#woodsroyalcommission — Public Fediverse posts

Examples of LECC's failure to address serious matters abound.

For instance, #LECC knew for at least a year that a group of very senior officers (including the then NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller and three of his Assistant Commissioners) co-owned a bunch of racehorse with business figures in the gambling and gaming industries, some of them under criminal investigation. The senior police figures had not disclosed this obvious conflict of interest as required (connections between police and the gambling and gaming industries having been specifically labelled high risk by the Woods Royal Commission). And yet LECC did nothing.

Then, in 2022 after Commissioner Fuller had resigned and was about to be appointed as head of Racing NSW (peak horse racing body), investigation by #ABC journalists revealed these undisclosed links and LECC was forced to address them. However, LECC's initial response completely cleared Fuller and rubbished the ABC reporting. Months later, a subsequent LECC examination of its own earlier response resulted in a complete 180º-turn: a ban on such business arrangements and an exoneration of the #InvestigativeJournalism that had revealed them.

#NSWPoliceCommissioner #NSWpolice #transparency #corruption #GamblingIndustry #HorseRacing #EndHorseRacing #WoodsRoyalCommission

The police watchdog is called the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission, or #LECC. LECC ought never be mentioned without also mentioning that the former #Coalition government established it in 2017 with such insufficient funding that it only has the resources to investigate 1-2% of the thousands of complaints made against NSW Police each year. Enormous numbers of complaints, including those involving serious #corruption, are either completely unaddressed or handed over for police to investigate themselves.

The Coalition founded LECC in 2017 as a replacement for multiple prior police accountability organisations, including the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) that was set up after the Woods Royal Commission confirmed longstanding allegations of serious and non-isolated police corruption in NSW. As it was being set up, the Police Union and relevant government minister sought to prevent anyone who worked at PIC from being hired for LECC, according to testimony under oath in 2018 from the newly appointed LECC head to parliamentary committee (claims denied by the then police minister).

#WoodsRoyalCommission #PoliceCorruption #PoliceAbuse #transparency #PoliceWatchdog #NSWpol #NSWpolice