The Wire

A harsh internal report from the New South Wales Ombudsman this week criticised the police handling of the Macquarie Fields riots in February. The police force have played down the significance of the report, admitting that some mistakes were made but not accepting the need for change within the force. Michael Kennedy was a detective for 20 years and now lectures in social science at the University of Western Sydney. He says the whole Macquarie Fields incident was an example of “moral panic” engineered by political machine and the police are part of that, even though they know that Macquarie Fields’ problems are the result of generations of social disadvantage and unemployment.