Next top cop Shane Patton vows return to basics in Victoria

More visible beat cops, zero tolerance of street crime to be pursued by Victoria’s new police chief commissioner.

New Victorian Police Commissioner Shane Patton in Melbourne on Monday. Picture: David Crosling

Back-to-basics enforcement, including more visible cops on the beat and zero tolerance of street crime and dangerous driving, will be pursued by Victoria’s new police chief commissioner.

Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton, 58, will become the force’s chief commissioner on June 27 when Graham Ashton leaves the post after five years.

Mr Patton will become one of the most experienced grassroots policemen of the modern era to take the role, his decisions influenced by 42 years of policing from his time as a constable on the beat, as a detective, prosecutor, counter-terrorism expert and internal affairs investigator.

The Andrews government on Monday backed Mr Patton for the job ahead of a global list of more than a dozen people competing for the job.

Labor sharply shifted 20 years of policy, having previously backed three chief commissioners who were either from NSW or heavily influenced by their ­careers with the AFP.

Mr Patton said ensuring police were seen doing their jobs would be crucial to achieving community safety and engagement. “It’s about visibility of our police officers out there on the roads, out there in the public ­places, out there in the streets,” he said. “That will be very high on my list of things to continue on elevating.”

There has been criticism by the Coalition that the past three Labor appointees have lacked sufficient grassroots policing ­experience.

Mr Patton, who is studying law, has an extensive policing history, starting as a cadet in 1978, with his first station at Brunswick in Melbourne’s inner north. “It’s been my life. I have loved every minute of it,’’ he said.

He will confront a changing Victoria, with sharply increasing unemployment, the fallout from the Lawyer X scandal and a force still reeling from its worst loss of life caused when four officers died in a truck smash.

Mr Ashton was praised by Victorian Premier Dan Andrews for his efforts during the past five years.

Mr Ashton was one of a series of high-level Labor appointments in Victoria since 2001 that have involved senior police who have done the bulk of their work interstate, overseas or mainly with other agencies.

Mr Patton was widely expected to be promoted to the post after having served six times as acting chief commissioner and for weeks being used as a public face of Victoria Police.

Mr Andrews said Mr Patton was a standout candidate: “Shane is someone who gets things done.’’

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In recent years, Mr Patton has directed regional operations across the state, including through the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic and bushfires, set up Victoria Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, and focused on serious and organised crime.

He had overall responsibility for crime in Victoria when police were pursuing Cardinal George Pell for child sex abuse claims that led to convictions ultimately rejected 7-0 by the High Court.

Victoria Police faces almost certain humiliation from the so-called Lawyer X royal commission, which is investigating how and why the police hired a notorious lawyer as a supergrass to force prosecutions to bring the gangland war to an end.

The move to hire Nicola Gobbo has backfired badly, with some criminals already released early from jail and the spectre of millions of dollars in compensation being paid out for wrongful ­convictions.

Mr Patton said he would do whatever was needed to reform the force once royal commissioner Margaret McMurdo handed down her findings.

The final report is due on Nov­ember 30.

“In regards to the royal commission, we’ve already taken a lot of changes along the journey but we are very much an organisation, a Victoria Police force, that is prepared to learn from our mistakes and do what we need to do to be better,” Mr Patton said.

Mr Ashton’s decision to quit at the end of his five-year contract was revealed by The Australian.

Despite the inevitable controversies, Mr Ashton was a popular leader of the force whose casual style belied extensive counter-­terrorism experience, including ­investigating the 2002 Bali ­bombings.

Mr Andrews was effusive in his praise of Mr Ashton. “I thank Graham Ashton for his exceptional service to Victoria over the past five years — he should be enormously proud of all he has achieved for the force and for the Victorian community,” he said.

Mr Patton’s appointment was backed by the Victorian Police ­Association and the Victorian ­Coalition.

The Coalition appointed Ken Lay chief commissioner in 2011 and he is seen by long-term ­observers of the force as having been cut from the same cloth as Mr Patton. Both were country boys with distinguished service to Victoria Police. A fourth Labor appointment, British policeman Sir Ken Jones, was hired as a deputy commissioner of crime to then chief commissioner Simon Overland, who was a former federal Labor adviser.

Sir Ken and Mr Overland fell out in 2010-11 in what became a long-running verbal war, with both leaving Victoria Police in a blaze of adverse publicity.