Report of much spin but little fortitude

THERE is a lot of spin and a pinch of substance in the annual report of Victoria's Office of Police Integrity.

One line that stands out comes from the pen of Michael Strong, the OPI's director, who writes of "one of the OPI's values - courage".

In an organisation with extraordinary powers and a role to be a shining example of police integrity, a value such as courage would be commendable.

But courage is not just about running a hard operation and recommending a difficult prosecution. Courage means having the intestinal fortitude to investigate your own wrongdoing when it becomes clear that things have gone hopelessly pear-shaped.

The OPI exemplifies cowardice for failing to look back at how it operated at critical junctures while pursuing former assistant commissioner Noel Ashby and former police union chief Paul Mullett.

There is clear and incontrovertible evidence of OPI conduct that looks like a corrupt perversion of the course of justice in the saga involving Ashby and Mullett, who paid a heavy price for being so strongly disliked by the police and OPI hierarchy.

No, Mr Strong, the OPI is not courageous for selectively leaking against its enemies as part of a campaign to condition journalists and the public to see things "the OPI way".

The OPI is not courageous for orchestrating the lynching of the OPI's enemies in showy hearings aided by sexy and carefully edited secret telephone intercepts.

The OPI is not courageous for airbrushing the role of the then deputy commissioner of Victoria Police, Simon Overland, as the original source of a leak about a murder investigation.

And the OPI is not courageous for not challenging a beat-up of a story from a career criminal, whose own lawyer told the OPI at the outset that the man was a liar who had fabricated claims of police involvement in a murder.

Mr Strong can legitimately talk about OPI courage when he investigates the inexcusable conduct, such as that which occurred before he became its director. Rogue agencies are dangerous. The OPI should be the subject of a root-and-branch investigation by a body at least as powerful.