Why we’re taking Victoria Police to VCAT
Every now and again there’s a great opportunity for shooters join an important fight for the future of the shooting sports.
We’ve just found the next one.
Through a series of FOI requests on the Victorian Department of Justice and Regulation and Victoria Police, we are now preparing to take action in VCAT against an underhanded move by Victoria Police to change our gun laws – while using questionable FOI exemptions to keep us in the dark.
Some history…
Herald Sun, 30 March 2016
In March last year, Victoria Police told the Herald Sun that they had provided DOJR with ‘recommendations’ to change our gun laws.
While that was said in the middle of the Adler debate, it also came up ahead of this year’s review of our Firearms Regulations – and after they earlier said our storage and transportation laws weren’t strong enough.
So we put in FOI requests to try and find out what the ‘recommendations’ were.
The responses we received from DOJR and Victoria Police denied in full for the same two reasons.
The first (and most significant) reason given is that the documents are “Cabinet-in-Confidence”.
The second reason given is that the recommendations were working papers (and prone to misinterpretation) or withheld in the public interest.
Limits of Victoria Police’s role and functions
While DOJR can legitimately make some claim about Cabinet confidentiality because of their role within government, the Victoria Police cannot.
That’s because the Victoria Police is a law enforcement agency which does not have a formal role in briefing the Minister. DOJR has already (and correctly) made that claim; both cannot be right.
The role and functions of Victoria Police are spelt out in sections 8 and 9 of the Victoria Police Act 2013 (the Act) which state:
8 Role of Victoria Police
The role of Victoria Police is to serve the Victorian community and uphold the law so as to promote a safe, secure and orderly society.
9 General functions of Victoria Police
(1) The functions of Victoria Police include the following—
(a) preserving the peace;
(b) protecting life and property;
(c) preventing the commission of offences;
(d) detecting and apprehending offenders;
(e) helping those in need of assistance
Nowhere in the Act does it say anything about liaising with DOJR or advising the minister on firearm laws. S16 does permit the Chief Commissioner to advise the minister on the “operations of Victoria Police and policing matters”, but not policy. Their functions are all about enforcing the law, not making it. Indeed it would be a conflict of interest for them to wear a hat as both a law advisor and law enforcer.
While Victoria Police have a legitimate need to liaise with the minister, they have no statutory responsibility or role to do so on policy. It is our assertion their communication with the minister on the recommendations was the exercise of a common law right, rather than anything relating to their functions.
It therefore makes it difficult for them to claim a statutory protection for a lobbying role they have no authority to undertake.
Otherwise, everyone – the CFCV included – would be able to claim Cabinet-in-Confidence, which would undermine the integrity of the Cabinet process.
Internal working documents
Victoria Police has also claimed the recommendations are ‘internal working documents’ as part of a deliberative process. The exemption they refer to requires it to be in the processes of the functions of the agency.
As noted before, we believe the communication of recommendations outside the agency were an exercise of a common law right, rather than anything relating to its (frontline) functions.
In any case the documents were not deliberative, but offering a concluded view.
Victoria Police saw fit to tell the Herald Sun that they wrote to the minister so there was an intention for the existence of the recommendations to be publicly disclosed, making it harder for them to argue that what they did was an “internal” process.
Public interest
The exemption used by Victoria Police extends to refusing to release the documents in the public interest.
We claim that it is IN the public interest to release the documents. That’s because their advice to the Minister for Police fell outside its statutory functions and should enjoy no special privilege for what was a ‘common law’ utterance (legal talk for something they weren’t required to do – but chose to do anyway).
Taxpayers have a right to know what Victoria Police is lobbying government on, and so do shooters who are directly affected by the actions of Victoria Police.
It is also relevant to note that Victoria Police failed to disclose it’s actions to the Firearms Consultative Committee, which was set up as a collaborative forum involving DOJR and the minister’s own office to consider and test policy proposals.
There is no public interest being served in hiding behind this exemption.
What you can do
We’ve got limited time in which to lodge an appeal We need to make this fight work for two reasons.
Firstly, we want to see the recommendations.
Secondly, we want the role of Victoria Police clarified, as this ‘backdoor’ approach has gone on for too long.
For that we want to hire the right advice.
If you and your fellow shooters reading this can
swing in $20, we’ll put that towards the fight.
Click here to donate to the fight. It’s a fight about law, and the principle behind the way Victoria Police are behaving.
It’ll be the best twenty bucks you’ve spent in a while. If you don’t have a Paypal account and would still like to donate, click here to check out our donation page for more info, or leave a comment and we’ll get back to you
