The isle’s north has what is regarded as the global “gold standard” police oversight scheme,operating entirely independent and investigating all public complaints against serving officers from the relatively minor up to deaths in custody or at their hands.
After last year’s scathing Queensland commission of inquiry led by judge Deborah Richards covered issues oflacking police accountability and called for anew police integrity unit to deal with it,the Queensland cohort were apparently keen to check out the “Police Ombudsman” approach.
CCC chair Bruce Barbour disclosed the trip in hismost recent report to the corruption watchdog’s parliamentary oversight committee,describing its purpose as meeting with “academics,law enforcement personnel and integrity agencies” to learn more about their approach.
Barbour said he was accompanied by CCC chief executive Jen O’Farrell,along with a number of “senior” – but unnamed – police and police union staff,with the findings to help inform work on the inquiry calls and “options” for the new police integrity division within the CCC.
(A police spokesperson has told me Assistant Commissioner Cheryl Scanlon,with responsibility for internal police investigators the Ethical Standards Command,travelled as their representative. A union spokesperson confirmed president Ian Leavers attended from their camp.)
But some of those options on the table appear to be straying quite far from whatlast year’s inquiry recommended:a new increasingly civilian-led unit within the CCC to “deal with all complaints” about police.