'This new venture in police-community relations': a cultural history of liaison between the New South Wales Police and the gay community in Sydney between 1984 and 1990

This thesis examines the complex and under-researched relationship between the New South Wales Police Force and gay community in Sydney between 1984 and 1990. It traces the police's shift to community policing as it coincided with what sociologist Nikolas Rose terms 'advanced liberalism' in the late 20th century. By combining Rose's analytics of government with the emphases of cultural history, this thesis focuses on the way the turn to liaison shifted meanings and relations between the police and gay community. It shows that liaison, a concept epitomized by the Police Gay Liaison Group (1984) and Gay and Lesbian Liaison Officers (1990), involved an expansive set of relations outside of conceptions of the police as oppressors and gay and lesbian people as victims. It argues that this relationship of liaison was dynamic and contested and involved both state and non-state actors in the government of gay and lesbian citizens. Liaison regarding Mardi Gras demonstrated that the police and gay community were reimagined and repositioned by neoliberal mechanisms for performance review. The government of violence during this period highlighted how liaison and anti-violence campaigns attempted to responsibilize citizens, while community organisations made demands of the police for more services and support.