Mission accomplished

Plans for 2018 commence as the dust settles on the 2017 International Women & Law Enforcement conference in Cairns.

By Graham McBean

It was a heartwarming sight for AFP National Manager Crime Operations Debbie Platz (lead photo) as more than 1000 delegates and participants descended on Cairns for the 2017 International Women & Law Enforcement conference from September 17-21.

The joint conference hosted by the International Association of Women Police (IAWP), Australian Council of Women in Policing (ACWAP) and Queensland Police Service was the largest gathering of women law enforcement members on Australian soil.

The conference, themed ‘Global Networks: Local Law Enforcement’ was a special moment for Assistant Commissioner Platz who has been ACWAP President since 2015 and was re-elected at the conference to lead the council for the next 12 months.

It was a mammoth effort for the volunteer organisation to successfully mount such a huge event. ACWAP is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and the IWLE conference was a crowning achievement for the organisation.

Assistant Commissioner Platz (a former Queensland assistant commissioner herself until January this year) contacted Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart for support. Queensland Police Service subsequently became a major supporter and cohost of the event.

“It has been a great opportunity to connect with each other and create a genuinely global network of people to call on when you need help,” Assistant Commissioner Platz said.

“I see this quite regularly. Someone will email from the Metropolitan Police in London and say ‘we’re looking at writing a policy in relation to mentor training, can you tell me what you’re doing’.

“So there is a lot of exchange of information that happens post conference. I have witnessed people setting up networks and engaging in the professional development opportunities that were on offer in Cairns.”

Cairns 2017 certainly achieved that goal. Assistant Commissioner Platz said there were more than 200 requests from across the world to speak at the conference, from which 65 were selected.

Six sessions were conducted concurrently throughout the day to enable a broad field of discussion. Evening functions enabled participants from more than 60 countries to network and discuss the events and presentations from the day.

“There was a lot of debate about which speakers we should have but there was a huge variety of topics from diversity and counter terrorism to leadership in the area of domestic and family violence – there was a huge spectrum of discussion.”

The conference kicked off with a colourful Parade of Nations through Cairns’ city centre. Traffic stopped and spectators lined the streets to cheer on the 60 nations as they were piped across town and made their way to the convention centre.

AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin was amongst many men in the parade supporting the biggest conference of its type held in Australasia.

Later that evening, Commissioner Colvin was presented with a Special Contribution Award ‘for his continued and unwavering support of ACWAP and women in law enforcement and the community’ at the 2017 Awards for Excellence in Policing.

The awards paid tribute to women and men across Australia and the Pacific who are leading the way, demonstrating excellence in innovation, research, investigation and administration.

Also recognised at the Awards gala was AFP Superintendent Brad Eaton who received the Champion of Change award.

Supt Eaton’s citation read:  ‘Supt Eaton has created sustainable change for women across Australasia over the past 33 years, leaving a legacy of gender equality at each workplace he has been.’

Another conference highlight was a panel discussion involving all eight of Australia’s police commissioners. They shared their insights into the growing challenges facing police in the 21st century, as well as paying tribute to a woman who had been a strong influence on their lives and careers.

Much of the success of the conference can be attributed to the support, passion and energy of conference patrons, Terri, Bindi and Robert Irwin from Australia Zoo. Bindi hosted a special leadership afternoon for selected high school students from Cairns at which Commissioner Colvin also spoke.

At the conference, Commissioner Colvin was announced as the co-patron for the charity, Brighter Future 4 Kids, together with the Commissioner of Queensland Fire and Emergency Services.

At a media conference, the patrons committed their organisations to support the Uniform 4 Kids program, where police and other uniforms are recycled by volunteers and turned into clothing for underprivileged children in remote and rural Australia and countries around the world.

The real success of the conference, however, was in the presentations by dozens of nationally and internationally respected speakers who covered a wide variety of issues during the four day conference. These included: Indigenous policing, the changing role of women in law enforcement, managing domestic and family violence, modern day slavery and police women in peacekeeping.

The conference caps five years of growth for ACWAP. Assistant Commissioner Platz said the council had increased in “traction” with external agencies and increasing engagement with media as a representative organisation for women in policing.

“To some degree I think we have benefited from the cultural change initiatives of police jurisdictions, including the AFP, the Victorian Police and the Northern Territory who have also conducted a review,” Assistant Commissioner Platz said.

ACWAP’s two primary goals are to improve the opportunities and outcomes for women within policing and improve the policing services that are delivered by law enforcement to women and children in the community.

While ACWAP is independent of state and federal law enforcement jurisdictions, Assistant Commissioner Platz said it would be “very difficult” for the organisation to work effectively without the support of the Australian jurisdictions.

The Cairns conference is a perfect example. Assistant Commissioner Platz said no-one really anticipated the amount of work involved that the comparatively small volunteer organisation would need to do.

But while Assistant Commissioner Platz is pleased with the success of the conference, there is also a hint of relief that the huge managerial and logistic effort required to bring the conference to life can be channeled into other objectives.

“Because this year has been so focused on the conference – it has taken so much time – it is really time to explore how we can fulfil our other obligations, which is more about how we improve the policing services that we are delivering to the community.”

To this end, ACWAP supports a range of initiatives from scholarships for research, conference attendance and university opportunities for police women in developing countries to partnerships with other non-government organisations.

As conference delegates departed Cairns, Assistant Commissioner Platz could breathe, make sure “she still had hair” and ponder her third year as president of ACWAP.

“It is a really good opportunity for me to try and assist the organisation to push forward what their objectives are and what interests me is how we police women and children in the community,” she said.

“Now that I’m in Crime Operations and work with victim-based crime it’s got a real nexus and it is important for me to do work in that space and try to prevent things happening to children.”

The 2018 ACWAP conference will be held in Perth. Canberra follows in 2019.