Cunningham: Independent inquiry into police recruitment only looking at tip of the iceberg

The independent inquiry ordered by the NTG into NT Police recruitment will go back to August 2023. But it’s only looking at the tip of the iceberg, writes Matt Cunningham.

Disgraced Former Northern Territory Police Commissioner John McRoberts, changed policing in the Northern Territory.

The independent inquiry ordered by the Finocchiaro Government into NT Police recruitment will go back to August 2023.

But, as independent MLA Robyn Lambley pointed out on Mix FM yesterday, it’s really only looking at the tip of the iceberg.

That view might be applied both to recruitment practices throughout the Northern Territory public service – not just the NT Police – and to questions of integrity more generally within the NT Police.

For many former and long-serving NT police officers there is a far more important date that marked a change in practice and philosophy within NTPOL than August 2023.

It’s New Year’s Eve, 2009. That’s the night new NT Police Commissioner John McRoberts first took to the streets of Darwin, just three days after his appointment.

McRoberts arrived in the Territory and immediately disliked what he was seeing.

During his subsequent five-year reign he would change the way police interacted with most Territorians, from Aboriginal people in remote communities, to journalists who covered the police round.

One of the first things McRoberts did was force a ban on heavy beer at the footy. Given some of the behaviour he had witnessed at TIO Stadium, this was probably justified.

But perhaps his most significant change would come two years later, when he changed the force’s uniform from khaki to dark blue. McRoberts had walked down Mitchell St in uniform that New Year’s Eve and felt there was a lack of authority, and a lack of respect offered to officers in khaki.

By 2012 the khaki was gone. Officers past and present say the change was about far more than colour. It was also about a change in attitude that has continued to have ramifications to this day.

Then new commanders Michael Murphy (left) and Kym Davies (right) with then NT Police Commissioner John McRoberts in Alice Springs.

“We went from being a really community-focused organisation to an organisation that was all about force,” one former officer says.

Another says the new dark blue uniform and the accoutrements that came with it not only changed the community’s view of police but attracted a different kind of police recruit.

“Policing has always been described as paramilitary, but the uniform took us in a different direction in my view,” another former officer says.

“When I was a copper I had a pair of handcuffs on my belt and that was it. The change of uniform brought a whole different type of person into the police force.

“They didn’t understand what the community policing model looked like.”

The other significant change under McRoberts was the way police communicated with the public through the media.

Until then, this was a largely open relationship. Junior reporters at this publication would spend their evening shifts doing a ring-around of police stations across the NT. If someone answered the phone and had a good story to tell, there was nothing stopping them from telling it. If you wanted a comment about a car crash you would call Superintendent Bob Rennie on his mobile.

McRoberts centralised the police communications system, a move that was more about controlling information than helping to provide it.

Former Northern Territory Police Commissioner John McRoberts centralised the police communications system, a move that was more about controlling information than helping to provide it

Things turned really sour in late 2010 when NT News police reporter Justin O’Brien received a tip about a raid on the house of the Darwin Lord Mayor.

The police, under McRoberts, accessed O’Brien’s telephone records to find out who he had been speaking to.

The move put the fear of god into police officers when it came to speaking to the media. That relationship has never really recovered.

Today, if a journalist wants to speak to a police officer, they are first required to fill out an online form.

McRoberts’ time in charge saw many experienced officers resign.

Police who had spent decades building relationships – an invaluable quality, particularly in remote Indigenous communities where trust is hard-won – couldn’t continue under his leadership.

Of course, McRoberts’ reign came to a spectacular end when he was jailed for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

But his five years in charge changed the way policing is done in the NT, and not for the better.

Acting Commissioner Martin Dole was brutally honest at his press conference on Monday when he described the past decade as “tumultuous”.

Three of our past four commissioners have now effectively been sacked or forced to resign.

If you want to get to the bottom of why the NT Police Force seems to be in a state of permanent crisis, you need to start a long way before August 2023.

New Year’s Eve, 2009, would make far more sense.

Originally published as Cunningham: Independent inquiry into police recruitment only looking at tip of the iceberg