Behind the Badge - Rod MacDonald

Editorial: Jesse Wray-McCann

Photography: Acting Senior Sergeant Tony Creanor

Because Brett did. My school mate Brett and I mucked around and failed form 4 (year 10), we repeated it and then did form 5 (year 11). At the end of form 5, I was not sure what to do and Brett said he was joining the police force. I had done my six years at secondary school so it sounded like a good idea. He joined through recruits, I joined through cadets. He ended up being senior to me, but I stayed in longer.

I started off at Russell Street uniform just after Cyclone Tracy, then went to Sunshine and Ballarat uniform, Ascot Vale Crime Cars, Brunswick Crime Investigation Unit, Major Crime Squad (where I was once at the wrong end of a gun going off), was a sergeant at St Kilda then at the Detective Training School before resigning from Victoria Police after 15 years in the job. I was then out of the force for more than five years before I started again from the constable rank in 1995. I got back to sergeant in two years, went to the Youth Advisory Unit, High Challenge Program, Ballarat D24, Melbourne D24 and finally the Police Assistance Line (PAL).

At the moment, there are over 2,500 calls to PAL each day. As sergeants, we assist the call-takers. When we get calls or enquiries that are complex or unusual, we often take over those calls and give advice.

We once had two New South Wales detectives staying in a motel in Melbourne who rang us wanting to speak to the Melbourne Custody Centre to arrange the collection of a criminal that had to be extradited back to New South Wales. They had hired a rental car and were going to take him to the airport themselves. Having been involved with extraditions as a detective, I knew there was a proper way to do it, so I arranged with the local divisional supervisor for proper escorts and assistance for them the next morning. It was a call I would not have expected to come through to PAL, but I was glad I was able to help them.

It was incredibly busy with COVID-19 events. We were being swamped with the volume of information. There were more than 70,000 reports of COVID-19 breaches during the Chief Health Officer’s restrictions. It was great to have Australian Army personnel on the phones here with us to assist and triage most of the calls we had. I don’t see how we would have coped without their assistance.

Over the years, I think the High Challenge Program gave me some of the most rewarding experiences. It was a three-day camp where we would bring in at-risk young people and team them up with police to break down barriers. I remember debriefing an exercise where police and young people had to lead each other around blindfolded. A police member said that the exercise had really moved him because it helped him understand what life must be like for his young daughter, who had been born blind. I’m also proud and pleased to see what is being done for the mental health of serving police and police veterans. I hope we can continue with that focus into the future. Often we only see the outside of people, we don’t know what is going on the inside, so we need to look after each other.