Garden state needs weeding

COULD gentle Victoria be corruption's perfect storm?

Today's revelations in The Weekend Australian confirm what many have long suspected: elements of the union movement, the Bracks Government and senior police are involved - either directly or through sheer incompetence - in corruption.

The state's shady police force, its "naive" police chief, and now the ALP and the unions all clearly have something to gain from not being put through the wringer of a royal commission.

In a month when the Melbourne media has huffed about a phony scandal involving the release of police files - which at worst appears to be a key-stroke error - it has ignored prescient stories in The Australian about serious police corruption. Real corruption - that is, people of influence using their positions for either personal gain, or worse, to unfairly damage their enemies.

True to form, the Government, which is inextricably linked to this tawdry corruption, has put on a show of concern and offered leashed watchdogs and "inquiries", claiming this is real action.

It isn't.

And government spin doctors might be wise to ask who in government knows about Kerry Milte before issuing their customary move-along press releases.

Worse is the Melbourne press. Lethargic broadsheet The Age beats its chest about an apparently inadvertent file leak as though it is some Watergate moment, while declining to follow up its own reports on Mr Milte's connections or fresh allegations raised by The Australian of allegedly inappropriate links to a prominent federal MP.

Not quite the fourth estate.

So if you aren't a media hotshot, a political or union heavy or smart-arse police or legal type, and feel you have a legitimate complaint against any of the aforementioned, who do you turn to?

Well - and get hold of a flow-chart if you can - the following: the Office of Police Integrity, the Ombudsman, the privacy commissioner, the Ethical Standards Department, a local MP, the new files commissioner, or the police chief. Some of these are either untested or have concerns hanging over them.

Confused? You should be.

Why not a single corruption body? It might be useful in informing the community about allegations concerning the grubby nexus of corrupt police, government and unions and all the others who appear to be protected species in Victoria.