Do you support the police? Then you should be calling for a G20 inquiry.

"The police are just decent, hard-working people doing their very best under difficult conditions."

When decent, hard-working police officers do their best under difficult conditions, the results should be ordinary, law-abiding citizens feeling at least as safe as when they went in. Even if the results of the police work are far from perfect, the involvement of the police should make the citizens feel less at risk than if the police were not present at all.

But what we have at the moment is thousands of ordinary, law-abiding citizens who are more afraid of the police than of the black bloc, and who feel less safe when they see a police officer.

A full, thorough, credible, independent inquiry empowered to produce useful and binding recommendations would identify any systemic problems that hindered these decent, hard-working police officers and turned their efforts to do their job to the very best of their ability into something that makes ordinary, law-abiding citizens feel less safe. The inquiry could then make recommendations to resolve these problems and ensure that in the future decent, hard-working police officers doing their very best produce results that make ordinary, law-abiding citizens feel safer than if there were no police around.

And, of course, if there's no actual basis for our feelings of being less safe around police, the inquiry would definitively identify that.

"People need to stop whining! So you're inconvenienced for a bit - it's to be expected!"

If the detentions of law-abiding citizens were within the range of acceptable inconvenience, a full, thorough, credible, independent inquiry will quickly identify that and then we can all move on (with the thousands of people who are feeling unsafe now feeling safe). If they did exceed the range of acceptable inconvenience, recommendations and changes will be made to ensure that in the future ordinary, law-abiding citizens - like you, perhaps - will not have to suffer anything beyond the scope of simple inconvenience if you ever happen across the threshold of a police investigation.

"If you're a law-abiding citizen, you should just shut up and support the police! They're here to protect you!"

A full, thorough, credible, independent inquiry would prove that, so people who lost trust in the police can once again support them. This would make the police's job easier in the long run. It would also help them solve crimes faster, because people who have witnessed something or otherwise have useful information would not be afraid to go to the police. If the unusual police response was due to the unique circumstances of the G20, an inquiry would definitively establish that and make it known to everyone, so we'll be confident we can trust our police under ordinary circumstances. And if there was something that did go wrong, an inquiry will identify it and come up with a solution, so anyone who was led to distrust the police during the G20 can still support them in the future.

Basically, a full, thorough, credible, independent inquiry conducted by a party acceptable to all (I've seen Sheila Fraser's name put out there) with the power to make binding recommendations will identify, highlight, vindicate, and give credit for all positive actions and accomplishments by police. It will identify anything beyond police control that made the results of their work suboptimal, so the police get none of the blame for what wasn't their fault. It will identify as groundless any groundless fear-mongering that might be out there, come up with solutions to prevent any actual problems that occurred from happening again in the future, and lay the groundwork for rebuilding the public's trust.

If you want the police to get credit for their hard work, you should support an inquiry. If you want to make sure the police don't get blamed for anything that isn't their fault, you should support an inquiry. If you want to debunk anti-police fear-mongering, you should support an inquiry. If you want the public to trust the police, you should support the inquiry. If you, in any way, support the police, you should support an inquiry.