Police Unions in Australia: a History of the Present

2In the fading years of the century police unions have never been more powerful and significant. The flexing of muscle in the protest meetings of Victorian police against structural changes in policing was a striking reminder this year of their power to attract notice and challenge administrations and government. Yet police unions have been a subject of little interest to Australian scholars of criminal justice, or even of industrial relations1. The ind fference is striking. Whatever else police unions may be, they are certainly highly successful collective labour organisations. They are relatively recent, it is true, but not more so than say nurses or teachers unions, with each of which they share a lot in common. And in any case they are now of some age- the oldest continuous ones in Australia going back to before the First World War. These are not just organisations of a few activists. They have aspired to enrol the entire police workforce and have come remarkably close in most cases to achieving that- although for many decades they usually excluded women police. Unionisation in public policing remains just about the closest thing Australia has to a closed shop, and police unions have therefore achieved much in that respect- much more successful than the doctors unions, or those of academics, or perhaps even those of builders ' labourers. So why the indifference?