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High crime courses through Australian generations like a never-ending story, with sometimes interchangeable heroes and villains. But Clive Small, who died this week, rose from the lowest ranks to assistant commissioner and stood tall for truth and justice, a singular paladin in a NSW police force once seared by corruption.
He cleaned up Cabramatta after police had allowed drugs to turn the suburb into a hellhole and cleared NSW policeman Harry Blackburn – wrongly charged with rape, robbery and kidnapping – despite pressure from higher up to drop the case. His investigations over three decades included the murder of anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay, the Nugan Hand bank scandal involving money-laundering, drugs and illegal tax avoidance schemes, the shooting of police officer Michael Drury, the murder of Cabramatta MP John Newman and, his most famous case, the backpacker murders, which led to Ivan Milat’s eventual conviction.
Clive Small, who died this week, was a hugely influential police figure in NSW.Credit: Peter Rae
In 1994, Small was appointed to head a 20-strong team, Task Force Air, to investigate the murders of young backpackers reported missing between 1989 and 1992 after their bodies started turning up in shallow graves in the Belanglo State Forest. At the outset there was no suspect, the first victim had vanished years earlier and five of the seven victims were from overseas, their movements in Australia unclear. Seven months later, Small had got his man. Milat was found guilty after a 15-week trial and jailed for seven consecutive life sentences. He died in prison in 2019.
The high-profile cases made Small a much-admired officer and exemplar. He was the antidote to his contemporary, the bad cop Roger Rogerson, and over the years was portrayed in law and order series and commentaries, not always to his liking. Small co-authored a number of books on his career to put the record straight.
And his fame certainly threatened his seniors and jealous rivals in NSW Police, who either moved him out of the way or undermined him.
Small’s high media profile rightly or wrongly made him a clean cop when much of the police force smelt to high heaven, and the people of NSW knew it. The Wood Royal Commission, conducted between 1995 and 1997, found widespread corruption, with people murdered by police and many illegal activities, including prostitution, drugs and gambling, supported by the police. An outsider, Peter Ryan, was brought in from England as police commissioner to clean up the force, and he named Small his chief of crime agencies to upgrade investigations into organised crime.
He served as a special adviser on crime prevention to the Premier’s Department for two years. But amid murky claims that he was a contender for the top job and allegations of undermining officials and politicians, Small left the police force after 40 years when the then commissioner Ken Moroney, the man selected by the Labor state government to replace Ryan, did not renew his contract.
Small went on to become chief investigator for Irene Moss’ NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption in 2004, before retiring in 2009.
NSW needs more officers like Clive Small.
