Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll,criticised by the Richards report,will lead the service through the subsequent reforms.
The final report,titledA Call for Change:Commission of Inquiry into Queensland Police Service responses to domestic and family violencepaints a damning portrait of a police service tainted with too many rotten eggs and a leader out-of-touch with the experiences of its members,community and some basic procedures.
Among a litany of failings,going back far longer than just Carroll’s time at the helm,commissioner Deborah Richards found many victim-survivors in the community were blamed by police or not believed. The commission heard “many examples” of officers being slow to respond,discouraging reports and turning people away from stations.
Internally,“many QPS members spoke of a lack of trust and faith in the Police Commissioner ... and expressed disappointment to the Commission about what they perceive as[Carroll’s] failure to acknowledge the extent of the cultural problems within the QPS generally”.
According to Richards,it was only until Carroll was hauled before the commission that she was fully apprised of the “Local Management Resolution” processes — an already “inadequate” system involving conversations between an officer subject to an internal complaint and their supervisor.
Carroll on Monday apologised for the force’s failings and acknowledged its problems. She said serious reform was already underway under her leadership and maintained she was the person to see it through. The government,caught between a rock and the hard optics of sacking a female police commissioner for a middle-aged man,agreed.
“To bring about the reforms and the cultural change needs a strong woman,” Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said at a separate press conference on Monday,convened before journalists had a chance to digest any more than a few paragraphs of the 412-page report. “And that strong woman is the Commissioner,Katarina Carroll.”