Leadership: Where the Latest Organisational and Operational Changes are Leading
Australasian Fire Authorities Council / International Fire Chiefs Association of Asia / Bushfire Co-Operative Research Centre Conference
Address by Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty APM
Melbourne Convention Centre
12 August 2006
Check Against Delivery
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
I’d like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of this land, the Wurundjeri People. It is important to recognise their historical connection to the land on which we gather today.
Thank you for the opportunity to talk today about leadership in a changing environment, amongst so many of you who are considered leaders in your field.
I also commend the organisers for the theme of ‘Building our Legacy’.
Now into my second term as Commissioner, I have learnt that the work we do today can impact on the generations that follow us.
In this rapidly changing world, it is important, especially in our line of work, to ensure that we are not simply providing ‘band aid’ solutions to the challenges we face.
Subsequently, we must nurture robust partnerships and put in place long term strategies to provide solutions to the multitude of challenges that face us.
Today I hope to highlight that through leadership, we can build the foundations that will develop a better working environment for every-one in this room and as a consequence, leave a legacy of responsiveness, flexibility and cooperation, leading to a safer society for those we hope to keep from harm.
Unprecedented challenges
Providing leadership today requires managing a rapidly changing environment and a multiple of complex demands with limited resources.
You just need to look at changes to the role of policing to see this.
When I started as an officer, you only needed to know a fraction of what you do today, our response to crime was generally reactive, and the challenges were relatively contained.
But this environment has changed exponentially over the past five years.
Events such as September 11, the Bali and London bombings, and natural disasters such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami have dramatically altered government and community expectations on how to deal with all sorts of issues in society.
There is much the community now expects from us to protect them.
In addition, discussions you have had these past three days on changes in climate, demography and technology, are indicative of growing concern over potential scientific and biological threats - as well as environmental threats such as pandemics, water and other resource scarcity.
From an AFP perspective, advances in technology have also meant real world crimes have found new means of existence in the virtual world, extending the reach and networks of terrorists and organised crime. The potential impact of these crimes means that we must focus on crime prevention, not just reaction.
Heightened concerns over regional security have also come to the fore in recent years, with the protection of vulnerable nations within the region now a priority for governments.
The AFP plays a key role in the Australian government framework which recognises the critical importance of assisting regional law enforcement to build a sustainable capacity - to develop and deliver effective, efficient and accountable police services. This has dictated a requirement for the AFP to deploy considerable resources overseas without impacting on results domestically.
We must combat traditional crime along with a proliferation of new crime types - terrorism, trafficking in new types of illicit drugs, money laundering, sexual slavery, child sex tourism, and online child exploitation – these are just a snapshot of crime types that create the landscape within which we operate.
The consequences of these challenges are significant – loss of life of course is the most tragic, but there are also significant down stream effects on society resultant from this complicated operational environment.
At the same time, we face new operational realities and pressures such as changing demographics, demands for greater accountability and increasing competition for financial resources and suitably skilled personnel.
Whilst these operational examples are specific to the AFP, the management challenges we face can be similar.
We all operate in a high risk area that requires a sophisticated level of risk management - you need to be ready for the unexpected.
How do we respond to the unpredictable nature of the environment in which we work? How do we manage multiple and complex demands with limited resources? And crucially, how do we do this and stay true to ourselves – you can not build a legacy without a commitment to shared fundamental values.
In the case of the AFP it has required a balance of traditional roles with new roles. We have developed new procedures which strike a balance within our organisation, a balance between agencies, and a balance between community expectations and the every day operation work that we conduct.
This not only allows us to become more efficient and flexible in our responses,
but supports a work force which is committed to our values of integrity, commitment, excellence, accountability, fairness and trust.
Managing in the unpredictable environment with limited resources
Everyone in this room is familiar with the immediacy of crisis.
We work in the business of rapid response to potentially deadly situations. This type of response requires a flexible, professional and well co-ordinated response ability. In reality it also means we must manage multiple and complex demands with limited resources.
To best address this the AFP has implemented a new organisational structure which focuses strategically on its main operational areas, and provides a higher level of national coordination and support to these areas.
This functional modelnow allocates resources according to crime types rather than geographic location. National Managers have clearly designated responsibilities for crime types and subject matter. This has in turn developed consistency and certainty in relationships both internally and other external stake holders.
The functional model review also identified the need to clarify and consolidate the directive and decision-making functions of our existing National Management Team (NMT) to a smaller, more agile and more focused group.
This consolidation takes the form of our Executive Management Board, which considers and assists me with advice on strategy formulation, risk management, control and monitoring of organisational performance, compliance, policy formulation, networking and communication with key stakeholder groups.
Set up to recognise established best practice and including two non-executive members from outside the AFP, the Board stimulates our Executive Management to become more strategic in its thinking and development of business priorities – to best respond to the AFP’s environment which is subject to rapid and unexpected change.
Identifying AFP business priorities is supported through our Environment Scan. This scan is a forecast of criminal, political, social and economic trends. It helps to identify potential threats and to better understand the drivers of our operating environment looking two years into the future.
Whilst the Environment Scan is a forecasting tool – our Scenario planning also helps us to respond to the unpredictable nature of our environment.
Recognised by both the public and private sector as a valid tool to gain insight into uncertainty, it is a strategic construct to exercise our ability to respond to various possibilities.
Through our scenario planning of for example, ‘what will the AFP look like in 2011’, we can look for patterns and trends in events and analyse the systems and structures that determine these patterns.
We can describe possible futures, discuss our preferred outcomes, look for indicators which will tell us how this future is emerging and test what strategies we need to get us to the most desirable outcome.
It also allows the development of robust policy by testing and tracking current and possible strategies to reduce the uncertainty of the future.
Scenarios make the unfamiliar familiar, allowing us to take the unfamiliar seriously, and thus reduce the risk of being surprised.
I know your industry also recognises the importance of research on business needs, with the research being conducted by the Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre (CRC) an important tool in identifying the best ways to manage bushfire risk to the community in an economically and ecologically sustainable way.
For us, adoption of a Case Categorisation and Prioritisation Model allows the most efficient and effective use of AFP resources. Put simply, the AFP allocates its resources to what are considered crime types of the highest risk to society.
If you consider these measures as our foundation, then our work with partners would be the ‘bricks’ on which to build our legacy of co-operation and flexibility.
Partnerships – Helping to manage the complex environment
The AFP invests much time and effort into forging strategic relationships across jurisdictions and industries.
This is spearheaded by the AFP’s International Network where we can leverage off international partnerships while at the same time targeting crime at its source.
The network, consisting of 86 officers deployed to 31 offices in 26 countries, takes the fight against crime offshore through establishing partnerships with foreign law enforcement agencies for information sharing, intelligence and investigations.
Forging these partnerships has led to invitations for the AFP to play a leading role in numerous investigations as well as ‘humanitarian-style’ work.
This cooperation has never been more important, as the threat to our region continues to be a matter of great concern for all governments, security and law enforcement agencies.
The benefits of these deployments and the relationships the AFP has been able to establish are exemplified by the joint response to the October 2005 Bali bombings.
Three explosions in Bali on October 1st 2005 resulted in the deaths of 22 people including four Australians.
Within one hour of this tragedy, the Indonesian National Police (INP) had invited the AFP to participate in incident first response and subsequent investigations.
43 AFP members were deployed to Bali to assist the INP in numerous areas of investigations including Operations Support, Forensics and Disaster Victim Identification, Bomb Data, Protection & Security, Counter Terrorism Intelligence and Technical.
What this highlights is that being a leader does not always necessitate being in the lead.
It was the work of the INP that led to the subsequent arrests of several key suspects in relation to the bombings. The prosecution of these individuals in Indonesia’s sovereign jurisdiction reflects that country’s capacity to prevent, detect and deter terrorists by bringing to justice those concerned, and their capacity to do this was assisted by the AFP.
It was similar robust relationships made through our liaison network that led to an invitation by the Thai authorities to jointly the Disaster Victim Identification process in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami.
This enterprise involved 30 countries and more than 170 police deployed as part of a rapid response identification program.
This type of response from all Australian policing jurisdictions and co-ordinated by the AFP, is proving to be an effective model to apply as part of the whole of government approach to challenges – both natural and man-made.
In further demonstrations of the growing importance of rapid response capacity, teams were also involved in hostage negotiations in Iraq; provided security during the Athens Olympics and led an Australian delegation to observe the investigation into the London bombings.
So as you can see, by creating the framework of the International Liaison Network to respond to the need to work more effectively and efficiently across jurisdictions – we have also developed a legacy of international co-operation and understanding.
Similarly, the International Deployment Group formed in 2004 provides the necessary framework to deal with the increasing trend for law and order to form part of bilateral and multilateral missions to failed or failing states, and the delivery of capacity building projects.
Funding was provided by the Federal Government to establish a dedicated group of 500 people with the responsibility of taking part in international deployments.
This deployment concept has enabled us the flexibility and professionalism to deploy large numbers in short periods to assist in a whole of Government solution to emerging events.
One such solution is the Regional Assistance Mission Solomon Islands (RAMSI).
RAMSI has been operating in the Solomon Islands since July 2003 and has made significant progress toward the goals of its deployment.
Examples of this success include law and order restoration through the provision of support staff for 17 provincial policing posts; in excess of 3700 weapons seized; over 7,000 arrests made for a wide range of offences including Murder, Attempted Murder and Corruption offences; and the arrest of 22 Solomon Island Ministers and Former Ministers and Officials to date for charges such as Corruption, False Pretences and Intimidation.
Following a successful democratic election in April 2006, violence erupted which resulted in the destruction of many public buildings and the injury of thirty one Australian police.
Unlike the civil unrest that occurred in the Solomon Islands prior to RAMSI, no lives were lost and no firearms were produced or used in the course of this event.
The positive result of this situation is only enhanced by the AFP’s ability to deploy 70 people to stabilise the situation within 36 hours of the incident.
Similarly, the AFP had worked as part of the United Nations humanitarian efforts in Timor Leste, which also experienced major incidents of public disorder during in April this year.
As in the Solomon Islands, there was widespread destruction of property, however this time regrettably - there was loss of life during this incident.
Within days of a request from Government, the AFP deployed a contingent of 120 members to help police the streets of Timor Leste.
Working under the command of the ADF we now have an international policing structure in Timor Leste involving over 500 international police from Portugal, Malaysia and New Zealand. Again a legacy has been developed of being able to deploy successfully under an ADF command structure and to work effectively in a multi-national task force.
Domestic Partnerships – Managing the complex environment at home
Pro-active collaboration between the AFP, State and Territory police, the Australian Intelligence Community and other law enforcement agencies, also allows for the better co-ordination of information and methodologies to deal with incidents domestically.
A world class model for partnership with law enforcement, government agencies, industry groups and private organisations is the AFP’s Australian Centre for High Tech Crime (AHTCC).
Under the umbrella of the AHTCC, collaboration between agencies achieved significant results in investigations and intelligence operations including electronic commerce fraud; computer intrusions; creation and distribution of computer viruses; and threats against Australia’s critical national information infrastructure.
Recent success includes the AHTCC using information provided by the Belgian Federal Computer Crime Unit, to investigate a series of Distributed Denial of Service attacks on Internet Relay Chat servers in Australia. These attacks also affected the United States, Singapore and Austria.
This led to the AFP, AHTCC, NSW Police and Victoria Police assisting with the execution of Commonwealth search warrants in the ACT, NSW and Victoria in March this year.
Following the execution of the warrants, a man was arrested and charged in Victoria with one count of using a telecommunications network with intention to commit a serious offence under the Criminal Code.
The strong partnerships the AFP maintains and develops with law enforcement agencies domestically and internationally are an integral component of the AFP’s anti-drug strategy.
The impact of our international partnerships was highlighted in November 2005 with the arrest of 14 individuals by the Indonesian National Police at one of the world’s largest clandestine synthetic drug laboratories seizures.
This operation involved the cooperation of numerous regional law enforcement partners, including the AFP, and was central to the successful dismantling of a laboratory capable of producing both crystal methylamphetamine and MDMA (ecstasy).
Just last month AFP members deployed to Malaysia to assist in the investigation of one of a clandestine laboratory also identified as one of the largest in the world, with the drugs seized destined for local, Japanese, Hong Kong and Australian markets.
One of the largest international drug investigations in Australia -Operation ASHBURTON – involved the discovery by Australian Customs of about 1.2 million ecstasy tablets, with an approximate street value of $40 million leading to the arrest of five people in June this year.
In the last few months, Customs also worked with the AFP in the seizure of 370kg of MDMA - the equivalent of 1.3 million tablets, and another joint investigation saw the seizure of 120kg of precursors drugs in Sydney, capable of producing around $22m worth of methylamphetamine as a final illicit product. This major investigation resulted in the seizure of over 2 million tablets of pseudoephedrine imported into Australia from Indonesia.
As the Indonesian and Malaysian examples illustrate, the AFP believe there is significant benefit in taking the fight against illicit drugs and precursor trafficking offshore and will continue to combat the importation of illicit drugs and precursors at their source.
Through effective collaboration with domestic partners such as Customs and international partners, the AFP disrupts transnational syndicates offshore to ensure illicit drugs are seized at the earliest opportunity and with the greatest law enforcement impact.
The benefits of our collaborative approach were also proven this year with a number of significant investigations disrupting alleged terrorist plots on Australian soil.
Operation Pendennis is an major ongoing investigation, drawing on the resources of the AFP, Victoria Police, NSW Police, NSW Crime Commission and ASIO.
The AFP and its partner agencies allege that a major terrorist attack on Australian soil has been prevented. Whilst several people are facing charges before courts in Sydney and Melbourne, Operation Pendennis continues to be a high priority for the AFP.
Similarly, Joint Counter Terrorist Teams, the AFP’s primary tool for addressing domestic terrorist threats, provided assistance to Queensland and NSW Police Services in the investigation into alleged terrorist activities in both States.
While the results of these investigations are yet to be determined by a court, the AFP remains vigilant to the real threat of terrorism to the Australian community.
The AFP’s Identity Taskforce also operates on a model of co-operation with State and Federal Police working alongside other Commonwealth and State agencies.
It has proven extremely successful with the arrest of 50 people and more than 1000 charges laid since its inception in March 2003.
Just last month the Taskforce was involved in the investigation of 13 people who were arrested in relation to the biggest identity crime case in Australia.
The Taskforce has proven so successful that funding of $20 million was allocated in the current budget to establish three new Taskforces in Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.
The AFP continues to support the exercising and testing of whole of Government responses to crisis management.
For example the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) Table Top exercise, held in Canberra, brought together agencies from across government and tested and rehearsed the nation’s capacity to respond to the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems and related materials.
The exercise, the second of its kind to be conducted in Australia, provided an invaluable opportunity for participating agencies to practise critical inter-agency and inter-departmental cooperation that would be involved in a real-life counter proliferation event.
Some of you in the room may have participated in the Western Explorer - an Investigation and Consequence Management Exercise (ICMEX) which was conducted in Perth from 1-22 June 2006.
The scenario involved a terrorist bombing on a multi-storey building in Perth’s central business district resulting in a building collapse and mass casualties. The scenario tested the ability of local agencies to respond to the incident and locate and rescue casualties. The AFP participated in the exercise, contributing members to the Police Operations Centre, Joint Intelligence Group, Exercise Control function, and participation in four discussion exercises.
Supporting internal collaboration is also vital to our operational work. Project Axiom, the AFP’s undercover program, was re-located under the Intelligence Function to ensure that intelligence received as a result of undercover developments is analysed and disseminated in a timely and efficient manner.
I have mentioned our investment in partnerships and in our organisational structure, but managing today’s challenges necessitates investment in our people – our most important resource.
Managing with limited resources
The AFP is not a big organisation. We have five and a half thousand staff spread across every capital city in Australia and 26 countries around the world. The Australasian Fire Authorities Council has a workforce comprising approximately 30,000 paid fire fighters and 250,000 volunteers, and the International Fire Chiefs Association of Asia has 1,000 members from 22 countries and two regions.
Part of our challenge in leadership is ensuring that all staff –sworn and unsworn; paid and unpaid; local and international, understand the vision, values and business of the organisation.
In order for policing to sustain its capacity in responding to increased demand, we must marshal the resources of the people in policing. To do this we must recognise what stands behind them, their partners and family.
I think the AFP has put in place some great policy around this – which is highlighted by winning the Australian Business Council’s Business Award for Family Friendly practices in 2004.
I consider this a significant achievement because most of the organisations that we were competing against were private enterprise, only a small sector of public organisations competed and we were the only policing organisation.
We won because we had something in the AFP that was valuable and that recognised changes in the working environment around us.
We understood the critical mass of the people in forensics are mothers, we also understood that we could potentially lose them as a resource if we could not provide the support they required to deploy to tsunami effected areas or the site of the Bali bombings.
By introducing initiatives such as child minding, we get all required staff to work where we need them – and with that small investment we can hold on to our skilled staff for longer.
We know this approach works – benchmarking exercises show the AFP rate of attrition at 3.6% of sworn members – the best for policing in Australia.
Whilst child minding may not be the best option for you - policies which address the personal issues of those working in the industry help make the industry more attractive to others.
I understand that one project within the bushfire CRC focuses on enhancing volunteers. I am sure that this research will give valuable guidance for the fire and emergency service agencies to develop sound policy which will enhance their capacity through better recruitment and retention strategies.
As demands increase for your world class services, do you fully comprehend the profile and needs of your staff to be able to provide them with the tools they need to deliver?
As managers the AFP recognises the changing nature of policing requires certain characteristics and diversity of people within the organisation.
The AFP has a highly educated workforce with 70 per cent of staff with tertiary or post-grad qualifications, they speak more than 38 different languages and have a variety of skills and life experience.
We deliberately target strategic thinkers, we look for people with capacity to operate across many different levels and an ability to contend with responsibilities not only in law enforcement but also in other industries and sectors - whose roles are increasingly overlapped with ours.
The growing nature of overseas deployments mean we also look for people with ‘adaptive capacity’, that is, the ability and desire to re-locate as required.
But it is not enough to employ these people; you must constantly support their growth and direction.
Each member of our executive team has undertaken the Australian Institute of Company Directors course, and we provide other post-graduate and leadership development programs to keep our executive team appropriately focussed.
Where we have identified skill gaps, we have partnered with organisations for high-level exchanges. Our first National Manager for Aviation was involved in an exchange programme with Qantas and gained first-hand experience which is now being applied to our aviation work.
By building a flexible and adaptable workforce and a strong commitment to organisational values, we are contributing to our legacy as a flexible, responsive and professional organisation.
In terms of legacy, we spend considerable time thinking about and developing options for succession planning. While some of our executive team have moved to other agencies - that impact has been minimalised through succession planning.
Another legacy is a commitment to the value of accountability.
In conjunction with the academic community, we have developed a series of measures to try and get a better idea of how the AFP is performing in key areas such as counter-terrorism, illicit drug investigations, fraud investigations and protection services, as well as regional assistance projects.
The University of NSW, reviewed our methodology behind research which showed that by way of effectiveness, every $1 invested by the AFP in economic crime investigations, returns $6 in social benefits to Australia.
Similarly they verified performance measurement in our drug investigations What we can now say confidently to government is that studies reveal for every $1 invested in drug investigation in AFP there is $5.20 benefit to the community – if you multiply that by the millions it is a compelling argument for seeking more investment into that particular crime type.
The University of QLD conducted performance measurement around our Counter Terrorism activities, of which the findings are now being implemented.
And on a separate note, a joint study is being conducted by Flinders University and the Australian National University titled ‘Policing the Neighbourhood’. This study will measure our performance in capacity building in the Pacific and Asia regions such as the Solomon Islands, PNG and Timor Leste.
We know from our existing work in these areas that if you do the policing right, you can not only create security, but create other things that can benefit the community well beyond what policing can do on their own.
Ultimately, we need to get the policing to a point where the criminal justice system is operating effectively. Doing so will enable us to reduce our costs - so that a greater focus can be given to health and education.
Collaboration in managing your complex environment
As I highlighted earlier, growing demand on AFP resources has led to the development of strategic partnerships – similar strategic partnerships would be beneficial for every-one in this room.
I am aware of an exisitng commonality of approach between the Australian and New Zealand Fire and Emergency Service and other agencies to operate under the Australian Inter-service Incident Command System.
This international model for a common system of working during emergencies, means you are able to share resources across the Pacific, with the USA and Canada with smooth integration at the command level.
As I’ve shown through the partnerships the AFP has developed with its regional partners – a commonality of approach can benefit the collective response in the region.
And not only in the region, we must work together to be prepared for incidents that can happen on our own soil – what would our response be if the London bombings had been the Melbourne bombings?
We can not have conflicts in objectives by different agencies; a common objective must dictate how all agencies must address such a situation, all working in and integrated manner to meet the community’s expectations for the incident and prevention of similar incidents.
Protection of evidence for forensic analysis and incident management can occur satisfactorily if we work towards a common objective.
Contemporary theories on International Crisis Response (IRC’s) promote this sharing of ideas, methods and strategies to achieve crisis response efficiency.[1]
Cooperation, training to common standards and a strong nationally coordinated approach will improve our capacity to deal with predicted increases in the number and extent of emergencies.
Conclusion
While the work of police and emergency services can be very different, at the management level the challenges we face are similar.
The unpredictable nature of the environment in which we work can be likened to a strategy on the prevention of major bushfires.
You can educate the community on being fire ready; cut fire breaks; conduct fuel reduction burning; and calculate where the greatest areas of risk will be. But all it takes is a fly away cigarette butt; a pyromaniac; a sudden gust of wind around a scrub fire – any of these threats can change your business priorities overnight.
Similarly in the AFP - we can educate business and the community on the importance of being security aware, disrupt drug syndicates and use our Intelligence agencies to interdict potential terrorist activity. But a mobile phone used as a detonation device, a zealot, an earthquake in the Indian Ocean, all these things highlight the need for our organizations to be ready to respond to any attacks on the societies we protect.
Addressing these variables requires strong leadership backed by an able and adequately supported work force.
What I have also learnt is that to be a good leader you must be aware of your own goals and aspirations. Do you now where you will be in ten years time? What legacy do you personally want to leave behind?
If you aren’t clear on your vision and direction – how will you be able to lead, and inspire those around you. Pardon the analogy, but you can’t start a fire with a wet match!
Responses by leaders, including governments, are being second guessed on a global basis. We look to people we can trust to lead us through these times.
My mind goes to Sir William Deane who demonstrated leadership by living and embracing his values. As a leader, Sir William has helped us understand our national identity. His role in the ‘Mabo’ decision is a clear demonstration that you can and should take your values into your public life.
Deane said:
The three strands of our national identity that really unify and sustain our nation are the Spirit of Anzac, our multicultural inclusiveness, and the generosity and sense of fair play that so commonly exists between ordinary Australians
It is important that we continue to embrace our values and identity as we face our current challenges.
I would like to leave you with a few images that I think represent this sentiment – manifested in the comradery between our services. As you watch these images – ask yourself the question what will your legacy be?