Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

After a number of recent controversial judgments relating to law and order in the past few weeks in New South Wales, I am concerned that hardworking police officers must be asking themselves why they became cops in the first place. Two weeks ago a magistrate came to the decision that it was acceptable to call police officer a ‘prick’, clearing a university student of offensive language charges following a heated row with a senior constable at a railway station in Sydney. The magistrate went on to say that he was not satisfied that a reasonable person would be offended by the word ‘prick’ and that a police officer would have heard much worse in general conversation on numerous occasions; therefore, our police officers should be used to this type of language. I am reasonably confident that in the ordinary course of parliamentary life this would be deemed to be unparliamentary.

Another well-known magistrate in the Manly court last week accused two police officers of fabricating their versions of an incident which occurred in the early hours of the morning in Manly last year, and the magistrate consequently threw the case out of court. The finding came after the police were called to respond to and defuse an ugly crowd. It is alleged that the person charged had been drinking. He became hostile towards the police and wrestled one of the officers to the ground, pinning him down. I understand that this occurred after police officers had tried to move him from the middle of the road. He also went on to call the police ‘fucking pigs’.

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