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Home > A conversation with > Article
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‘Good choices’ from a larrikin of Bankstown
A conversation with Andrew Scipione, the NSW Police Commissioner.
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| By Brian Davies.
21 June, 2009 |
When it comes to worries my perspective is first and foremost never worry on a Sunday about what’s going to happen on Wednesday. I’m told about 80 per cent of the things we worry about never eventuate. So if you go to bed worrying about something, it can be the Goliath that stands beside your bed all night. You’ve got to make sure you deal with the issue instead of worrying about it.
Nonetheless there are issues which remain constant, aren’t there?
To worry about a concern achieves nothing. To act on your concerns potentially changes everything. Let’s talk specifics. We had the biggest security event in the world in 2007 here – the APEC conference. Twenty-one heads of state, the President of the United States, the Russian Federation, the Chinese, they were all here. Now you could spend a lot of time and energy worrying, but rather than that, we examined the range of concerns and the many risks that come with an event of that size. So you manage them by identifying the risks and then put forward options to nullify or minimise the risk, knowing that there is a need for action, planning the action and then delivering it to minimise the risks That’s life. Life for a policeman is spelt r-i-s-k … risk.
In your early days what lessons and experiences shaped your outlook?
There were lots of lessons learnt along the way but I think they never really quite prepare you for what it is you’re going to do as commissioner. This job is a bit like life … it imitates life … and life is simply the art of drawing without an eraser. You can’t rub anything out. It all comes down to choices. One of the most important lessons I can pass onto young police – including my sons – is to say: “Make good choices in your career, in your life; good choices lead to good outcomes.”
What sort of choices do they confront?
Every day, do I act with integrity or do I let that slip away? Do I do the right thing every time or most of the time? The notion is, do the right thing every time. That’s a good choice. But you’ve got to have that firmly in your mind from Minute One of Day One in your career because …
Because the alternative is corruption?
Indeed. It may be well be that’s it’s not a major issue to some people, but to compromise once, just once, creates the problem whereby you’ve got to live with that in your history and history will always hunt you down … always.
Surely, there is always somewhere in a police force, anywhere in the world, there must be an element of ...
Anyone who suggests to you there is no longer corruption within my organisation, my police force, in this profession, is doing nothing more than pulling your leg, trying to have you on.
How do you deal with it?
You’ve got to remain vigilant, you’ve got to be unrelenting. When police do the right thing and things go wrong, you’ve got to stand behind them and back them. When police do the wrong thing and betray the public trust that they’re given – an enormous responsibility – when they betray it you’ve got to come down on them, very hard, like a tonne of bricks. It’s a bit like rust in a car. you don’t know it’s there until it breaks through. Then you realise you’ve got a big problem. You look for all the signs and early warning indicators, but you’ve got to be prepared to act – with courage, with commitment – and you’ve always got to remain on the look out.
What led you into the police force in the first instance?
I first worked in the building trade but I had an opportunity to move into what was then the Customs service. I worked on the Sydney waterfront and the airport in Sydney and then I moved into an intelligence role that involved me with NSW police officers in a very large drug importation case. As a result I was encouraged to join the NSW force. I always thought I’d like to work in community. So when given the opportunity to join, I couldn’t say “no”. It was the best decision I could have made.
Tell me about your family.
I was born in London. My parents came from England although my mother was from the north of Ireland and my sister and myself were born in London. We came to Australia in the late 1950s – we were “10-pound Poms” – and moved into southern Sydney. My father had arrived six months before us to buy a house. They had no family, no friends, no loved ones, no support here at all.
A close-knit family because of that?
I guess so. The tragedy of it was it my father died when I was quite young – 14 – and that made it even harder for my mother. She still lives here, she’s remarried, and even when she does go “home”, she realises this is the best place – the best country in the world.
Are we these days in danger of stereotyping all Muslims as terrorists, all Lebanese as gangsters?
Is there a risk the community might do that? It’s not sensible to generalise. People I know and mix with wouldn’t generalise, wouldn’t stereotype. You and I know it’s not sensible, because everyone is different and need to be according to what they bring to the community. There are fine, fine people out there who wouldn’t fit the mould you’ve talked about, based on where they were brown, had grown up, or their religious beliefs. It’s degrading for them and reflects poorly on us.
But you can’t be certain some of your officers aren’t guilty of stereotyping?
I could never be certain. If this is a reflective organisation, then we are going to find people who might have a position contrary to what we might want. Now the issue is to let them know what’s acceptable and what’s not. And that comes from strong leadership. Don’t treat everyone who comes from a certain part of the world as potentially a terrorist or a criminal. That’s a flawed perspective. This has nothing to do with religious beliefs or the colour of their skin.
Some people have a perception that police focus intensely on Sydney’s western suburbs.
You put your resources where the problems are. If the number of assaults we have show more activity or problems in area A than area B and I’ve got finite resources, I need to put those resources where they will make the most difference. We know there are tried and tested strategies to reduce crime. That means we target repeat offenders. About 80 per cent of crime is committed by about 20 per cent of the community. If we target our repeat offenders it will immediately pull down crime rates which is why right now in NSW our crime statistics in certain areas are the lowest they’ve been in many, many years.
And the category in which it’s not falling?
The biggest problem confronting law enforcement in this state in my view is alcohol-related crime. We’ve implemented some very firm tactics: re-created the licensing command, we have a public order riot squad that’s almost exclusively dealing with outbreaks of alcohol-fuelled violence, and new effective legislation to minimise “glassings” in high-risk establishments. Having said that we will never be able to “arrest” our way of the problem. We need to educate, to change attitudes, to understand we’re all responsible: those who serve alcohol, those who consume alcohol.
How bad is it?
Two years ago the percentage of street offences where alcohol played a role was about 73. The sad news is it’s gone up to 78 per cent, so when you start to get to near 80 per cent of the street engagements by a force the size of the NSW Police, it’s a big problem.
Do you enjoy a glass of beer yourself, or are you a teetotaller?
Teetotal. I always have been. My parents were teetotallers; they just never drank, so I’ve never drunk. My children, they drink – that’s OK. My wife will have an occasional glass of wine.
Can I just go back to your boyhood, what sort of a time was that?
I had a wonderful boyhood living in the Bankstown district, enjoying school, played football; all those things larrikins get up to – collecting tadpoles to drop into Mum’s laundry tubs in the hope they’d turn into frogs to surprise her; cracker night and running around with skyrockets; market garden around the corner.
Any other ideal or goals as a career?
I always thought I’d enjoy something in building. It’s interesting that both my sons when they finished school said they’d like to go into the police and I said well, that’s an admirable decision, but go and do a trade or get a degree first. So they both chose to go and get trades. They finished their building trades and they honoured me by saying: “Dad, you asked us to do that and we’ve done that. Now we want to go into the police force.
With a name like Scipione people would immediately assume – ah – a Catholic?
My father’s parents were Italian. During World Youth Day I met Italian pilgrims and groups and they would see my name and immediately break into Italian and I had to stop them and explain I didn’t speak the language. I would love to be able to, but it’s not part of the legacy unfortunately.
World Youth Day must have been one of the least stressful events.
It was a wonderful event. I treat it as probably one of the great honours yet – to be in charge of this organisation with such a vitally important role in what was the single biggest gathering of youth on the planet in 2008. I have some great memories, one in particular: I got down to Barangaroo and I met two young constables from the bush. They said: “Sir, this is wonderful. Most big events like this we’d be concerned about being pelted with rocks or bottles like at a concert.” Their greatest risk was being serenaded by people with guitars and being sung at.”
Does your Christianity have a place in your work?
Absolutely. It’s my Christianity that makes me who I am. It’s not what you do in life that helps determines who you are; my Christianity does. My parents weren’t church folk, but just before my father died, I became involved with a neighbour and a youth group that brought me to the point where I started attending church.
And that was in the Baptist faith?
Yes, I’m a Baptist.
How did the family cope after your father died?
Mum had to go through all the things mothers do. She had to change shifts, to start working afternoons. I couldn’t finish high school. I had to get an apprenticeship. I’ve now got a master’s degree in management from Macquarie University and I’ve got a couple of general degrees … graduate certificates. I met my wife in a youth group when I was 14 and we were married when I was 20. Today we’ve got three wonderful children and, Emma, the youngest, is studying to be a teacher.
How does your Christianity figure in your working day?
I had to lay down some golden rules in my life in a very practical sense, from the Bible. There’s a verse in Micah that I took and put it into words from my perspective: to do the right thing, every time; give people a fair go and don’t get a big head, remain humble, exercise grace and you know what, when you start to do those things, in every thing you do. Every decision I make I ask myself why have you come to that decision, what are your motives? It can sometimes be turned on its ear. Micah’s words have served me incredibly well.
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