WHY ARE WE NOT OUTRAGED BY THE ATTACKS ON COPS?
SOMETHING is very wrong in our culture when what a rent-a-cop is wearing at the footy gains more attention than how we treat real police officers every day.
There was widespread media coverage this week after two AFL security guards were spotted wearing vests that identified them a ‘behavioural awareness officers’. For days, everyone had their say about how over the top and out of hand the AFL’s obsession with controlling crowd behaviour had become.
Yet at the same time, and with only minimal media coverage, Victoria’s Assistant Police Commissioner Chris O’Neill was bashed at a train station in Melbourne. He was viciously kicked and punched in the head and chest ... and Mr O’Neill is the officer responsible for Melbourne’s train safety.
Assaulting police is a disgraceful crime, but the media doesn’t seem too interested because sadly, it happens too often.
Last year in NSW, more than six officers were assaulted every day. But because this figure was down on the previous year this crime statistic was rated as ‘stable’ and attracted little attention.
Assaults on police have reached epidemic proportions. We need to re-empower officers to take control of the streets without fear they will be chained to a desk doing paperwork for hurting someone’s feelings. In particular, the Victorian Government needs to spend less money on TV ads that tell people not to stare at others on trams and more money to get the word out that an assault on police is an attack on us all.
Until then, I refuse to call assaults on the fine men and women who run towards trouble as ‘stable’ or ‘average.’ It’s an appalling sign of how far we have slipped as a community when we turn the other way when this happens. A NUMBER of times this week Queensland’s Environment Minister, Leeanne Enoch, has been caught saying she had shed tears over her government’s decision to approve the Adani mine.
The Minister was filmed talking with an anti-mine protester and footage also emerged of her speaking at an event where her feelings were made very clear despite the government’s tick of approval for the project. “Let me tell you, me personally, there have been some tears shed on this” she said.
She also claimed there is a problem with the law because a minister can’t kill off a mine like Adani even if it passes all the regulations, saying: “there is no legislative power for a politician to intervene in environmental conditions, that is an absolute flaw in the legislation.”
Minister Enoch should have been sacked from cabinet for speaking against the government’s decision. If the Premier didn’t have the backbone to sack her, and if that’s how strongly she really felt, then she should have quit.
A further insult is to have her draw a minister’s salary without taking cabinet solidarity seriously.