Can ASIS officers in the field be confident that Deputy Director Catherine Burns will not do another Lindt Cafe, and endanger their safety
by Ganesh Sahathevan Former NSW Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burns, now Deputy Director General ASIS The SMH has revealed: Former New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn is now officially recognized as ASIS Deputy General Manager for Corporate Management and Capacity. Ms Burns is probably best remembered for her handling of the Lindt Cafe siege. Her approach was to negotiate, in a manner described by former NSW Police hostage negotiator, Belinda Neal: We here in New South Wales and overseas, negotiation, we contain and negotiate. So contain the situation, nobody can get in or out, and then look at negotiating. Where about a peaceful resolution and in this situations we had 16 hours where we had a peaceful resolution before obviously the tragic consequences. She was also responsible for excluding the Australian Army's Tactical Assault Group East from the operation, despite TAG E's superior training, and training for an incident in ...