Talk:Australian Federal Police

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Establishment[edit]

I have removed from the article the following:

The AFP can trace it's origin to an incident in November 1917. Prime Minister Hughes was touring Queensland campaigning for conscription, which was unpopular, especially in Queensland. A egg was thrown at him, which generated a fight, in which the PM was injured. The local police refused to arrest the man who had thrown the egg, and the Premier of Queensland likewise refused, claiming that no state law had been broken. Enraged, Hughes gave orders for the establishment of "peace officers" under Commonwealth jurisdiction. (Reference - A Dictionary of Australian Folklore. Editor; Bill Wannan. Viking O'Neil 1970)

An event, of which I doubt the factuality (even if 'referenced'), that occurred in 1917 is hardly relative to the formation of the Australian Federal Police in 1979. In any case, the AFP, prior to the merging of the APS in 1981, was not responsible for the protection of officials, revealing the irrelevance of this statement.--Cyberjunkie 05:16, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

it has been recently re-added. i am not going to remove it as i don't know the actual story. however, it sounds factually wrong to me. throwing an egg at someone could constitute assault, which would breach "state" law. in any case, the federal constitution makes it clear that states can not ignore federal law (see section 109). i therefore can't see how the creation of an additional police force would have made a difference in that sittuation. in any event, i cannot find a single other reference to the event and note Cyberjunkie's comment that the AFP were only created in the 1970'. Xtra 04:52, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed this sentence in the introduction:

"The establishment of the organisation was partly motivated by the Sydney Hilton Bombing the year prior, which revealed the necessity for a national police force." McCulloch (2001) Paramilitary Policing in Australia tells that the establishment of the AFP was well under way before the bombing of the Sydney Hilton, but the Fraser government simply 'sold' its formation as a response to the bombing. stonemaccas 04:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the record:

  • The egg throwing incident DID occur, it DID result in the formation of a Commonwealth police force in 1917, BUT this did NOT evolve in any way into the AFP. It was disbanded in 1919.
  • The APS did not merge with the AFP in 1981. The APS function was part of the preceding organisation/s merged to form the AFP in 1979. It split from the AFP in 1984 and was merged back in 2002.
  • The Hilton bombing was a key initiator for the formation of the AFP. Previous initiatives for a Commonwealth police force had died. However, a lot of the relevant policy WAS dusted off and reused.

I am redoing this whole article and there will be a separate main page for a reasonably complete history of the AFP. Interested parties can see the work in progress at User:Ronnam/New AFP article/Australian Federal Police (history).

Any comments, please below on this talk page at Talk:Australian Federal Police#Major upgrade of article

Ronnam (talk) 06:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality[edit]

It appears that this article is constantly monitored by the AFP and all contentious issues are removed. This is NOT the home page of the AFP. Thousands of column inches of Australian and International Newspapers have been devoted to AFP mishandling of numerous issues in the past two years, and yet no such references are allowed to remain on this page. Vanuatuapt (talk) 04:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    When you say "appears" you are being a bit vague, can you cite sources? MrZanzi (talk) 06:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I propose an article to be created "controversy" listing the issues mentioned in the media about the AFP. I don't know about the editorial process on wikipedia, so my plan is to talk about Haneef and Martens. I'm going to leave a week if anyone disagrees. Then I'll write the section in accordance with NPOV, leave a week for discussion and edit the article.--124.168.23.174 (talk) 13:15, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the "See Also" section[edit]

I propose to remove the entire "See Also" section. I fail to see the relavence to the article. These sort of interconnections should be made through categories or links in the prose. Comments? --Martyman-(talk) 01:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Those links that are directly relevant to the AFP should remain. Xtra 02:45, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which ones are they? --Martyman-(talk) 05:02, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Of those that are currently there I can't see any. But that does not mean that there are not any. Xtra 07:25, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly, I have no problem with a "See Also" section existing, it is just all the links in this one are pointless. It can be re-added if anyone comes up with a link that actually should be there. I am going to go ahead and remove it. --Martyman-(talk) 08:03, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Role of APS / AFP-PS[edit]

"A branch of the AFP, the AFP Protective Service, is primarily responsible for protecting diplomatic representatives and crucial witnesses, but also:"...

APS have nothing to do with witness protection, and do not protect "diplomatic representatives".

APS's protection role is limited to the protection of buildings.

Sworn police are responsible for both "Witness Protection" and "Close Personal Protection" within the AFP (despite the efforts of certain persons within APS).


This person should really do their home work and if he/she did they would know that the old APS and AFPPS do close personal protection of IPP and not just buildings. The person who wrote this is another pissed off police officer guessing what the AFPPS do. If you don't know ask.


Strongly support the first comments. There's not the slightest interest in what the APS do from sworn AFP officers, you can talk up CTFR (whatever that means) and all that jazz as much as you like. He was just saying it like it was. Sorry, you can dream but sworn AFP officers are responsible for Close Personal Protection duties as well as all the other AFP work that really matters. Yep you read it right, "APS".


This needs to stop. The person who made these comments should be ashamed as this reflects on more than your own need to stroke your ego and feather your insecurity. The APS no longer exists, nor does AFPPS, get over it. This was decided above your pay level so lets make this page reflect a professional body. Everyone is sick of this bigotry.

AFP Museum[edit]

How about some information on the AFP museum that was burnt down in the canberra bush fires.

The museum did NOT burn down. The small arms firing range building next door did though. The fire did burn up to the windows of several other buildings on the site, which inclduded the museum. Ronnam (talk) 23:10, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Major upgrade of article[edit]

I am looking at doing a major upgrade of this article over the next couple of months.

To avoid any edit conflicts, if I could ask that issues and ideas for changes to this article could be raised here, so that I can properly include them.

Ronnam (talk) 23:14, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have commenced a rewrite of the 'Australian Protective Service' article, restricting it to dealing with the agency as it existed between 1984 and 2004. Please consider dealing with the uniformed protection and aviation security functions pre-84 and post-04 within your revision of the AFP entry; happy to assist if requested. Cheers, Stepat (talk) 06:08, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The more I look at it the bigger the task is! So if you can provide content as per your offer/s it would be good - perhaps an open collaboration - it might also keep me going. I was just starting to think about reneging as it looked like turning out to be a bit too much to do properly in a reasonable time frame! Ronnam (talk) 02:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, happy to help! Stepat (talk) 05:19, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
newman78 Hi all - I started with a few erroneous issues and just kept editing - I'm more than happy for my changes to be refined/reverted, but felt that since this site has been listed for a major revamp for a long time now, it needed some work. There should be some discussion about organising the information into the portfolios of the organisation, rather than the technical classification of roles (ranks/titles) as the functions show the work being undertaken by this police force. The reason I began working on the site was the premature change of Commissioner - this will ocur on 7 September 2009 when the Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia swears in the new Commissioner. Newman78 (talk) 05:12, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Please review the ISSUES items; Crime and Terrorism gets a listing but alcoholism does not[edit]

Pages like these should include a section showing the amount spent by tax payers for police to drive past a bottleshop run by army officer that sells grog to violent intoxicated alcoholics on credit. The AFP refuse to enforce the law - instead they drive past the bottleshop to social housing complexes less than 100m away.

It is a turn-key event where police make loads of money while the victims are assured no compo or actual law enforcement (unless they are female or wealthy).

The local government has created laws to allow secret political donations in return for a total lack of alcohol management, or forcing violent alcoholics to take medication by court order/s.

Nope - instead we have 40 year old violent alcoholic pensioners created by a wholesale business model that exploits both addictions and all victims of the alcoholism (including anyone that has to wait for service in emergency departments because staff are dealing with physical assaults).

Seems the tax payer needed at least 5 new special AFP departments for TERRORISM, not alcoholism that costs lives and at least 31b a year. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.138.240.116 (talk) 02:21, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rank badges[edit]

This page is missing the newly nominated rank of Leading Senior Constable (by Comm Negus in 2011) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.9.136.236 (talk) 09:17, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

New Criticism section[edit]

I have just started one. This is not an attack on the AFP, but any police force will have a few skeletons, and they should be taken out of the cupboard to try to prevent them happening again.

Please help me ensure that this section does not disappear. Tuntable (talk) 23:01, 11 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Martens Deletion[edit]

People might like to comment on the proposal to delete the Martens article. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frederic Arthur Martens Tuntable (talk) 01:30, 14 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Why isn't there a Federal Police Minister[edit]

Why isn't there a Federal Police Minister with that exact title.

Why do the States and Territories have Police Ministers while responsibilities for the Australian Federal Police belongs to the Justice Minister?122.108.156.100 (talk) 21:15, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Portfolios typically cover a range of matters, and not all of them can be reflected in the titles (although we still fondly remember the "Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories"). There used to be separate Ministers for the Army, the Navy, Air (not the Air Force, mind you, just Air), and Defence, but they're now all rolled into one. Since Defence (generally) was seen as separate from each of the armed services, why isn't there a "Minister for Defence, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force"? Given that the Australian Bureau of Statistics is under the Treasury portfolio, why isn't there a Minister for Statistics? I could go on at length, but I think I've made my point.
The key to these things is the Administrative Arrangements Order, which is a document signed by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister, specifying which matters each portfolio/department covers and which specific legislation each minister has responsibility for administering. Worth a look. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 00:19, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Appropriate forum for behaviour of police[edit]

There have been a number of edits to this talk page complaining about the behaviour of the Australian Federal Police.

This page is for discussion about the content of the article, and is not an effective or appropriate place to try to address issues about the police force itself. This is an encyclopedia and it is not able to assist in resolving issues, real or perceived, with the police force itself.

If you have issues with the police force itself, and-or its members, you need to report them via the AFP website, specifically, Feedback and Complaints.

Or you can contact the Commonwealth Law Enforcement Ombudsman.

Or you can contact the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.

Aoziwe (talk) 14:14, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Above link has a 404 page not found....

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.69.45 (talk) 09:42, 8 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have just checked all three links and they work correctly Aoziwe (talk) 14:08, 8 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You can report a crime by a member of the ACT police via Feedback and Complaints, corruption or not corruption.

There is Crime Stoppers to report any information related to any criminal matter, perpetrated by anyone, corruption or not corruption, anonymously if you wish.

And there is reporting a crime in the ACT or Further contact details

Aoziwe (talk) 12:12, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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false impression from concealment of factual evidence - hello fake news company[edit]

No such organization as described by the wiki entry actually exists in reality. There are NO facts from a court system where the police settle sexual abuse cases made against the police in some kind of out non-pubic-court-process and under condition of keeping the case a secret — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.217.119.121 (talk) 14:24, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide some sources such a newspaper stories, or journal articles that talk about this. Then someone can write about it in the article. But we don't include information that one person has discovered by themselves, as that is WP:original research. Ditto Graeme Bartlett as per Talk:ACT Policing#This page needs to be reviewed as it promotes an image of an organisation that is false. Aoziwe (talk) 11:17, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

End of life advance care planning is taken care of by a social network operating within the AFP[edit]

health checks are performed for all those admitted by police to hospitals which can use out of date information to determine the subject of protective custody is able to move on though the process and this determines their care which can for a matter of instance not include surgery results, abnormal ecg test results, etc — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.216.199.40 (talk) 20:36, 11 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide some sources such a newspaper stories, or journal articles that talk about this. Then someone can write about it in the article. But we don't include information that one person has discovered by themselves, as that is WP:original research. Aoziwe (talk) 11:36, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Criticisms section[edit]

Some of the items in this section doesn't contain any criticism, such as The Bali Nine; others seem to be misdirected, shouldn't the court that issued the warrant be blamed for the Raids on media; others are unsourced. Creuzbourg (talk) 21:22, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]