Put your money on Switzerland

THE mysterious political dogfight which is Strikeforce Emblems threatens to tear the senior ranks of the police force apart.

NSW Police Deputy Commissioner Nick Kaldas (front) and Andrew Scipione. Picture: Adam Ward

THE mysterious political dogfight which is Strikeforce Emblems threatens to tear the senior ranks of the police force apart in a way that has not been seen in this town for a decade.

Word is that at some levels of the cops these days you are asked which side you are on — the side of Commissioner Andrew Scipione and his deputy Catherine Burn or that of the other deputy Nick Kaldas.

Then there is Deputy Commissioner Dave Hudson, who has been known for a while as “Switzerland”.

Scipione is set to retire in September next year when his contract expires. A month ago you would have said Kaldas was a certain successor but now he’s on sick leave, the apparent latest victim of the politics that often besets those at the top level of NSW Police.

He is caught up in the Ombudsman’s inquiry into Emblems.

Catherine Burn worked at the SCIA (Special Crime and Internal Affairs) unit when a bugging operation into many police went on more than a decade ago.

Kaldas was one of many targets of the bugging.

The fact the leading lights in the cops are battling such issues on the surface appears worrying.

But this is not the first time this has happened. It is reminiscent of a period 10 years ago when Ken ­Moroney was in charge of the force and deputy and ­assistant commissioners were dropping like flies.

Former deputy commissioner Dave Madden medically retired after an investigation began into false claims that he leaked information about a phone tap. The federal DPP found that he had no charges to answer.

Dick Adams retired as senior assistant commissioner after an internal ­affairs investigation into the purchase of an expensive mahogany desk for his office. Again, he was cleared.

The beneficiary of all that turmoil was Andrew Scipione. And he has been commissioner ever since.

Scipione has been an excellent police commissioner and a man of integrity. He has also been an excellent political player, and his ability to keep a lid on the simmering tensions with police senior ranks up until now has been extraordinary.

Kaldas has been a sensational operational cop — the way he took on the Brothers 4 Life gang and the drive-by shootings issue and solved that for the government and community was exemplary. It’s a shame then that it has come to this.

But Kaldas and other senior cops believe they were wrongly bugged and tapped — as does Channel 7 producer Steve Barrett.

One explanation that has been given for the bugging is that warrants were required for so many names because a bug was being worn by an undercover cop at a function.

For those under surveillance, this has not washed.

What has set many off is that the Ombudsman has conducted an investigation in who leaked information on Emblems.

It has apparently become as much of an issue as the bugging or tapping itself, because it was put in the inquiry’s terms of reference by former police minister Mike Gallacher.

They used to call the former police commissioner Peter Ryan “paranoid Pete” — and why wouldn’t he have been, given that he came to run the force at a time when vast corruption was being exposed by the Wood Royal Commission?

Nor was he particularly popular with his colleagues, being an outsider.

The question now is whether those under him at the turn of the century went too far in trying to find ­allegedly corrupt cops.

One of the problems around this whole issue has been the secrecy with which the Emblems report has been treated, including through the Ombudsman’s investigation.

When there is secrecy, there is suspicion.

The argument against that is that going public on this thing will do over ­informants.

The thought of cops seeking wire taps smacks of something out of the HBO series The Wire.

With the top cops with their minds on issues other than the protection of the citizens of our state, it’s far from an ideal situation.

And all of this is a headache Premier Mike Baird simply does not need. As “Teflon Mike” goes into Christmas, he has big problems with two watchdogs.

There’s ICAC, which feels it cannot report on Operation Credo or Spicer without the high court decision on the Margaret Cunneen case.

And there’s the Ombudsman, under fire and under heat over the way he is investigating Strike Force Emblems.

No one ever said the Premier’s job was meant to be easy.

THE ONLY CAROL ROBBO SINGS IS SILENT NIGHT

Last week there was a fundraiser to celebrate old Labor stalwart and former upper house MP “Johnno” Johnson at Doltone House at Pyrmont.

Former prime minister Bob Hawke spoke, Luke Foley, the Labor upper house leader, spoke, former premier Barrie Unsworth spoke, but there was nothing from the man known as “Robbo”, Labor leader John Robertson.

Nothing. Four months out from an election. No rev-up speech for the hundreds of party faithful there.

One of John Robertson’s problems, as he attempts to impress as an alternative premier, is that he just does not strike a chord even with his own people.

At the parliamentary press gallery Christmas party last month, it was a similar story. The former union boss’s speech fell flat as he got too willing and too personal with his opponents, not in the spirit of the night.

Of Robertson’s appearance at Johnno’s function, one Labor member said: “The bloke was like that film Exodus. Everywhere he walked, the crowd parted.”

This is the third campaign I have covered as a journalist and I can never recall Labor being so lacklustre this far out from an election.

To top it off, the other week Labor’s general secretary Jamie Clements managed to send an email out spelling the word Labor ­“Labour” in one paragraph.

It was in relation to a celebration of Pat Dixon, the first Aboriginal woman elected to local government in Australia. Presumably it was a function of spellcheck but nevertheless it was yet another sign that the Opposition is a shambles.