Palmer, Mick --- "Today's AFP has not evolved by chance" [2001] AUFPPlatypus 2; (2001) 70 Platypus: Journal of the Australian Federal Police, Article 2

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Today's AFP has not evolved by chance

By Commissioner Mick Palmer

The AFP's journal Platypus, has recorded the arrival and departure of its four commissioners to date and, not surprisingly, my arrival and Commissioner McAulay's retirement were covered in edition 43 published in June 1994.

Commissioner Mick Palmer

I glanced through this edition recently and was struck by the fact that many of those featured between its covers had left the 'job'. One article dealing with the outcomes of the Australasian Police Commissioner's Conference was accompanied by a photo of the then serving police commissioners from Australia and the South Pacific. With the retirement of Commissioner Comrie and myself this month, none of those pictured remain as serving commissioners. Indeed, during my 13 years as a commissioner I have worked with more than 20 Australasian police commissioners and served at least eight different ministers.

This is a timely reminder that law enforcement, as is the case with other professions, is in a constant state of change. New commissioners and governments redefine the role they see for their police service in an endeavour to provide best practice to the communities they serve. No one aspires to be a police commissioner simply to maintain the status quo. Quite rightly governments and the community are looking for innovative ideas and solutions to what some may see as intractable problems. For example, driving to work this morning, I heard a caller on Canberra radio station 2CN wanting more money to be spent on the 'drug problem'. The caller admitted that she did not have a solution to the problem, but thought that more needed to be done. The comment highlights the importance of listening to community concerns and explaining to the community why we do the things we do.

Historically, police have regarded their activities as their own and inquiries from the media and elsewhere were met with a blunt "this is private police business" response. Today, such an attitude would be untenable and quite frankly, I think the need for police to be more accountable for the expenditure of scarce public resources is a positive development.

In what will be my final contribution to Platypus as AFP Commissioner, I plan to briefly look back over the journey we have undertaken since 1994 and to look forward five years or so.

Firstly, it is important to recognise that the AFP of today has not evolved by chance. Indeed the AFP has been continuously involved in change throughout its 21-year history.

In 1994, the Executive Team met in Mollymook to 'greenfield' ideas about the role of the AFP, its core business and how to best achieve the outcomes expected of it by Government and other key stakeholders. In essence we said if we were starting from scratch and building a new organisation to do all these things what would it look like. We came up with a reform program that impacted on every part of our culture, core business activities and structure. It was the start of an influential journey to take us from where we were to where we needed to be.

We settled a mission of providing dynamic and effective law enforcement to the people of Australia, recognising, of course, that this could only be achieved through the performance of our people. This required creating wider opportunities for the development of our people and an environment in which people were treated as the AFP's most valuable asset.

In 1994, rightly or wrongly, we saw the future for policing as requiring the development of:

• expert generalist officers who have the diversity of skills necessary to take law enforcement into the 21st century;

• a more prepared, capable and flexible workforce;

• a values-driven organisation that expects and celebrates integrity and accountability, promotes and embraces personal opportunity, initiative and development, and focuses on results.

• mobility across the AFP and between law enforcement agencies to maximise the opportunities to make the best possible use of people and generate individual growth and satisfaction; and

• a far higher use of joint agency, multi-jurisdictional and even international target directed teams comprising the best possible mix of skills and resources to deal with the particular problem.

To deliver these outcomes we adopted a broad range of reforms aimed at making the best use of our people. We looked at ways to minimise controls and maximise flexibility; to encourage mobility within the organisation to widen knowledge, understanding and communication; we made people's titles more meaningful by describing a person's 'home' or responsibilities rather than simply rank or status, and we tapped into people's problem-solving abilities and enterprising skills to engender a culture of pride and confidence rather than one of inferiority and insecurity.

We decided the best way to deal with a fundamentally different environment and set of challenges was with a fundamentally different approach and structure. I am not saying no mistakes were made. They were, and I probably made most of them. But the need was critical, the decisions difficult and the courage and commitment to persevere, essential.

Back in 1994, the AFP workplace, although featuring a flattened rank structure and fixed-term employment arrangements, still had traditionally defined jobs, a single set of skills and a command structure based on divisions, branches, sections and squads. These aspects were followed through in our training. While this structure had served us adequately in the past and positioned us for our current changes, it was not suited to the challenges of the future.

A new National Operations Model was introduced which featured a flexible, empowered team approach to work. As a strong symbolic first step, we abolished every operational and operational support division, branch, and squad in the organisation. At the same time, except where required by legislation, we moved to replace General Orders and Instructions with Corporate Guidelines.

In 1995, the AFP implemented the National Teams Model (NTM). This transition to more appropriately empowered teams was one of a number of strategies aimed at enabling the AFP to respond more effectively to unpredictable domestic and international environments. The introduction of the NTM signified fundamental structural and cultural change in the way the AFP undertook work and managed, developed and rewarded its people in operations, including community policing, and operations support.

The move from traditional hierarchical rank structures to 'federal agent' for all sworn members below the level of deputy commissioner not engaged in community policing, was, I believe, fundamental to the successful introduction of the NTM in the AFP and to our external reputation, credibility and self-belief. The emphasis is now on roles and competencies and how they are blended, not on hierarchical ranks. Our present levels of investigative preparedness and capacity, together with the skills and confidence of our people is, I believe, a clear demonstration of the value and success of this initiative.

The imperatives of good leadership, management, supervision and personal responsibility and accountability remained unchanged. Indeed, exemplary leadership and well-honed interpersonal skills were even more vital in teams than they were in hierarchical structures. They are simply shared among more people - and more people benefit from the sharing.

Empowerment is not an unfettered right to do what one pleases. It denotes having the authority, training, resources, means and the confidence and competence to undertake a role or task within the parameters of the law and corporate policy. It also means people being inspired and motivated to share responsibility for the fortunes of their organisation and being accountable for the outcomes. Essentially it involves trust by our management and commitment by our people.

Since 1995, the teams concept has evolved to the structure as we know it today and while the concept of teams has been extensively applied to the private sector the AFP is one of the few law enforcement agencies to have adopted this approach. In this regard I think it is fair to say that we have been, and remain, at the cutting edge of public sector and certainly law enforcement reform.

The AFP in the year 2000 is nothing like the AFP of six years ago. The difficulties associated with bedding down the Teams Model and the cultural shock following the abolition of ranks and titles is now a distant memory for many of us and a non-issue for most of our newer members.

Are we a more effective organisation now than we were six years ago? I think the answer is a resounding "Yes".

Organisationally, there is no doubt that we are more flexible, capable and adaptable. More of our people have wide, diverse, investigative experience, including investigation management. We are individually and corporately more self-confident, our operational results are the best in our history. We now have the capacity to monitor the work we do, to assess its relative importance and to allocate resources to the higher priority work. We simply could not do this six years ago. The ability to properly account for our resources and the returns that we have been able to generate has led to unprecedented levels of support by government and this is reflected in recent budget allocations.

We are now better placed to deal with the challenges associated with the increasing transnational character of crime, the globalisation of society and issues, innovations in commerce and trade facilitated by the Internet and the growing irrelevance of borders between states and countries for criminal enterprises.

The process of repositioning the AFP to meet emerging challenges will be ongoing. The need we identified in 1994 for joint agency, multi-jurisdictional and even international target directed teams is now a daily reality and you only need look at the results achieved in Operation Logrunner (the 357kg heroin seizure in Fiji in October last year involving agencies from six countries) to appreciate the value of such an approach.

The unique jurisdiction of the AFP and the flexible work structures that we have implemented have made the AFP a desirable place to work and our personnel are highly regarded in terms of their skills and experience. We are likely to see greater mobility between law enforcement agencies and while we will lose our personnel to other agencies we are already seeing the benefits of new blood in the AFP.

During the next five years, I believe the AFP will find itself involved in new and exciting challenges which will even further demonstrate the importance of its role and enhance its national and international reputation. Within this time period Logrunner style investigations will become increasingly prevalent with the AFP being involved in joint international investigations in a variety of countries across our wider region. Such investigations will require agreement on issues of command and control; resource sharing; police practice and the use of technology and they will see investigators frequently engaged in off-shore operational activity.

Within this same time period it is likely we will see:

• a strong commitment by Australia to the improvement of police practice and cooperation across the Asia/Pacific region and the creation within Australia of an international law enforcement academy in which the AFP will play a lead role;

• the creation of new partnerships with private industry to facilitate the effective investigation of e-crime in its various forms;

• the enactment of a new range of offences, powers and authorities sufficient to properly equip law enforcement to deal with multi-jurisdictional and new technology crime;

• the creation of an International Organised Crime Court or Tribunal which will be empowered by signatory countries to investigate and prosecute an agreed range of serious international criminal activity;

• the expansion of the liaison officer network, including the nature and operational scope of the work; and

• the transition of the AFP from a learning to a teaching institution.

The individual opportunities that will flow from these challenges will be enormous and I am absolutely confident that the people who the AFP employ will prove themselves to be both ready and qualified to meet them.

While focusing on people, before I close I would like to take the opportunity to deliver a few special thank you messages.

First, to all those men and women who have served with me during the past 34 years I thank you for your support, your comradeship and your dedication to duty. Policing is one of the most difficult of careers - one sees the very worst and best of society. It has been my privilege to work with many fine people and to lead two exemplary organisations.

Second, I want to thank colleagues in the wider law enforcement community. The willingness to pool resources and to work together has been one of the most satisfying aspects of the last phase of my career. The 'patch' has and always will be bigger than the players. Together, we can make a difference.

I want to thank the governments that I have worked with since being appointed commissioner both in the Northern Territory and federally. These have been of various political persuasions and I have enjoyed the professional relationships that have existed with those who have served as Prime Minister, Chief Minister and Police or Justice Minister. The unique and independent role of the Police Commissioner has been recognised by Ministers without exception and this is reflected in the high level of confidence in our judicial system.

To the people within my direct office, people like Robyn, John and Steve, whose loyalty, unstinting commitment and productivity, often in difficult circumstances, was instrumental to anything I achieved, a very special thanks.

Last but by no means least, I want to thank my family and in particular my wife Kay and my sons Craig and Brendon for their support and sacrifice. Increasingly, the position of Police Commissioner has become a very public one in Australia and that brings with it the downsides of public life. I thank my family for their love and unstinting support.

I will watch with interest and quiet pride the performance of the Australian Federal Police in the years ahead and, like the rest of the community, celebrate your successes and recognise the important role you play.