TAC’s stand is right

MANY were surprised when the Transport Accident Commission, headquartered in our city, ended its lucrative partnership with the Cats after skipper Joel Selwood was caught speeding.

It seemed like a very sudden, blunt stand. It may have been slightly disproportionate. But it cut through because it was risky but principled community leadership.

And they have done it again in their tough stand in relation to the widespread Victoria Police breathalyser scandal.

This was the news that has rocked the force and the community this week that police for some reason — possibly to meet quotas — have themselves been blowing into breathalysers intended to catch out drink drivers .

(There have been worse antics, of course, even from our police over the years — no officers personally profited from this scheme.)

The breathalyser “shortcut” may have remained unexposed but for the TAC noticing the anomaly in data late last year that prompted an internal police probe.

And the TAC has taken another hardline but principled decision in putting on hold the $4 million it gives the police annually for road funding.

The TAC made its name taking risks with shock road trauma advertisements that were among the first of their kind in the world.

Much of the proactive cultural stigmatising of once widely tolerated practices such as speeding and drink driving is their success.

Why is the TAC, and its local brains trust, now given responsibility for everything from road safety design to funding road policing when we still have a separate roads authority?

Because they have shown in these episodes that they have good judgment.

And as a culture the TAC largely acts as the public would have it act rather than making easy, weak decisions to look after its mates in other organisations in the public sector.

We need more of that.