Discretionary powers used to stop investigations in one in four allegations of Australian police misconduct – David Icke

The Australian federal police is using discretionary powers to stop investigations into one in four allegations of police misconduct, documents show.

The AFP holds broad powers to intervene and take no further action on internal investigations into allegations against federal police.

The powers, which have been delegated by the AFP commissioner, Reece Kershaw, have previously been criticized as opaque and lacking accountability.

Documents released to Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws reveal the commissioner’s powers are being used at significant scale. The AFP received 2,596 allegations of misconduct or police practices between 2019 and 2020 and 2023 and 2024. One complaint might contain multiple allegations.

About 707 of those allegations did not proceed under the discretionary powers. Of those, 467 allegations were dismissed before an investigation had begun.

The FoI documents show the powers were used 54 times to not proceed with current investigations into category four allegations, which involve allegations of corruption. A further 107 investigations were stopped for category three allegations, defined as matters alleging serious misconduct.

Another document obtained by Guardian Australia showed complaints of corruption against AFP staff for which the discretion not to proceed was used included incidents of alleged misuse of authority, abuse of office and fraud.

The powers were designed to avoid investigations of information that is “trivial” or to avoid duplication of matters already in court, according to the AFP Act.

But the powers can also be used where the AFP deems a complaint to be frivolous or vexatious or not made in “good faith”, according to the AFP Act. They can also be used where the AFP deems the person making the complaint does “not “have a sufficient interest in the AFP conduct issue.”

Earlier this year, the commonwealth ombudsman found the powers had been used to not proceed with the investigation of a complaint of serious and corrupt conduct due to concerns about the reliability of a witness.

“We were unable to see any records detailing how these concerns were weighed against the seriousness of the allegations,” the ombudsman said.

The ombudsman said documentation was also missing in another case, which was dismissed because there was no link between the complainant and the subject of the complaint. In that case, the ombudsman noted the AFP had acted “without recording what inquiries were conducted or relevant evidence was obtained.”

The Police Accountability Project, a Victorian-based group, said the powers gave the AFP widespread discretion to discontinue complaint investigations and demonstrated why “police should not be investigating police, both at a state and federal level.”

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