But it wasn’t the famed castles or whiskey distilleries on the itineraries of top brass from the Crime and Corruption Commission,Queensland Police Service and Queensland Police Union.
CCC chair Bruce Barbour (left) disclosed the Irish jaunt in his most recent report to the corruption watchdog’s parliamentary oversight committee,a trip also attended by assistant police commissioner Cheryl Scanlon (right) and police union president Ian Leavers.DOMINIC LORRIMER,WOLTER PEETERS,LinkedIn
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 of and called for a 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 his 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 what:a new increasingly civilian-led unit within the CCC to “deal with all complaints” about police.
Instead, last week suggested the CCC had put forward a model which would see only the most serious complaints against officers –not including theft,fraud,misconduct,discrimination,bullying and harassment,along with misogynistic,racist and homophobic behaviour – picked up by the new unit.
Police themselves reportedly supported another model which would see complaints lodged by fellow officers able to be referred back to the police to deal with – closer to what happens in Northern Ireland,but differing significantly from Richard’s calls.
One of those in the know is Professor Tim Prenzler,who suggested the CCC was trying to find support for a “substantially watered-down version” of the suggested integrity unit in their “confusing and concerning” role steering its execution.
This was despite the inquiry calling for the independent implementation supervisor,appointed this year,to oversee things. Not to mention the past “subversion” of suggested post-Fitzgerald state reforms,sometimes by integrity bodies themselves.
Prenzler knows what he is talking about:the University of the Sunshine Coast professor has researched for three decades and was one of two people (alongside a former Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman) called on to prepare for the inquiry.
“There is false assurance in Queensland that complaints against the police are independently handled,” Prenzler and Michael Maguire wrote in the document,which also pushed back on cost concerns said to have been cited by the CCC and police about the new suggested model.
While the police spokesperson would not be drawn on questions about the kind of police integrity model they might support,Commissioner Katarina Carroll said on Friday she didn’t know if the one recommended by the inquiry was “the best”.
The union has previously. On Monday,a spokesperson said the “tremendously informative” trip only reinforced its belief the “various[integrity unit] models proposed ... would be failures”.
The CCC,which has not been without itself,declined to comment.
While the government said it accepted all 78 recommendations from the inquiry’s November report “in principle”,Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk quickly appeared to.
The police spokesperson said while the CCC led the development of options relating to the integrity unit recommendation for government consideration,ongoing work was to be helmed by Attorney-General Yvette D’Ath’s department.
If all are genuinely serious about rebuilding public trust,the inquiry’s must-do list is one they’d be wise to stick to.
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