When Police Unionise The politics of law and order in Australia By Mark Finnane

Once upon a time police were not allowed to unionise. Now they are among the most highly unionised of workers. When Police Unionise shows how that happened in Australia. More than that however - this book is a study of the contemporary politics of policing, about the generation of law and order politics in Australia since the 1960s, and about the implications of these developments for the way criminal justice systems work.

The highly publicised intervention of the Queensland Police Union in the 1996 Mundingburra by-election is the starting point for a study of the longer history of political activity of police. Set against an international context of increasing police militancy, the book examines the very early unionisation of police in Australia, the turmoil of police industrial relations during the inter-war decades, the combative approach of police commissioners like Blamey in Victoria and MacKay in New South Wales, the optimistic post-war alliance with the Australian labour movement, its collapse in the 1960s and the subsequent emergence of a more autonomous, belligerent and ambitious police union culture.

This is a critical appraisal of the politics of law and order in Australia, seen from the perspective of police in their role as workers and employees. The book helps us understand why police have the voice they do in public debates about crime, justice and policing - and why their impact is nevertheless limited by the play of politics in contemporary Australia.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Politics and the police in Australia

Organising the police

The politicisation of police

Industrial battlefields

Alliances and conflicts

Political interventions

The new politics of change

Law and order

REVIEWS

Australian Journal of Political Science, Vol 39 No 1

The major source of the book is the union journals of the six states, the various Police Journals. The contentious industrial concerns and the book’s narrative evolve from these rich sources, which have previously been ignored. By diligent analysis, Finnane presents the police unions’ perspective about core industrial issues such as wages, conditions of work, promotion, pensions, transfers and discipline, as well as the priority law and order issues over many decades.

The book makes a significant contribution to industrial history by unravelling Australian police unionism with its commonality but also state-by-state differences …

The book adroitly explores how police have come to play an active role in politics – a theme not pursued elsewhere. Although Finnane rightly documents the limits of police unionism, these unions nevertheless remain powerful bodies. As the guardians of law and order, police are vital to safeguarding internal security, a powerful position. More than 96% of police around Australia are unionised …

Finnane has achieved what he has set out to do, namely, to identify the police union perspective industrially and politically.

David Baker, LABOUR & INDUSTRY, Vol 15 No 2, December 2004 134