I’m a member of the Hannans Rotary Club and it's now a requirement that Rotary members obtain a police clearance because we sometimes work with young people.
I think it's bureaurcracy gone made. We sponsor youth exchange programs but unless you're a host family (for which a police clearance is reasonable) we hardly have anything to do with young people.
I had a day off today and went to the police station for my National Police Certificate. After paying $43 I received a piece of paper saying that I do "not appear on the disclosable court history records of any Australian Police Jurisdiction". That's reassuring.
I haven't had many encounters with police.
The first was when I was about 11 years old. A friend and I were playing on the railway embankment in Traralgon near the old hospital. We learnt that if you placed a five cent piece on the railway line for a train to run over it the result was a flat piece of metal.
The train driver must have thought we were rascals planning to derail the Gippslander and called the cops, who seemed quite satisified with our explanation. Nevertheless I'm pleased it didn't show on my National Police Certificate that I'm a suspected terrorist who once threatened to blow up a locomotive.
Thinking of that experience, it seems a clever way to convert coins to base metal and could become popular as coins are now worth more than their face value for the first time in years!
The next time I met the police was when riding my bike home from squash in Traralgon in the early 80s. I didn't have lights on my bike and took off down a side street when I saw a police car. They followed me and gave me a serve. That's not on my record either, fortunately.
That side street, which was a dirt track to nowhere, is now the road past the Kmart shopping centre and ASIC.
