How police leadership responded to union boss’s inflammatory article

It lit up parliament, the media and parts of the community, but Queensland’s police leadership team were far more subdued on union boss Ian Leavers’ inflammatory remarks about First Nations treaties and truth-telling until an open letter calling for his resignation emerged two days later.

In late October, Leavers tapped into the then-recent Voice to Parliament referendum rejection to rail against the state’s previously bipartisan treaty pathway with unfounded claims and misrepresented data.

Doubling down at a press conference in October, Leavers described criticism of his widely criticised opinion piece as “water off a duck’s back” because he was saying things people were “too frightened to”.Credit: Toby Crockford

A significant group of more than 30 figures labelled the views expressed by Leavers in the Courier-Mail opinion piece an “outward racist ideology” in an open letter on Friday, October 27.

Brisbane Times applied for internal correspondence among, to, or from members of the agency’s almost 30-strong executive leadership team about the comments, along with any talking points prepared for the commissioner or minister.

Documents released under right to information laws begin only in the afternoon the open letter was released.

These included an emailed “media coverage report on this issue” and draft talking points from the acting communications, culture and engagement division executive director to Superintendent Paul Hart – chief of staff in the Commissioner’s Office.

It was followed soon after by efforts to co-ordinate a media response to questions from Brisbane Times about the letter, and preparation of talking points for the acting commissioner headed to a sitting of community cabinet in Townsville on the Sunday.

The talking points strayed little from the responses given to media questions, distancing the agency and its commitment to “reframe the relationship” with First Nations communities from Leavers’ comments, “only if asked”.

In a press conference on the afternoon of his opinion piece, Leavers described government criticism as “water off a duck’s back”, insisting he was saying things people were “too frightened to”. Then police commissioner Katarina Carroll largely defended Leavers.

The state’s peak union body sought to distance themselves from the inflammatory comments at the time – approaching the one-year anniversary of a damning inquiry exposing a culture of racism, sexism and misogyny within police ranks.

So, too, did Labor government members. Most vocally the then transport minister Mark Bailey, who labelled them “provocative fearmongering”.

Police Minister Mark Ryan toed closer to then premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s more muted comments, saying he did not agree with Leavers’ views and had “communicated that to the police union”.

A separate right to information application by Brisbane Times for any correspondence between Ryan and Leavers in the year to December revealed no such contact between the pair themselves.

Most of the dozens of text messages exchanged – including in an apparent group chat with Carroll – were redacted for reasons including the non-public service nature of Leavers’ role and the sharing of “personal views and opinions” of Ryan.

The LNP was almost silent on Leavers’ comments except to use them to launch a political attack and later label the debate as the same “division” they cited as a reason for dumping their previous support for the state’s treaty pathway.

Despite the parliament passing laws underpinning the treaty process and related truth-telling inquiry almost one year ago, they are yet to be officially proclaimed – which would trigger a three-month timeline to set up the inquiry.

Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Premier Steven Miles said the process of appointing the five members of the inquiry was “well advanced” and proclamation of the laws would follow. Asked if he expected hearings to begin before the October election, Miles said: “I hope so.”