Inside the pay deal that rocked Victoria Police and claimed a chief commissioner

The message couldn’t have been delivered more clearly than by a police helicopter buzzing low and loud over a state government press conference in the middle of a law and order crisis.

Acting Premier Ben Carroll had turned up at the Werribee childcare centre for a photo op, hoping to spruik the government’s credentials before what looked like a bruising byelection.

The police air wing had been on a job in Doncaster that morning in mid-January, and as Carroll arrived for the press conference, a call was made by a union official to divert the helicopter from across the bay.

The stunt became the news, as the chopper blew through $10,000 in fuel to put Carroll very publicly on the backfoot. “Probably searching for a fair pay rise,” Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt would later quip.

The Police Association of Victoria (TPAV) justified the disruptive flyover as a “protected” industrial action. Victoria Police command, humiliated that it had so publicly lost control over its officers, launched an investigation. Carroll tried to laugh it off, but the state government was seething.

It was a notable low point in a two-year industrial dispute – one that would go on to reach even greater depths within a month with the sacking of chief commissioner Shane Patton – that has pitted the union against the police, the police against the government and police against police.

Former chief commissioner Shane Patton.Credit: Eddie Jim

On Friday, a truce was seemingly declared when Victoria Police’s unionised members voted 76 per cent in favour of accepting a new enterprise bargaining agreement.

Gatt said the protracted and challenging dispute had secured members a reward for their hard work.

“The finalisation of this industrial dispute is just the first step in a raft of improvements that desperately need to occur quickly to support our front line so that it can continue to protect and support the community,” he said.

A Victoria Police spokesperson said the pay deal “delivers deserved financial recognition for our hardworking police and protective services officers and is fair for the Victorian community”.

But the obvious relief at the news of the deal is only papering over what are deep chasms that have opened up within and between Victoria Police, the union and the government.

New officers v old heads

Gatt’s joke about the pay rise goes to the heart of why Victoria Police has seemingly torn itself apart over this latest enterprise bargaining agreement as it was increasingly fought along generational lines.

Victoria Police is the most highly unionised workforce in the country, claiming above 98 per cent of the 17,300 sworn officers on the force as members.

That kind of penetration – and the aura that surrounds the men and women in blue – has given the Police Association of Victoria an enormous influence in politics and negotiations in the past.

This EBA round was also taking place in a climate where a “law and order crisis” was at the forefront of people’s minds – the appearance of out-of-control youth crime, lax bail laws and a city plagued by the so-called tobacco war.

There was also growing resentment from frontline officers that their work was not backed by the government, whose legislative changes allowed those they arrested back onto the streets to offend again.

Premier Jacinta Allan and Police Minister Anthony Carbines announcing Patton’s departure.Credit: Joe Armao

However, this time the Police Association appeared to make a stunning miscalculation.

The union pushed for a new rostering system that set nine-hour days and a nine-day fortnight, something that was billed as a way to reduce unpaid overtime and relieve stressed frontline officers. The pay offer was 4 per cent a year over four years.

Then-chief commissioner Patton was adamantly opposed to the new roster, viewing it as unworkable – and he proved to know the minds of members better than Gatt.

When it came to a vote in July 2024, rank and file revolted and voted down the deal with 57 per cent opposed.

“What is clear is that the majority of members felt that they could not endorse the proposed agreement. What is unclear is precisely why,” Gatt said at the time. “We will get to work to understand why and act upon it.”

The vote was a slap in the face for Gatt and the union leadership, who were frantically trying to convince members that this was the best possible deal.

A veteran police officer said: “The association jumped the gun and went to this nine by nines, which was sort of promised on the proviso we could recruit more people. I think they added one plus one and got four.”

The union, at least to some members, has failed to recognise a growing shift inside its ranks.

Veteran officers have spoken about a growing divide between younger constables and senior constables struggling with the cost of living and “older heads” focusing on entitlements.

Police Association boss Wayne Gatt.Credit: Chris Hopkins

One sergeant said: “There’s a new sense that it’s a job rather than a vocation – that a career [in the police] is maybe for three, or five or seven years, not for life. They’re interested in the best pay deal possible, not about long-term entitlements like special sick leave or super.

“You’ve got younger members in the job that have been in an environment where they are really resource constrained, and the hierarchy don’t particularly recognise that there’s a real significant issue out in the road.”

This, according to the officer, was destined to cause division between those who viewed the EBA in terms of getting the best pay deal and those who wanted to fight to hold on to provisions such as “clause 121”, which provided lump-sum payments for those on sick leave ahead of retirement.

After the first offer was knocked on the head by members, negotiations dragged on and the Fair Work Commission was called in.

After more than 120 meetings, there was still no resolution and the situation was increasingly becoming a public relations problem, not least because of the effective demonstrations being staged by rank-and-file members.

For months, Victoria Police vehicles had been covered with protest slogans criticising the government and commands: “Better learn self-defence” and “Your safety. Their neglect. Better pay for police.”

Hundreds of members would also walk out of police headquarters in a protected industrial action.

But growing disquiet about the leadership of the union and the direction of the negotiations would also play out in tense, sometimes vicious, conversations inside a private Facebook group run by the union.

We have a chief called Shane. He has caused us nothing but pain. We’re in an EBA poop. Because he won’t back his troop. For an extra 6% loot.

– Protest slogan written on Victoria Police car

Sources familiar with the posts and screenshots provided to The Age suggest that the union membership was fracturing, partially on generational lines as different views emerged between newer, younger rank-and-file officers and older, more experienced cops.

And the knives were clearly out from many different sides.

One police officer wrote: “It’s been a real eye-opener to read the vitriol towards TPAV and other members by what we know now is a vocal minority … We will be okay if we don’t turn on each other.”

Another wrote: “It feels like we have no leadership, no direction, and we are not a family any more… We are a f---ing rabble … Keep your money. I want change.”

The clause 121 program costs the force about $50 million a year, and trading this in was what allowed the union to eventually negotiate a better pay deal, with an increase of 4.5 per cent a year plus an additional 0.5 per cent for frontline officers.

A straw poll in January backed the second offer by 67 per cent and opened the way for the formal vote.

One member wrote: “I think it’s clear the state government is flat broke, and we weren’t likely to get a better deal than what’s just been provisionally agreed to.”

Things would get so toxic that members would be banned from the union’s Facebook group, breaking off to form a rival chat with about 5000 members, in which they apparently felt freer to dispute the union “narrative”.

The king is dead, long live the king

Despite the argy-bargy, the preliminary EBA vote seemed to suggest the long-running dispute was heading to a quick resolution, but there was one more sting in the tail.

While negotiations were dragging on, pressure had quickly been mounting on the government over the state’s perceived law and order crisis.

As Premier Jacinta Allan promised a review of bail laws and a crackdown on youth offenders, there was a probably well-intentioned announcement about the state’s police chief.

Police Minister Anthony Carbines, stopped on the steps of state parliament, suggested Patton was headed for a second term.

“He has the government’s confidence, he has my confidence, and he has the confidence of police members,” he said on February 5.

The union has quite openly declared that Carbines very public declaration of support sealed Patton’s fate.

The Police Association initiated a vote of no confidence in Patton, which members returned at a crushing level of 87 per cent.

“This isn’t about the EBA – we’re not going to be able to go back and renegotiate it,” an officer said. “This is about Patton leaving the force in a much worse position then when he found it five years ago. He’s too close to the government.”

Less than 30 minutes after the vote, the Allan government went from trumpeting Patton as the best law officer in the country to throwing him under the bus.

“It is critical and important that the government does not ignore that vote,” Carbines said.

Patton was left with no choice but to resign. Another deputy chief, and known thorn in the side of the government, Neil Paterson, was gone soon after.

The high-profile exits allowed the government to divert attention from their own crisis, but there is another strain of thought that the motion against Patton could also have been, at least in part, about cutting off growing disquiet with the members about the Police Association’s leadership.

“We’re having a vote about Patton’s leadership instead of a vote about Gatt and TPAV’s leadership,” one officer said. “The union has made a right mess of this whole thing.”

Whether the clean-out at the top and a new EBA in place mean a reset for relations between the police and government remains to be seen.

Senior police sources say the Allan government’s May budget is expected to be a bloodbath, and the force will be expected to rein in spending by about $2 billion over the next four years.

The Police Association, too, will face hard choices as the funding cuts bite. And from members who remain unhappy about how all this has unfolded.

One veteran detective said: “The EBA itself is OK. It was the process to get there and the fallout from that. I think VicPol are in for some darker days yet.”

As for the legally questionable and embarrassing helicopter stunt with the $10,000 price tag for the taxpayer?

It appears the decision by all parties – police, union and government – is to act like it just didn’t happen.

“Victoria Police has completed inquiries about the air wing circling above a government press conference in Werribee on 14 January 2025,” a spokesperson said. “The crew has been spoken with, and no further action will be taken.”

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