Why Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll wasn’t sacked when others have lost their jobs for less

Somehow Katarina Carroll still has her job this morning, when others have lost theirs for less. To understand why she is safe for now, you have to dig a bit deeper, writes The Editor.

It is such an absolute shame that Queensland’s first female police commissioner Katarina Carroll has failed when it comes to her leadership of the Police Service – particularly when those failures relate to serious issues of misogyny within the organisation, and with the way officers have handled domestic and family violence on her watch.

But that is what the Commission of Inquiry into the QPS’s response to domestic and family violence has concluded: that the problems described yesterday by Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk as “raw and confronting” were the result of a “failure of leadership”.

Two other failures by Ms Carroll are also worth noting. The first is that she initially tried to dodge the inquiry – only belatedly agreeing to give evidence after threatened with a summons to compel her to, when she initially declined an invitation. The second is that the report also concludes that Ms Carroll does not appear to understand the QPS’s own internal disciplinary system – another a problem that “reflects poorly on her leadership”, it says.

Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll. Picture: Liam Kidston

And yet somehow Commissioner Carroll still has her job this morning, when others have lost theirs for less. To understand why she is safe for now, you have to dig a bit deeper.

The first point is that while the report itself notes that “many” police officers spoke of a lack of trust and faith in the Commissioner, “a small number” spoke in support of Ms Carroll’s track record of facilitating cultural change – particularly when she led the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service for four years from 2015 to 2019.

“One supporter who is not a QPS member,” the report notes, “said Katarina Carroll is the right leader to make wide scale change in QPS culture, but this will take time and it would be foolish to change leadership at this juncture. Women … exposed to unacceptable domestic violence behaviour will benefit from her leadership and her cultural stewardship; she needs time to unravel the challenging culture that has developed on the watch of the male commissioners who came before her.” The message: trust her.

The second point is that any decision to sack Ms Carroll must be weighed against the message it would send to women, even if a sacking is justified on the evidence.

Four months ago, Professor Peter Coaldrake’s review of culture and accountability in the state’s public sector tackled this very point. He wrote that workplaces “seeking to maximise talent and thinking, and forge connections with the communities they serve” needed to both “actively recruit” from a cross-section of the community – and to pay close attention to the value of diversity in leadership roles.

Prof Coaldrake then noted that only four of the state’s 21 directors-general were women – and that the Special Commissioner for Equity and Diversity submitted to his inquiry research that had found “women identified the reduced number of women directors-general as a disincentive (for their own career ambitions)”. It is this finding worth keeping top of mind when considering if the Premier has made the right choice in keeping Ms Carroll on as the state’s top cop.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk. Picture: Tertius Pickard

The Premier said she trusted Ms Carroll to implement the 78 recommendations, because making “the reforms and cultural change needs a strong woman – and that strong woman is Katarina Carroll”.

“This is going to be confronting and it’s going to take every ounce of her strength to bring about this reform and I’m confident she is the right person to do it,” the Premier said – before then confirming Deputy Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski would actually be the one tasked with co-ordinating the reform program, and that he would report directly to the government rather than to his boss as the process plays out. It was a pretty bizarre situation – compounded by Police Minister Mark Ryan saying that Mr Gollschewski was actually the one with “the leadership and respect to manage the reforms”.

Anyway. Queenslanders know they have long been living in a real-world episode of the British 1980s political sitcom “Yes, Minister”. The Gollschewski call just confirmed it.

And really, it doesn’t matter who delivers. What matters is change is delivered – lock, stock and barrel.

The report also makes another critical point: that it heard also from many Queenslanders whose lives were changed for the better by the hard work and the commitment of police officers who do the right thing. In fact, the first words are an open letter from inquiry chair Judge Deborah Richards to those many officers who serve our community with distinction. She writes: “I have been told that you feel that you are all being unfairly targeted by the revelations uncovered. (But) when you perform your job well, you save lives; you make a difference. The commission has never lost sight of that fact”. Neither should we all.