The Government has committed to the creation of a new Commission, which will absorb the functions of the Police Integrity Commission and the Police Division of the NSW Ombudsman.
At present, there is no specific commitment from the NSW Government to the majority of the specific recommendations made by Mr Tink.
The primary focus of the Government's comments is on the benefits to police officers under the new structure. As such, it remains to be seen what the changes will mean for community victims of police misconduct.
These structural reforms offer the chance for better police oversight, but they offer no guarantees of improvement. The hundreds of police complaints that Redfern Legal Centre deals with on a n annual basis means we are well placed to monitor the effectiveness of the new Commission.
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For more reading, see Andrew Tink AM's Review of Police Oversight, the NSW Government's response to the Review and the NSW Government's media release.
To read RLC's submission to the Tink Review of Police Oversight, go here.