Victoria Police Strike - 31 October 1923

The 1923 Victorian Police strike occurred in Melbourne on the eve of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival in November 1923, half the police force in Melbourne went on strike over the operation of a supervisory system using labour spies. Riots and looting followed as crowds poured forth from Flinders Street Station on the Friday and Saturday nights and made their way up Elizabeth and Swanston Streets, smashing shop windows, looting, and overturning trams.

The strike started late on Wednesday night 31 October 1923 - the eve of Melbourne's Spring Racing Carnival - when a squad of 24 constables at Russell Street Police Headquarters refused duty, citing the continued use of spies by management. The Victoria Police force at the time were understaffed, lowly paid in comparison with other state police forces, and had no industry pension, with the government continually deferring promises on the introduction of a pension program.

The Police Association had made repeated attempts to improve the pay and conditions of the force, and had made representations over the use of "spooks" as inappropriate for supervision to the Nationalist government of Victoria under the Premier, Harry Lawson. The strike was led by Constable William Thomas Brooks,of the licensing squad, who two years earlier circulated a petition among his fellow officers calling for better conditions. Headed Comrades and Fellow Workers, it was signed by almost 700 men.

The strike was not a Police Association initiative, although the organisation negotiated on behalf of the strikers with the Premier, Harry Lawson. Most of the strikers were constables, many of them returned servicemen. Detectives and senior officers did not participate.

After 24 hours the Premier demanded a return to work and promised no victimisation, although there was no promise of meeting the strikers' demands. After 48 hours the Premier again demanded a return to work with no guarantees regarding victimisation.

The Victorian Trades Hall Council, surprised by the wildcat strike, volunteered to negotiate on behalf of the strikers but were rebuffed by the government. Subsequently 634 policemen were discharged and two were dismissed, about a third of the Victorian force, never to be re-employed as members of the Victorian Police Force.

On Friday and Saturday nights riots and looting occurred in the city, resulting in three deaths, trams being turned over, plate glass windows being smashed and merchandise looted from stores. Constables on point duty were jeered at and harassed by people until they retreated to the Town Hall, where the crowd taunted them to come out. Tramways staff and uniformed sailors helped to direct traffic in the absence of police.

A request by the Premier to the Federal Government for troops to prevent and put down trouble was refused, however Sir Harry Chauvel and other army chiefs appointed guards on defence establishments. Over the weekend five thousand volunteer 'special constables' were sworn in to restore order, under the direction of Sir John Monash at the Melbourne Town Hall and led by AIF veterans and CMF officers. They were identified by badges and armbands.

The rioting and looting was quickly attributed to Melbourne's criminal element by all of Melbourne's newspapers, but subsequent court records show that most of the offenders who were apprehended were young men and boys without criminal histories. After the strike, the Monash Royal Commission into the Victoria Police strike brought down its findings. The government subsequently increased pay and conditions for police, including a bill to establish a police pension scheme before the end of 1923.

The Lucky Country? Depends on your point of view I guess...

THE head of one of the families allegedly involved in a violent feud in Melbourne says he wants to return to Lebanon because police in Australia are not helping his family.

Abdul Tiba says Australia is a "shit country" where no one cares about his family, which is allegedly involved in an increasingly violent feud with a rival clan police have alleged.

"No one helps me in this country, no police, not any community, no St Vincents (de Paul), no one," Mr Tiba told Fairfax radio.

"I tell them I want to protect my family. No one cares about this.

"They want to give me all the responsibility for this and I don't know nothing. I give them my statement but still no one cares in this country."

Mr Tiba said he had been living in his car since his house in Coolaroo was shot at on Monday, one of six tit-for-tat incidents involving guns and a bomb in Melbourne's northern suburbs in nine days.

"I've been sleeping in the car. They give me two days in a motel like a fucking gypsy," he said.

"I've had enough of this stress.

"Australia country they bring on 2006 from Lebanon all the citizenship, they spend 20 million thousand dollars but no one can spend $1000 to save my family.

"I tell them I want to go back, I don't want to stay in this s*** country like that."

Mr Tiba said he had no idea why his house in Guildford St, Coolaroo was being targeted in the feud, which is reportedly with the Kassab family.

"If I know I tell the police. I don't know," Mr Tiba said on Monday.

Police have said they have spoken to the families but have received little co-operation.

The feud escalated yesterday when shots were fired from a car at another on a busy street in Glenroy at 3pm.

A house in nearby Jacana was shot at last Thursday and again on Monday morning, followed by a car chase that ended in more shots being fired at a playground.

Mr Tiba's house has been shot at twice, had a home-made bomb thrown through the window and been rammed by a truck.

**With all due respect to Abdul Tiba, the non-working, welfare draining patriarch of a family that includes serious drug traffickers, a convicted murderer, three other sons in jail for firearms violence and serious assaults, I will personally grab a bus and drop your family, the Kassab family, the Kheir family, the Chaouk's, the Haddara's and all other families of your ilk at Tullamarine and you can fuck right off.**

Bezzina Interview - ABC 774 - September 2010

Here is an interesting interview between Darren Lunny, John Faine and Charlie Bezzina that didn't get much play during September 2010.

Bezzina released his book late last year and, although I personally wasn't a fan of it because it came across as quite arrogant and self serving, Bezzina displayed that he is blue of blood...

The Liam Houlihan interview on the other hand, has not changed my opinion of him.

This interview is vintage Faine, where he carries on with his usual self righteousness that makes me turn off everytime I hear him speak...

http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2010/09/27/3023045.htm

Cruel Hunt

The Apollo Task Force is again examining the case files regarding a notorious child rapist and killer wanted over the murder of Karmein Chan and attacks on other girls during the late 80's and mid 90's..

Despite media reports, police are no closer to catching the man.

Original information is being examined as part of a review of the original Operation Spectrum - the largest investigation in Victoria's history - and intelligence gathered since it closed in 1994.

Mr Cruel - considered a serial paedophile - terrorised Melbourne families in the late 1980s and early '90s. His last suspected crime was the killing of Karmein Chan, who was abducted from her Templestowe home as she babysat her sisters on April 13, 1991.

Karmein Chan's remains were found at Edgars Creek, Thomastown, a year later. She had been shot three times in the head. Karmein's mother, Phyllis, has kept in regular contact with police during the 20-year hunt for her daughter's killer.

Mr Cruel is wanted over attacks on at least three other girls, and is believed to have attacked up to 12 children over 10 years dating back to 1985.

After having interviewed 27,000 people in the biggest investigation in Victoria’s history, investigators revisited a huge stockpile of evidence.

To date more than 12,000 separate pieces of information had been reviewed and cross-referenced with new details as part of the investigation.

Police cannot rule out the possibility Mr Cruel had since fled the country, died or committed suicide. The profile of Mr Cruel that investigators narrowed down was of a man with few distinguishing features.

Police have not revealed whether the new suspect fits a different description to that issued in the early 90s. But at that time detectives built a picture of a man aged between 35 and late 40s, slightly built, with sandy or ginger-coloured hair, clean shaven, softly spoken and "quite caring in his own monstrous way". The man would now be close to 60 years of age.

A $300,000 reward exists for information that leads to a conviction.

HOMICIDE squad detectives fear missing schoolgirl Siriyakorn "Bung" Siriboon may have been abducted and murdered.

The 13-year-old’s disappearance has baffled seasoned detectives, who are struggling for leads weeks after she vanished outside her Boronia home on June 2.

Homicide Squad Det Insp Ian Potter said his team had taken more control over the case in the past week with the possibility she may not be found alive.

"There is that possibility unfortunately," he told reporters. "We’ve got to look at that. We’ve become involved from day one in a monitoring sense. We’ve taken a more active role over the last week or so. "We see this as a suspicious missing person. A girl 13-years of age walking to school, doesn’t arrive at school and has never been seen of since."

Their fears follow the conclusion of an extensive investigation into the teenager’s internet activity, which provided no further clues to her mysterious disappearance.

The Herald Sun revealed last week that Bung had three Facebook sites - some under false identities - and was active elsewhere on the web in the weeks before she vanished from Boronia on June 2.

Det-Insp Potter said police fear she may have been abducted while walking to school, but have absolutely no evidence to support it.

"We haven’t got any new information in that regard. We’d certainly like to know if anyone does have any information to please come forward," he said.

Bung was last seen by a neighbour as she walked down her street dressed in her school uniform and carrying her school bag.

Det Insp Potter said police did not suspect her parents of foul play.

"We’re saying Bung left home in a normal scenario, walking to school and has disappeared," he said.

Her devastated parents refuse to give up hope that they will find their daughter alive.

"The family are grieving for their daughter," Det Insp Potter said. "They are desperately in need of information…They are confident that she will be okay and that she will come home."

Detectives have been forced to return to the information they have previously received in the hope of finding something they may have missed.

"We’ve got to reinterrogate any of that information. We’ve got to sift through what we currently have," he said. "Clearly somebody knows something and we’re desperate for that person or persons to please come forward."