Book Review: Police as Peace Keepers
| Author | Bruce Swanton |
| Published date | 01 December 1984 |
| Date | 01 December 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000486588401700415 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
286
BOOK
REVIEWS (1984)
17
ANZJ Crim
improving worker protection are more achieveable through State insurance
monopolies
than
through criminal penalties imposed by courts. Western Australia
and South Australia are currently considering whether they should follow the
Queensland
path
to
aState monopoly
of
workers' compensation insurance.
This
is
not
to
deny the force
or
persuasiveness of Gunningham's conclusions that
law enforcement and statutory rights to worker participation are
at
the heart of
improved safety
at
work. Mine safety law
is
excluded from the focus
of
the book.
It
would be churlish to criticize abook
of
such breadth for what it does not cover.
Yet
inclusion
of
mine safety law would have shown that none
of
Gunningham's
proposals on statutory rights to worker participation in safety enforcement are pie
in the sky.
More
radical approaches already exist in conservative mining States. In
Queensland coal miners elect both local and State-wide safety inspectors whom the
Government
then
gives the power to
order
management to stop production if they
deem conditions unsafe. The full-time safety inspectors
of
the Communist
controlled miners union in Queensland have asubstantial proportion
of
their
salaries paid by
the
Queensland Government. In Western Australia, where union
safety inspectors also have powers almost equivalent to those
of
Government
inspectors, their entire salaries are
met
by the State Government.
Acrucial question with moves to integrate health and safety inspectorates in
Australia
is
whether mine safety regulation will be dragged down to the level of
factory inspection
or
whether the latter will be elevated towards the level
of
the
former. Employers and bureaucrats who run factory inspectorates in Australia may
see Gunningham's proposed reforms as radical; chiefinspectors
of
mines will see his
worker participation proposals for the moderate and achieveable law reforms they
are.
JOHN
BRAITHWAITE
Canberra
Police as Peace Keepers, Gavin Brown, Barry Barker and Terry Burke. Published
by the
UNCIVPOL
Club, Victoria, 240pp
$20
(approx
$4
postage/packing).
This profusely illustrated publication comprises arecord
of
Australian and New
Zealand police involvement in Cyprus through the auspices
of
the United Nations,
during the
20
years from 1964 to 1984.
The
book
is
exceptionally well presentedwith
numerous charts, photographs and contains an excellent index.
The
book
is written by police practitioners, it
is
international in
the
sense that it
relates to New
Zealand
and Australian activities in Cyprus whilst at the same time
being
part
of the official record of government of the first two nations and, as well,
it comprises acomprehensive, discrete record, of antipodean police activity.
The
first
three
chapters provide brief overviews
of
the
UN
charter and
UN
peacekeeping efforts together with an account of the political situation in Cyprus
prior to the creation
of
the United Nations Civil Police (UNCIVPOL).
The substance
of
the book
is
devoted to the affairs
of
Australian and New
Zealand attachments to UNCIVPOL. These activities are interleaved with the day
to day events
of
Cyprus life and politics as they impinged upon police operations.
The
police operational scene varied considerably over time.
There
were times of
crisis in which
UNCIVPOL
personnel were at risk and there were times
of
low
intensity action.
But,
at all times, coordinating police activities among police of
several different nationalities posed problems. Throughout, antipodean police
officers appear
to
have coped well and to have been popular with
both
the Cyprus
public and
the
United
Nations Force in Cyprus.
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