POLICE RANDOM DRUG TESTING CLOSER

Victoria's powerful police union has relaxed its tough stand against
random drug testing of officers, paving the way for its future
introduction.

Police Association secretary Paul Mullett said a welfare-based drug
testing program to be introduced by the end of the year could lead to
random drug testing.

Mr Mullett had said random drug testing was too heavy-handed -- "a
sledgehammer to crack a nut" -- but told The Sunday Age that he was
keeping an open mind on the issue.

The backdown comes after the union agreed on Friday to delay police
bans, including no voluntary police attendance at the AFL finals,
until at least September 23 while talks on their pay dispute continued.

On the drug issue, Mr Mullett said the welfare-based testing would
allow individual police to come forward for treatment and supervisors
could intervene when they saw a problem.

The program would also include compulsory testing of officers involved
in a critical incident in which a person was seriously injured or killed.

Mr Mullett said that as part of the program, legislation was to be
introduced to amend the Police Regulation Act (1958) to ensure police
drug/health records remained confidential.

He said the union was prepared to discuss introduction of random drug
testing after the welfare-based testing program had been in place a
year.

"We want to take it one step at a time," Mr Mullett said. "This is all
about providing infrastructure and frameworks, particularly employee
assistance programs, to resolve any worker's problems around drugs and
alcohol. Any workforce will have a problem with drugs and alcohol. We
don't believe that it's significant in the Victoria Police force, far
from it.

"If there are problems, they're relatively minor and, as we say, they
should be resolved by helping people rather than any punitive approach."

Mr Mullett said the union had wanted a welfare-based drug testing
program since 2002.

NSW police introduced random drug testing in 2001.