MPs demand answers on police bugs

By Heath Aston Political reporter Date May 20 2012

Police Minister Mike Gallacher ... the Police Association, at its recent conference, called on the minister to order the "direct release of the report of Task Force Emblems". Photo: Max Mason-Hubers

THE inspector of the Police Integrity Commission will face questions tomorrow about why a report into a secret operation to bug more than 100 of the force's own officers has remained buried for a decade.

David Levine, QC, the inspector of PIC, will front a parliamentary committee at State Parliament and will be asked about the status of the report into Strike Force Emblems.

Emblems investigated an internal affairs operation in which a former corrupt policeman, codenamed M5, used a listening device to gather evidence against colleagues in 2000. More than 100 police officers and some civilians, including a lawyer and a journalist, were approved as targets for surveillance. But there have been questions over the legitimacy of the warrants approving M5's targets.

The Sun-Herald understands one officer on the list was already dead.

Operation Mascot, led by former internal affairs chief Mal Brammer and his assistant, Sergeant Catherine Burn, now a deputy commissioner, targeted some of the force's brightest and best.

Senior police such as Nick Kaldas - a current deputy commissioner - were on the warrants, as were the former commander of Taskforce Gain, Bob Inkster, and Mike Hagan, Brian Harding and Dennis Gilligan, now a lawyer. No one has been told why they were under surveillance.

The Police Association, at its recent conference, called on the Police Minister, Mike Gallacher, to order the ''direct release of the report of Task Force Emblems''.

Catherine Cusack, the Liberal MP who chairs the statutory committee on the Office of the Ombudsman and the PIC, said she was keen to get an answer on Emblems from Mr Devine, who has asked to take at least some of the hearing in-camera.

''We will have a lot of questions about the report,'' she said. ''For committee proceedings, the onus is always in favour of public disclosure.''

Mr Gallacher, who asked for the report to be made public while in opposition, has now referred it to Mr Levine, despite the PIC watchdog having already reviewed it in April 2002.

A spokesman for Mr Gallacher said he was committed to resolving the concerns without compromising ''sensitive police operations''. He said the government had already given the new PIC inspector powers to release reports such as Emblems.

''These powers were not available to the PIC inspector who previously examined the matter of the warrants. The minister did not think it appropriate to order the release of sensitive investigations himself. It should be properly reviewed by the appropriate authority.''