Information shutters have come down at the Australian Federal Police over the curious case of the heavily armed federal protection officers strolling around a casual Christmas picnic by the lakeside in Canberra.
A member of the Canberra public snapped the photograph of the officers, both carrying automatic rifles, apparently on duty on Christmas Day in the grounds of the Snappers on the Lake restaurant.
The officers were laughing and joking with the picnickers by the lake.
The public appearance of the Mk18 automatic rifles, which are only issued to trained officers and released from the police armoury under quite specific circumstances and are not even available to the ACT's community police officers, is suspected to be a breach of operational protocol.
The AFP refused to discuss any detail of the Christmas Day incident, nor provide any detail of who the federal officers were there to protect, and why they were carrying automatic weapons outside the airport precinct.
"As this matter is the subject of an investigation no comment can be provided at this time," an AFP media spokesperson said.
The only firearm issued and carried by ACT police officers in public is a Glock pistol. However, automatic weapons are issued to its tactical officers, whose role is to assist community police in dealing with highly volatile or dangerous situations.
The Daniel Defense Mark 18 short-barrelled rifle (SBR) is a special forces automatic weapon which was rolled out to specially trained federal protection officers in December 2019.
When the weapons were approved by Home Affairs for the AFP to use, the advice provided at the time was that they would be used at airports by so-called Protection Operations Response Teams (PORTs).
The AFP said these officers "perform a dedicated Counter Terrorist First Response (CTFR) role and conduct targeted operations to detect, prevent and deter criminality in airports".
At the time, AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw said that roll out "comes as part of a government funded program to bolster response capability and protect the travelling public in busy environments."
"This is an additional capacity which will provide greater support for officers responding to high-risk incidents and ensure continuing safety for the travelling public."
