Salvatore “Sal” Perna spent 46 years of his career fighting crime and corruption and it all started from one casual encounter.
“My parents were post-war immigrants from Italy; my father was from Napoli and my mother from Fiume. They always wanted their children to have an education and good jobs”.
The Pernas settled in Melbourne and lived in Collingwood and later in the housing commission in Clifton Hill.
There, one day, a young Sal met a man who was a police officer: “at the end of the conversation it inspired me to think about becoming a policeman”.
“Being a police officer is one of the most rewarding careers you can have: you meet so many people from so many backgrounds, so many life stories. It gives you a good perspective of what is important in life and what is not”.
Sal was a Commissioned Officer of the Victoria Police, achieving the rank of Detective Inspector, and the position of Officer In Charge, Crime Courses Unit.
“Being a police officer is one of the most rewarding careers you can have: you meet so many people from so many backgrounds, so many life stories. It gives you a good perspective of what is important in life and what is not”.
“One of the areas that I worked in two occasions was the homicide squad […] people were killed for a lot of reasons, in many cases for very silly or trivial reasons, a man was killed in a city park to rob him of 10 dollars. That to a young policeman says that your life can be gone in a split second so you need to make the most of it”.
“Working in the inner suburbs, like Collingwood and Brunswick, I interacted with many immigrants and the thing I took most from these people is that they wanted to make life something that counts. And that means family, friends and bringing people together and make every day a winner”.
“The racing industry in this state is worth about four billion dollars, there must be some ways to make sure that the racing industry is as clean as it possibly can and that is what integrity is all about”.
After his career in the Victoria Police, Mr. Perna was the founder and Managing Director of Calibre International Pty Ltd and later assigned different senior executive roles heading two of Australia’s largest corporate security and investigation groups, firstly at Australia Post and then at Telstra.
He was appointed as Victoria’s inaugural Racing Integrity Commissioner on March 1st, 2010.
Reporting to Parliament, he provides independent oversight of the integrity of the state’s multi-billion dollar racing industry and has his initial appointment extended a total of four times.
“The racing industry in this state is worth about four billion dollars, there must be some ways to make sure that the racing industry is as clean as it possibly can and that is what integrity is all about”.
“I am very proud of my Italian background; I think culturally we are very very strong as a community and the values that we have like family. We have a love for life”.
When it comes to his Italian background, Mr. Perna considers himself a very proud member of the Italian community in Australia.
“I am very proud of my Italian background; I think culturally we are very very strong as a community and the values that we have like family. We have a love for life”
“My father came from a very poor background. In Italian, they would call him a scugnizzo because he lived on the street and steal food. He had to hide in churches to sleep at night but that didn’t stop him from having a very full life”.
His father thought Sal to be always proud, that money or where you come from are not the measures of success.
“Around our living room he used to have hand-painted tiles, that would say things like Pure i pesci fanno l’amore (Fishes make love as well). He had such a love for life”.
Mr. Perna reiceived an AM Queen's Birthday Honour on the occasion of 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours for his significant service to racing integrity and to the community.
