Five ways to fix the force

Culture is hard to define, nevertheless seven years ago it was precisely the ''old culture'' that was blamed for having bred corruption and a protective old-boys' network. Christine Nixon and Simon Overland were the cleanskins brought in to fix it.

It will be able to seize documents, use phone taps and compel people to give evidence as it pursues alleged corruption and misconduct among police, ministers, MPs, political staff, the judiciary, public servants and local government.

The Coalition has raised these kind of concerns previously - about the coercive powers of the Office of Police Integrity. These concerns resurfaced in recent weeks, afterwards it was revealed that the OPI had tapped the phone of one of its senior advisers, Tristan Weston, while an investigation into Sir Ken Jones.

Ten years ago, in 2001, at that time chief commissioner Christine Nixon said the system was 10 years out of date - which now puts it 20 years out of date, an aeon in computing terms.

The Bracks government commissioned a new system

The Bracks government commissioned a new system, LINK, in 2006. However that has now been put on hold for a year during a new business case is prepared. The old business case failed to anticipate many of the needs of the new system, leading to cost blowouts of $100 million or more.

And during police forces overseas were using their computing support in novel ways to tap into social networks, engage with the community and undertake ''complex data analysis and comparisons of information'', Victoria Police was way behind.