He is officially on leave but will not return.
In his last few days in office, I interviewed him again. The quality of the man is that he showed no bitterness as he talked of the job he still loves.
I decided to hold onto the story for a while because I didn’t want it to become a distraction while the government dithered over re-appointing former chief commissioner Shane Patton. Now that he too has been shafted, all bets are off.
To the mice who tried to bring Guenther down – you failed, you are beneath contempt, and, I suspect, will soon be unemployed.
Sink or swim
Life is full of sliding-door moments, and for Guenther there are two that stand out. One that made him choose to be a police officer, and the other that stopped him from being shot dead while on duty.
For years Guenther was a professional musician, but, soon after he married, he went to the bank for a mortgage. While his income stream was fine, it was not a steady wage from one job. “They knocked me back,” he says.
His brother Allen had been a cop for six years and suggested he join, saying that with shift work he would be able to continue his musical career, which he did for many years until he became assistant commissioner in charge of counterterrorism.
Deputy Commissioner Ross Guenther was prepared to speak out, but it came at a cost.Credit: Jason South
(In fact, Guenther’s musical career would help end Melbourne’s Underbelly war, but more of that later.)
Late 1985 he joined the police force, and while he wanted to be a detective, some of his instructors thought he would be a better fit playing his saxophone in the police band.
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His training station was St Kilda, where the boss told him straight out they were too busy to teach. “He had a transfer application in front of him and a pen and said one stuff-up, and you are gone. He said he would fill the form in for me,” Guenther says.
But faced with sink or swim, he swam. Short of staff, they put two trainees on the divisional van, giving Guenther 40 cents and telling him to ring the station from a phone booth if something went wrong rather than use the police radio, which was recorded.
Three years later, he was stationed in Prahran when a young constable shot and wounded Joshua Yap, who, armed with a hunting knife, had attempted to rob a TAB.
The constable was offered the chance to take a few days off; Guenther offered him a chop-out and to cover his night shift. The young cop, 22, said he was right to work.
His name was Steven Tynan, and he was murdered with his 20-year-old patrol partner Damian Eyre on Walsh Street, South Yarra, by a gang that dumped a stolen Commodore in the street with the doors open as bait.
Constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre were gunned down in Walsh Street, South Yarra, in 1988.Credit: The Age
Guenther was on a quick change of shift at the time, sleeping at the station. He was woken with the news. Tynan died at the scene, and while there was no chance of saving Eyre, he was rushed to The Alfred hospital. “Back then police didn’t wear name tags. I was sent to The Alfred to make an identification. It was Damian,” Guenther says.
“It was a game-changer. Crooks started stealing Commodores and leaving them in the middle of streets with their doors open. We were crapping ourselves.”
While he moved around, he always returned to Prahran. Ten years later he was stationed there when senior constable Rod Miller and sergeant Gary Silk were also ambushed and shot dead in Cochranes Road, Moorabbin.
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“Rod was at Prahran gaining experience to become a detective. I knew them well,” he says.
Guenther has had two careers that have overlapped. First he was a professional musician, then a cop who became an international expert on counterterrorism and a respected member of the vital Five Eyes (UK, Canada, US, New Zealand and Australia) intelligence pact.
He has run dozens of operations that have shut down terror cells and thwarted deadly attacks.
There was Kastelholm, the operation that thwarted a terrorist cell’s plans to carry out mass killings in Melbourne on Christmas Day, 2016. It was a classic case where the public was alert, not alarmed.
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When one of the terrorists bought 700 nail gun cartridges from Bunnings to cannibalise the gunpowder, a staff member followed him, taking down his registration details before he drove off.
Police bugs picked up the four leaders planning to ram a police officer to steal his gun, fit their siblings and wives with suicide vests, and use machetes to randomly kill.
Guenther says such jobs are all about timing. Police let jobs run to gather evidence, but have to move before the terrorists are ready to strike.
On December 20, the four leaders went to Federation Square with a cover story that they were going to buy ice cream, when they were really looking for the best spot to kill.
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But if they were carrying out surveillance, they didn’t notice a few apparent tourists wandering around the same square. They were SOG police carrying backpacks that contained high-powered weapons.
Guenther knew that terrorists may intend to carry out a dry run, but if the opportunity surfaced, turn it into a massacre.
The SOG was there to make sure it wouldn’t.
Two days later the same officers arrested the suspects, who were charged, convicted and jailed. No one will ever know how many lives were saved. “It was an amazing job,” says Guenther.
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While policing may have been in his blood – with his brother and great-grandfather John Allen members of the Victoria Police – the music gene was initially stronger.
After hearing Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore as a child, Guenther took up the clarinet at the age of 10, which was hardly surprising as his mother, Leslie, was an opera singer and pianist.
At the age of 15 he switched to the saxophone, not purely to extend his range but because “it was sexier than the clarinet”. Soon he added the flute to his kit. He began to study economics and law at Monash University, “but all I wanted to do was play music”.
For years, he worked in show bands at Hobart’s Wrest Point Casino, the Launceston Country Club and the Alice Springs casino, backing singers including Shirley Bassey, John Farnham and Ronnie Burns.
Professional musicians know how to bring the best out in a singer, although with Barry White that didn’t work. Guenther says when White launched into Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are, he jumped in for a saxophone solo, only to find White was disinclined to stop singing. After the show he was told where to stick his solo in future.
Jerry Lewis performing in 2005.Credit: AP
He hit it off with Jerry Lewis, and during lunches the legendary US entertainer would talk about the comics that inspired him, like The Three Stooges and Laurel and Hardy.
“He said Chico Marx (of the Marx Brothers) loved a punt so much the movie studio had a bookie on the set because Chico would disappear during shoots to go to the races to bet.”
No wonder one of their most famous movies was A Day at the Races.
In fact, Chico was a gambling addict who lost his fortune.
The Marx Brothers in A Day at the Races.
When stationed at Prahran, Guenther was able to finish his shift and head over to Channel Nine studios to rehearse for variety shows hosted by Bert Newton and later Ernie Sigley.
The policeman’s interest in music would bring an unexpected reward. When police were hunting drug boss Tony Mokbel, who had jumped bail and disappeared in 2006, a fellow musician who had worked with Guenther contacted him with a startling confession. Not only did he know Mokbel, but the syndicate head had used his doctored passport to leave the country. Guenther took him to the Purana gangland taskforce where he was registered as Human Source 3030.
The Musician told Purana head Jim O’Brien he knew Bart Rizzo, the man who acted as an accountant for Mokbel’s group, known as The Company. Guenther’s man didn’t just act as an informer, he went deep undercover, providing Purana-bugged phones that were supposed to be “clean” to key syndicate members and downloading damning records from one of their computers when Rizzo was in the next room.
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The USB stick he gave to O’Brien had Rizzo’s documentation of drug quantities, quality control systems and cash distribution.
When Mokbel was arrested in Greece in 2007, he was carrying The Musician’s doctored passport under the name of Stephen Papas. It was an inside joke. It was the name Mokbel’s favourite football team used when it needed a ring-in player.
A band member told me he played with The Musician until he rang with an apology. “[The Musician] said he wouldn’t be able to make Saturday’s gig,” the band member said. “He then said his mobile phone would never answer again. That was the last time I saw him.”
The Musician was paid the bulk of the $1 million reward and now has a new identity.
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In late December, Guenther retired. His last job was to set up the investigation into the terror attack at the Adass Israel synagogue in Ripponlea.
He says Australia has developed an efficient anti-terror system dealing with known threats, but there will always be the unknown that can slip through.
He also said organised crime would continue to prosper while Australians were prepared to pay top prices for illegal drugs. “Our American colleagues can’t believe what we pay for drugs. No wonder Mexican cartels see this as a lucrative market.”
Private businesses need to step up and partner with police, Guenther says. “With cybercrime, telcos need to play a bigger role.”
He says the best police methods can only work with committed officers. “It is always about the people.”
While he has handed back his badge, we feel we haven’t heard the last of Ross the Boss.
“I have loved my 40 years in the job,” he says.
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