Shane Patton may say he’s not woke, but his Stolen Generation apology suggest otherwise

Victoria’s police commissioner Shane Patton may claim he isn’t woke but his decision to apologise to the Stolen Generation 16 years after Kevin Rudd did so makes him sound a lot less like an everyday cop.

Police chief commissioner Shane Patton last week tried to convince the Herald Sun’s Steve Price that he was not woke.

In person, certainly, you wouldn’t think that he was.

He’s a footy fan who catches the train.

A bloke who seems fond of a pie and the odd beer.

A leader who forges respect for his history of operational policing (and genuinely hairy moments), with a plainness that suggests that virtue-signalling rhetoric is not his natural habitat.

So why is he apologising to victims of the Stolen Generation 16 years after then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said sorry on the nation’s behalf?

Shane Patton apologised to Stolen Generation victims on Friday. Picture: Supplied

He’s doing so on Friday, at the Aboriginal Advancement League.

It follows an apology he offered on behalf of Victoria Police at the Yoorook Justice Commission last year.

“While I know that the overwhelming proportion of our workforce is not racist, the persistent and consistent poor outcomes for Aboriginal people is undeniable,” he said then.

“This has compelled us to examine where unconscious bias and the inequitable use of discretion or unfair systems are adversely impacting Aboriginal people and contributing to systemic racism.”

Call it a fashion.

Mark Knight’s take on Shane Patton.

Corporations and institutions blithely out themselves for examples of historic racism, usually under a “truth telling” ethos.

Inevitably, there is lots of hand-wringing, peppered with airy promises to never repeat such dastardly wrongs — which sometimes date to the era of their great grandparents.

There’s often a self-inflated assumption to such apologies.

It’s easy to take responsibility for acts for which you had no responsibility.

Sometimes, the apologies seem more about the apologiser than the victims of the misbehaviour.

The Voice result suggests we may have wearied of the symbolism of force-fed contrition.

Even the people of remote Indigenous communities, on a visit last August, dismissed such rhetoric as “big city” nonsense.

They’re tired of gestures. Many of us elsewhere are, too.

When Mr Patton cites the language of “unconscious bias” and “systemic racism”, he sounds less like an everyday top cop and more like one of his predecessors, Christine Nixon.

He may deny being woke. But he’s certainly on-trend.