Queensland urged not to be 'self-congratulatory' about Fitzgerald Inquiry

Three key police whistleblowers who lifted the mask on Queensland’s crooked cops, heroin sales and prostitution in the 1980s would today reject the corruption body the Fitzgerald Inquiry set up.

The Fitzgerald Inquiry in July 1989 led to the Criminal Justice Commission – now the Crime and Corruption Commission – to investigate corruption and complaints against police.

Tony Fitzgerald handing his report to then-Queensland premier Mike Ahern ahead of the parliamentary debate.Credit: James McEwan

Former intelligence officer Peter Vassallo, former undercover policeman Jim Slade and former licensing branch officer Nigel Powell say 2019's CCC is too dependent on Queensland police for staff and investigators.

All three former police officers were forced to step cautiously through a maze of crooked police to contact journalists to break open drug and prostitution concerns in the 1980s.

One-quarter of the CCC’s staff are now Queensland police, according to the commission.

The three men also say the CCC has been too slow to investigate links between developers and councils, despite this being a specific direction from Tony Fitzgerald in 1989.

Vice-president of Queensland's Council for Civil Liberties Terry O'Gorman says after 30 years it is time for the Crime and Corruption Commission to change.Credit: Glenn Hunt/AAP

Their concerns are echoed by prominent criminal lawyer Terry O’Gorman, vice-president of Queensland Council for Civil Liberties.

Mr O’Gorman will present his case to Queensland Police, at a July 28 conference, for the CCC to be split into three bodies and for Queensland’s entire parliamentary committee system, also a 1989 Fitzgerald reform, to be reviewed because it had “atrophied”.

He said that included the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commission, which oversaw the CCC.

"It is all very well to be self-congratulatory of the Fitzgerald model," Mr O'Gorman said.

"But it is 30 years old and the 30-year anniversary should be used to ask what is wrong now that Fitzgerald said should have been fixed up, that either has not been fixed up and also, what has gone backwards,” he said.

Mr Slade and Mr Vassallo provided information to investigative reporter Chris Masters for Four Corners' 1987 'The Moonlight State' investigation, while Mr Powell linked names, faces and locations in Phil Dickie’s Courier-Mail stories in 1987.

This week, Mr Vassallo summarised the trio's views about the CCC.

“If it was to happen again and it took a Peter Vassallo and a Jim Slade and a Chris Masters to explore something, or expose something in a state, do you think we would use the resources of the state?” Mr Vassallo asked.

Fitzgerald-era whistleblower Peter Vassallo.

Mr Vassallo said the CCC was too closely linked to Queensland police and the state government.

“It can be corrupted. It can be denied resources. It can be denied funding,” he said.

“There are 100 ways to subvert the activities of the [CCC].”

Mr Slade said the CCC was not independent.

“I would much rather it be an independent body with Queensland police officers not being their chief investigators and advisers,” he said.

Former licensing branch policeman and Fitzgerald Inquiry whistleblower Nigel Powell.

Mr Slade questioned the idea of police investigating police, describing how he had personally witnessed the evolving stages of police corruption, which he says was linked at that time to the police culture.

“We come back to that police culture, which is probably the strongest emotional human connection that any human being can have in their workplace,” he said.

Jim Slade working on drug raids in north Queensland in the 1980s.

Former licensing branch constable Nigel Powell questioned why the CCC had taken so long to investigate local councillors. Operation Belcarra, which has resulted in charges against sitting and former councillors, started in 2017.

“Even when I was back in the ICAC [Independent Commission Against Corruption] in the early 1990s, the ICAC was looking at developers,” he said.

Mr Powell voiced a similar concern as his fellow Fitzgerald whistleblowers.

"I would have to ask myself how could I trust an organisation that has been in existence for more than 30 years and still staffs itself with Queensland police officers,” he said.

In 2019, Queensland police make up more than 24 per cent of the Crime and Corruption Commission’s staff – 86 police from a total of 359 staff.

In 2009, 25.7 per cent (82 of 319) of the then-Crime and Misconduct Commission’s staff were police officers, while in 1990 there were 94 police officers working for the then-CJC.

Christine and Jim Slade.Credit: Tony Moore

The CCC’s budget increased from $45.78 million in 2009 to $67 million in 2019.

A spokesman said police at the CCC did more than investigate complaints against police.

“It is not accurate to imply police officers seconded to the CCC are solely responsible for investigating allegations of corrupt conduct relating to police or police misconduct,” a spokesman said.

“The CCC’s investigative teams are multi-disciplinary. The teams include civilian investigators, police officers, lawyers, financial investigators, intelligence officers and forensic computing experts.”

Complaints referred to Queensland’s Ethical Standards Command can be monitored by the CCC.

Mr O’Gorman, however, questioned the background to the unlawful bashing of Gold Coast man Noa Begic by police in the Gold Coast police station basement in January 2012.

In February 2018, Rick Flori, the former policeman who leaked video that highlighted improper police action in one section of Gold Coast police, was acquitted of official misconduct.

Gold Coast senior constable Ben Lamb, who the Southport District Court heard on February 14, 2018, had kneed and punched Mr Begic in 2012, received a suspended dismissal from the police.

Mr O'Gorman said Queensland police signed off on a deal with the CCC that there would be no further prosecutions.

"The only explanation that the police were able to come up with – and which [CCC chairman Alan] MacSporran defended when he became chair – was that Begic did not want to make a complaint,” he said.

“That shows, if any example needs to be shown, the fundamental problem with the failure of the CJC, or the CCC, to carry out its monitoring role.”

The CCC said its investigation into the bashing prompted new police disciplinary legislation coming to Queensland Parliament in February.

At the upcoming conference, Mr O’Gorman will argue the CCC should be divided into three separate bodies:

• a public sector corruption fighter, modelled on the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption;
• a police complaints investigation based on NSW's independent Law Enforcement Conduct Commission; and
• an organised crime body similar to the NSW Crime Commission.

“Let's move away from the congratulatory seminar of 'wasn’t Fitzgerald great 30 years ago' and let's focus on one of the main things that Fitzgerald said in his report 30 years ago, namedly that after 30 years there will be slippage, there will be the temptation to the bad old days," Mr O'Gorman said.

"While I accept we have not returned to the bad old days, I think there is insufficient rigour, there are insufficient critical eyes being cast over the Fitzgerald structures as they now stand.

“Thirty years later, we say 'what can we do to significantly improve them?' and we say, 'a lot'.”