Fitzgerald Inquiry Queensland: Valley of sin sparks search for the truth

IT WAS a slow news day in December, 1986, and I was looking for a keen reporter to chase what might have the makings of a good story. What he found helped trigger the cataclysmic Fitzgerald inquiry.

• Fitzgerald Inquiry: What the brothels report really exposed
• Fitzgerald Inquiry: Where it all began
• Fitzgerald Inquiry: Whistleblower Nigel Powell reveals role

IT WAS a slow news day in December, 1986, and as The Courier-Mail’s new chief-of-staff, I was looking for a keen reporter to chase what might have the makings of a good story.

Former The Courier-Mail Chief of Staff and Gold Coast Bulletin Editor-In-Chief Bob Gordon.

I’d recently returned to Queensland from 17 years in the national capital, working for The Canberra Times. Passing through Fortitude Valley, I couldn’t believe how obviously decadent the place had become since I left.

I’m no prude but there were hookers on every corner and blokes shooting up drugs in the railway station. It fascinated me how brazen it was.

I was intrigued at just what was going on in Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s Queensland, where prostitution was supposedly illegal and the then “Minister for Everything”, Russ Hinze, had famously declared there were no brothels or illegal casinos in the state.

I wanted to know who owned Brisbane’s brothels. I tried two reporters – one was too frightened to investigate and the other said there was no story – before my eyes settled on a young Phil Dickie, with his feet up on the desk. He grabbed the assignment with gusto. Exhaustive company and title searches and crosschecks against coded entries in the 1985 Sturgess Report into pedophilia and prostitution led to Dickie identifying 21 brothels and major vice trade players including Hector Hapeta, Anne Marie Tilley, Vittorio Conte and Geraldo Bellino.

Dickie’s front-page story on January 12, 1987, was the first in a series of articles that would shake the pillars of power and help trigger the cataclysmic Fitzgerald inquiry.

The editor at the time, David Smith, never really got proper credit for having the balls to run with it. But he also warned Phil and I that if that first story was wrong, we’d both be posted to Oodnadatta (in remote South Australia).

My biggest worry was making sure Phil didn’t get himself killed.

Fortitude Valley then and now

The old fiveways snack bar is now The Den adult shop, at the corner of Brunswick St and St Pauls Terrace, Fortitude Valley:

Bubbles at 144 Wickham St, Fortitude Valley:

Whistleblower Nigel Powell outside the Manhattan nightclub in Brunswick St: