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topicnews · July 20, 2025

The Australian federal police argued that corrupt agents will escape the exam if war crimes are added leak

The Australian federal police argued that corrupt agents will escape the exam if war crimes are added leak

A report was created, but no result was published and nobody was sanctioned. This fattening heads went to the three statements and the report in the public interest in accordance with information legislation.

After four years and despite his arguments before the Federal Supreme Court, the AFP refused to leave anything free. In its latest legal salvon, the agency submitted a number of documents with the administrative review tribunal and again argued that the documents are completely excluded from the release.

The AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw did not answer any questions about the matter.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

An essential argument is that the publication of a part of the documents, among other things, violates the confidentiality of the former commissioner, deputy commissioner and head of internal affairs and has “a devastating impact” on the internal investigation function of the police.

“The notification of a potential misconduct or corruption requires that an AFP officer reports against their own colleagues, which can be very difficult for the AFP officers in view of the close-knit type of police work,” argues the police.

“The certainty of confidentiality that everything that is reported is kept in the strictest trust promotes reporting without the risk of a reprisal or exclusion.”

In order to support their reasoning, the police published the results of a recently carried out AFP employee survey, which shows that 5 percent of AFP officials had experienced corruption in the past 12 months, and only 15 percent of these people had officially reported what they saw.

The commander of the police specialist standards, Ben Case, said that this was a problem for him, and to publish some of the historical documents of the AFP's former commanders about the 2018 leak against Keelty would make the situation worse.

Bed with corruption: AFP Commander of Professional Standards Ben Fall.

Bed with corruption: AFP Commander of Professional Standards Ben Fall.

“Commander case is confident that it will probably be reduced to a reduction in the number of AFP officers who report the matters of integrity, which is damaged by the AFP's ability to manage the integrity of its members,” claims the police evidence.

This in turn would “culminate in a considerable loss of public trust in the AFP and have devastating effects on its ability to work effective”.

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The AFP did not answer any questions whether this argument about exaggeration or hunting for excuses did not release the documents.

The AFP has either accepted new arguments for the first time in more than four years or doubled to arguments that were rejected by the full bank of the Federal Court in February.

In this judgment, the court, which the documents had read, found that it was “at least difficult to seriously” that significant parts of the report about the examination could be disclosed without an “essential disadvantageous effect”. The court found appropriately reduced, the approval would be in the public interest.

However, the police doubled and said the editorial offices were so difficult that what was left would be “a skeleton of the documents”.

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The police have also repeated an earlier, released argument for the publication of the documents that would include the “inappropriate disclosure of personal information about numerous people”. In February, full bank said that public interest and the “representative democracy” had outweighed these arguments.

“The exam, discussion, comment and review of the activities of the Commonwealth government and its agencies as well as the implementation of those who perform functions are a public purpose,” said the judges.

In answers to questions that were sent to the AFP commissioner Reece Kershaw, a police spokesman replied: “In view of the decision of the Federal Court at the beginning of this year, the AFP carefully checked its exceptional regulations and continued to consider these claims properly.”

The AFP asked the tribunal to look at this case as if it were considered for the first time.

The editor of The agePatrick Eligett said: “Every reader should wonder why the AFP is fighting at the expense of taxpayers to keep this information secret that the Federal Court has already decided in the public interest.

“It is a terrible look for an organization that should maintain the highest standards for transparency and accountability.”

Sydney Morning Herald The editor Bevan Shields said that the AFP actions in this “critically important case are alarming”.

“Top brisk seem to rely on false reasons to avoid accounting and transparency. We will not stop fighting against the obstruction of the AFP, which could look a damn good cover-up for some readers.”

Confidential sources have informed this encouragement that the recordings of Gaughan and Ryan relate to how the couple secretly made a contemporary recording of a telephone call from Keelty to Gaughan, in which Keelty tried to discuss the police interest to Roberts-Smith. Colvin's statement that the AFP refused under FOI also describes how Keelty called it separately to discuss the matter of Roberts-Smith.

The AFP spokesman also answered no questions about how much he had spent fighting against this request, and instead said: “The AFP accepts its obligations to promote public access to information …” Seriously. “

When asked about these expenses and the case of the AFP, the Minister for Interior Affairs, Tony Burke, refused to answer.

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