the ‘red tape’ of regulation will somehow,
magically, increase productivity and create jobs when we have witnessed, time
and again, that all it does is allow the wealthy to play games with the lives
and pitiful savings of the disadvantaged, to make loses in the millions, to
increase their own profits and control of resources in a longer game of
monopoly?
How is it that the LNP can convince so many foolish Australians that everything they do is good and righteous even when so many wiser heads are warning them that what they do is wrong and causing harm? How is it that when things go sideways, and reason finally prevails, when the law is applied, when the failures of the LNP cost taxpayers millions, the LNP can not only convince their mindless sycophants that their own sins are the fault of the ALP, but make moves to change the laws to allow them to violate human rights, and their sycophants applaud in stupidity?
How is it that so many businesses, both private and public service agencies, can be infected with a festering canker that enables workplace bullying, and then the very agencies that are supposed to stamp it out actually conceal it? How is it hundreds, thousands of complaints, can be dismissed as unsubstantiated regardless of the evidence, and the victims are penalised while the abusers continue and escalate?
Personally,
I’ve encountered this under four of the eight employers for whom I have worked.
I’ve witnessed it, and I’ve suffered under it. Some of it was extreme. None of
it was ever discouraged because the authorities refused to investigate or it
was handled though ‘internal investigation’, the very offenders tasked with
investigating complaints against themselves, a response that only ever led to
an escalation of abuse and victims either resigning or being fired. How is all
this possible? How the hell does it continue? Why is there no way to expose and
end it?
Perhaps the answer lies in suspiciously self-serving quotes like “there
could be more transparency with the community, but we’re bound by company law
and commercial in confidence agreements”, “this is a drummed up, specious campaign to have an inquiry
into all local government. It’s just a nonsense”, and “I’m very disappointed
that he’s turned this into a personal attack on Ipswich councillors and their
families. He should check his facts before he goes into Parliament, into the
coward’s castle, and make these false allegations”.
Those were found in a
news article about a political representative who dared to use his access to
Parliamentary Privilege to reveal accusations about alleged corruption. Normal
circumstances would prevent him from speaking about them at all. Average
citizens are forced to remain silent about such things, preventing other victims
from even being made aware of one another, provide supporting testimony, and
attempt to obtain justice and affect positive change. What was said of Pyne is
all too common, excuses and a concentrated effort to discredit and intimidate
witnesses, victims, and those who offer them aid.
In
response to what Pyne dared to say, Local Government Association Queensland CEO
Greg Hallam accused him of abusing parliamentary privilege, and having a “long history” of making unproven
statements under parliamentary privilege. “We’re quite honestly disgusted,” he told ABC Radio Brisbane. The
evidence and allegations to date seem to suggest the ‘honesty’ of Hallam and
far too many Councillors and politicians is questionable, and so Hallam may
have actually meant “we’re quite concerned about being exposed’ rather than
‘disgusted’.
As for Pisasale, he
announced his sudden resignation the previous week amid revelations the Crime and Corruption Commission was
investigating how and why he was carrying $50,000 cash when stopped at a
Melbourne domestic airport last month. He cited health reasons for his
resignation but would not comment on Pyne’s allegations. Given the predilection
of rotten politicians for resorting to excuses of ill-health to avoid
prosecution and penalty for corruption, Pisasale’s condition and timing seems
incredibly suspicious, and even if it is true, it does not automatically mean
Pyne’s allegations are false. [Shortly after I wrote this Blog Post, Pisasale was
charged with numerous offences by the Queensland Police].
In a strange quirk of
fate, the claim to a right to express dissenting opinion that conflicts with
the rulings of legal matters was suddenly the focus of furious defence by
politicians. Three LNP politicians felt compelled to criticise judges over a
matter concerning their own ideological approaches to the issue of terrorism
and how the legal system should deal with offenders. It brought to a head a
vindictive pissing competition over who has the ultimate ruling on immigration
matters, the ill-feeling over the LNP giving itself the authority and power to
disregard a legal decision to force its own agenda.
Those changes now provide Immigration Minister Scott Morrison with unchecked, unprecedented, unchallengeable and secret powers power to decide outcomes that will affect and control the lives of asylum seekers and refugees coming to Australia. It means Australia is now no longer obliged to adhere to the UN Refugee Convention, a treaty the Australia that was once played a key-role in constructing and implementing after the Second World War, as the ruling members of the LNP tighten their grip on power.
But the most insidious
aspect of their war on freedom for the masses is that the rhetoric they have
chosen to use is actually aligned with the frustration and outrage of the
people. We are extremely angry about what has been going on in the Legal
System, where victims are isolated and silenced, predators, crime, systemic
failure and the entrenched culture of corruption is concealed and enabled, and
justice is circumvented. We are tired of our authorities ruling like kings as
they live in a world of privilege insulated from reality.
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