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He won't be missed by many, perhaps only his immediate family and a handful of surviving bent coppers and crims with whom rogue detective Roger Rogerson ran. Nor should Sydney - as it was back then - be mourned.
Nostalgia places a rose-coloured film over the past but we should be clear-eyed about Sydney in the 1980s, a corrupt and dangerous place. Cold, calculating and murderous, Rogerson died last week at 83. He was serving a sentence for the murder of drug dealer Jamie Gao but there are deep and credible suspicions he was involved in half a dozen other killings. His notoriety has spawned a number of books and the TV series Blue Murder.
The decade in which Rogerson was rampant was stained by corruption - too many instances to list but here are a few.
Back in 1980, the week before I started as a cadet journalist at a local paper in Newtown, the local Labor state MP Peter Baldwin was bashed almost beyond recognition at his home in Marrickville. No one was ever charged for the offence but the pervasive suspicion was that the assault was the result of a bitter factional brawl between the left and right factions of the ALP.
The first day on the job, I was told to be very wary of a well-known Labor heavy who often appeared at the front counter on publication day. When I did put eyes on him one day, I realised why. He was built like a fridge and menacing like a scrapyard Rottweiler.
In 1981, heroin dealer Warren Lanfranchi arranged to meet police in Dangar Place, Chippendale. Rogerson shot him dead. Lanfranchi's lover, Sallie-Anne Huckstepp, went to police internal affairs. She was murdered five years later at the suspected order of Rogerson.
NSW chief magistrate Murray Farquhar was sent to jail in 1985 for attempting to pervert the course of justice. Rumours had swirled for years that he had been influencing the outcome of cases brought against prominent Sydney individuals.
The same year, the Love Boat scandal broke with allegations senior politicians were treated to free sex organised by prostitute Virginia Perger.
In 1987, NSW corrective services minister Rex Jackson was convicted for attempting to organise bribes. Responsible for running the state's jails, he was caught on an Australian Federal Police wiretap trying to sell the release of marijuana growers.
The extent of police corruption was laid bare by the Wood Royal Commission, which ran the decade after, from 1995 to 1997, forcing hundreds of bent officers out of the force.
The 1980s were ugly and not just for the big hair and shoulder pads. The death of Roger Rogerson will shine more light into the decade's dark crevices. "When you lift up a rock all the crawlies run out," anti-corruption campaigner John Hatton once told me years ago.
If we're to keep weeding out bent coppers, crooked magistrates and ministers on the take, it's important to keep that light of scrutiny shining, through courageous journalism and institutions like the anti-corruption and integrity commissions. There is no better disinfectant than sunshine.
![Broelman's view. Broelman's view.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/3BUUzmFAhrhLyX9rFCubPq5/e88e4217-8b81-4b0f-bff1-6b0aeb316356.jpg/r0_0_2362_1533_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
HAVE YOUR SAY: Is enough being done to stamp out corruption? Do you remember the 1980s fondly or darkly? Do shows like Underbelly glamourise crime and corruption? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- The next person to be named Australian of the Year will need a thick skin, says body image advocate and 2023 Australian of the Year Taryn Brumfitt. "There will be a lot of people who don't think you're worthy, there will be a lot of drama, people will write things about you that are untrue," she says.
- Single women are warned that an alleged property scammer is hunting for new victims in a long-running scheme of selling homes without the owner's consent and running away with the cash. Police believe the man has fleeced at least $8.7 million from investors and scammed 15 people, who said they each lost between $20,000 and $2.1 million, since the scam was first reported in 2011.
- Apartment prices are expected to grow more than houses this year across Australia and in major capital cities according to a leading property industry analyst. While houses are forecast to grow by just 1 per cent in Sydney, unit prices are set to grow by 6 per cent in 2024.
THEY SAID IT: "Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen's faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs." - Joe Biden
YOU SAID IT: There are plenty of pitfalls in the rush to build apartments to address the housing crisis.
"I believe our governments do not do enough to scrutinise the licences they hand out," writes Michele. "And it is not just at the developers' level, the poor quality architects that do not seem to be responsible for their part in the debacle of properties that do not stand up to the test of time. The poor designs, structures, supervision and finishes are all part of the problem; from developers right through to the trades people who should be more accountable as well as the government handing out licences like it is confetti. Once a complaint is made, work should be inspected immediately by an independent body."
Retired architect Emile writes: "When I did my degree at Sydney University we were taught the rudiments of every trade and given a grounding in the legal structures which surround development. This equipped us not only to design buildings, but also to specify the materials and construction methods, and to know when work was substandard. The contract then set them in stone for that project. We then administered the contract, ensuring builders performed their duties exactly as specified. In the early 1980s the rise of D&C, design and construct, saw the emergence of 'project managers' who suborned the client base into believing they could do our work better than we, and for less cost. Well today's clusterf--- proves the adage that you get what you paid for. We are now too far down the road to find our way back, there's just too much to unpick."
"I grew up in Crawley, England which was one of the seven new towns built to encourage industry to move away from London," writes Elaine. "Whole companies moved, complete with all their workers, to towns built especially for them. They had industrial estates for the companies, and suburbs that each contained schools, shops, parks, etc. The homes were mostly free-standing, three- and four-bedroom houses, built by housing commissions and rented out to the workers and their families at very reasonable rates. It was a social experiment which worked amazingly well, and I believe our governments could learn a thing or two by studying how they did it. People don't have to own their own homes if they can rent with assurance that they won't be evicted, and rents won't go sky high."
Chris writes: "It was Brendan Behan who said, 'You cannot stack the poor who drink.' Melbourne and Sydney have already had the high-rise experiment, and it was a resounding failure. The reluctance to move beyond our capital cities, and their obvious attraction, and develop new cities and towns means that we will never capitalise on our big wide country. Meanwhile, developers are becoming mega-rich on the ever-increasing value of each square centimetre of our once tranquil, relatively low-rise cities."
"Dodgy developers of apartment buildings are noticeable because of the size of the projects," writes Sue, "but we should remember that there are dodgy builders of smaller accommodations as well, including extensions to existing homes, as I discovered to my cost. There is simply less publicity for these as there are fewer people involved. It is not nearly as good a story if one household is involved as it is if 900 are! The entire building industry, from planning suburbs and the availability of land through to the end sales, needs rethinking, along with the consideration of the qualifications and licensing of all concerned."