Some people should never dance. This Victorian pair are two of them

There is something fascinating about rhythmically challenged people.

We all know one. Perhaps you have one in your family. These are people for whom backbeats don’t readily apply. You can find one at any given wedding, dancing with a tempo so wonderfully out of kilter with the music, you wonder if they are hearing an altogether different song in their head.

Premier Jacinta Allan and Police Minister Anthony Carbines shortly after announcing police chief Shane Patton’s contract would not be renewed.Credit: Joe Armao

As a bemused George famously said to Jerry, “Have you ever seen Elaine dance?”

The disconnect between rhythm and movement struck me on Monday morning when I had a front-row seat to a dance of a different kind – 45 minutes of Jacinta Allan and Police Minister Anthony Carbines explaining why the government dumped Victoria’s police chief 12 days after describing him as one of Australia’s best men in blue.

“Explaining” is used loosely here. It is difficult to convey how silly political press conferences have become in Victoria, where in the dog days of a Labor government, the premier and her ministers cling so rigidly to the morning’s talking points you may as well be quizzing an automated message.

In response, frustrated journalists repeat their unanswered questions, ignoring the maxim that doing the same thing over and over is unlikely to produce a different result.

To provide a sample taste, the first question to Allan on Monday was whether she had called the then chief commissioner of police, Shane Patton, the previous Friday afternoon to tell him he would not be offered a new contract.

Her response, or rather the words which sequentially followed the question, referenced neither Patton nor whether she called him last Friday. Instead, she started talking about a vote of no-confidence in Patton taken by Police Association members on the same day.

Premier: “So, the overwhelming, the overwhelming vote of police members that came through on Friday ...”

The journalist had another go. “So, you can confirm that call was made on Friday afternoon to Shane Patton?”

“Following the results, the overwhelming results on Friday afternoon, the voice of police members was heard very, very clearly ...”

And on it went.

The premier said she was not willing to canvass conversations government officials had with Patton because to do so would be disrespectful to the police chief they’d just dumped.

When it was Carbines’ turn, it was the same automated message with a different voice.

Journalist: “Less than two weeks ago, you said [Patton] had your confidence and you said he was one of the best. What changed?”

Carbines: “What has occurred here is a very significant and overwhelming vote of police rank and file members ...”

Journalist: “Did you tell Shane Patton on Friday afternoon at 5pm that his contract would not be renewed?”

Carbines: “I am not going to detail conversation that I have around senior appointments and with the chief commissioner, as police minister. That is undignified and disrespectful to Mr Patton.”

The reason these questions matter is that good governments don’t treat their senior appointments this shabbily.

In a previous life as a football journalist, I wrote about plenty of coach sackings. The most appalling I witnessed was when Damian Drum, then coach of the Fremantle Dockers and a future Victorian state MP, was informed by journalists in a Subiaco Oval stairwell he no longer had a job.

Drum thought we were joking. Then the colour drained from his face.

That a Fremantle official blabbed to a journo as Drum was climbing the stairs to his own sacking says everything you need to know about how the Dockers were run in those days.

The Victorian government had the good grace not to blab to a journalist that Patton wouldn’t be re-contracted before the former police chief was told, but it didn’t take long.

At 5pm on Friday, Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary Jeremi Moule delivered the news to Patton. By 10pm that evening, it was splashed across the Herald Sun website. We’ll never know who leaked the story but by Sunday night, Patton had quit.

The chief commissioner of Victoria Police is a governor-in-council appointment. Although this is an archaic concept, it underscores the idea that the tenure of police chiefs should not be decided in a rush by a panicked premier or minister.

And it shouldn’t be decided by a vote of coppers grumpy that it’s taken so long for them to get a new pay deal.

It is telling that, for all their repeated references to the no-confidence vote taken against Patton by rank-and-file police, neither Allan nor Carbines at any point said they had no confidence in the police commissioner.

It would have been a bit awkward if they had.

Patton dedicated 45 years of his working life to Victoria Police. He had four months to run in his current, five-year-contract. Earlier this year, he began negotiations with the government on another one. He had every reason to think the government wanted him in the job.

Then the premier and police minister abruptly changed their tune.

Have you ever seen Elaine dance?

I’d like to see Jacinta Allan and Anthony Carbines dance. Not with each other – they come from rival Labor Party factions, after all – but with carefree abandon, like nobody’s watching.

Would they move in sync with the music, would they feel its rhythm? Would the premier be Spinning Around and the police minister Bust a Move? Or would they remind us that after 10 years in power, they’ve forgotten the steps of good government?

Chip Le Grand is state political editor.

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