Music police
The “music police”, formally known as the Compliance Directorate, are a group of over 40 inspectors that was formed in June 2009.
This group came about as a result of the Liquor Control Reform Amendment (Enforcement) Act 2009, an amendment to the Liquor Control Reform Act 1998. There has been no new liquor law since 1998.
Individuals from the Compliance Directorate have been going around to businesses and enforcing liquor licence conditions i.e. handing out large fines, and telling licensees they must stop the music playing (live and amplified recorded).
They are enforcing conditions that have in most cases already been on licences for some time, but have been ignored (by both the venues and the real police) because they are obviously ridiculous.
This action has resulted in small businesses losing money (unfairly, to anyone with an ounce of common sense), musicians and staff losing jobs, and communities losing their regular entertainment and place of bonding.
PLEASE read this extraordinary and horrifying account of gun-carrying plainclothes police visiting a venue, by Martin Cooper: Death by Centimetres - All-out Attack on Live Music. At this point it is not clear to me whether these were members of the Compliance Directorate or Victoria Police. If they had guns I guess they must have been Victoria Police—the Compliance Directorate are a civil group.