Qld police interim commissioner Steve Gollschewski’s plan to clean up force

Queensland’s interim police commissioner wants frontline officers to spend more time on the beat and has put dodgy cops on notice with a major change to ethical standards investigations.

Steve Gollschewski is interim police commissioner following the departure of Katarina Carroll. Picture: Liam Kidston

Interim Commissioner Steve Gollschewski wants frontline police to spend more hours on the road and less time doing administrative work, as he outlines his vision for the Queensland Police Service.

Mr Gollschewski has also put dodgy cops on notice and will personally have ethical standards investigations about high-risk incidents directly reported to him.

In his first interview since taking on the role, Mr Gollschewski said reducing crime, combating youth crime and allowing police to spend less time on administrative work was his major focus along with the disciplinary reform.

He said there were frustrations from police who had a desire to do better, and the most important part of the job for police officers was being there when it mattered.

His comments about his desire to focus on crime comes amid the state’s youth crime crisis, an issue where he said police were already starting to make inroads.

“We want to see that more broadly. So we’re doing the work now, in that crime space to look at what more can we do in those areas that are really suffering from particular types of crime,” Mr Gollschewski told The Courier-Mail.

“And you can’t do a cookie-cutter (approach) because you have got to look at the state broadly.

“And there’ll be different areas that have got different problems at a particular time, but I’m really confident we can start to turn the dial on some things.

“So for me in when I was talking about the focus on crime, you’ll see a real focus back to those things that are most likely to harm our community and what more can we do in that space?

“Because let’s face it, if a lot of people in our community see police, see activity, the type of stuff we do through a number of things that will make them feel safer.”

Mr Gollschewski said domestic violence took a huge amount of police hours, and the service had investigated how it could free up more time for officers, so they could do their job more efficiently and effectively.

A proposal by police would see police be able to electronically issue a number of documents, including some domestic violence order paperwork.

The Courier-Mail has also viewed a proposal for officers to issue a DV protection order called a PIPO, with conditions to remain in effect for 12 months, without court order, if both parties consent.

Mr Gollschewski said protecting victims and holding perpetrators to account was still the focus for police, who attended 190,000 domestic violence related incidents a year. He said domestic violence incidents were increasing 20 per cent per year.

“The resounding thing I’m hearing is the demand and the time it takes for them to deal with things and domestic and family violence is a key issue in that space,” he said of the biggest issues facing frontline police.

Mr Gollschewski said the service needed to consider how it could free up the burden for officers so they could support victims.

“We’ve got to hold perpetrators to account we always will, but we’ve got to make sure that we’re getting to those victims that need our support and it’s not good enough for policing organisation to not be able to do that if we’ve got really inefficient processes and things that are holding that back,” he said.

Mr Gollschewski said under changes to ethical standards, a board of deputy commissioners chaired by the commissioner would make decisions on high-risk ethical standards issues that would set the tone for the organisation in an area Mr Gollschewski said he had to personally own.

Interim Commissioner Steve Gollschewski speaks with journalist Thomas Chamberlin. Picture: Liam Kidston

“It might seem strange that the first thing I do to support our people is to change the way we do ethical standards,” Mr Gollschewski told The Courier-Mail.

“But I know that there’s not confidence in the system.

“I know that our police think sometimes that it’s inconsistent, it’s too slow, there’s different things are done differently in different places.

“So that’s about setting the direction on that and saying this is the standard, but it’s also about telling our police officers really clearly the expectation of the organisation is that you’ve got to operate within this left and right arc of what a professional police officer should do.

“And if you do that and you do your job, well, things don’t work out. I’ve got your back.

“We’ll work through that.

“You choose to go outside that and take things into your own hands and there’s consequences.

“There’s consequences to that and that will be dealt with very clearly.”

Mr Gollschewski said he thought police would appreciate “understanding the expectations” of them and said the conduct of the majority officers was already outstanding.

“I’m talking about people that deliberately choose to do things that are not aligned with our values as an organisation or in fact, against the directions or the organisation … or in some instances unlawful,” he said.

“I think the community has to have confidence that they’ve got a policing organisation that’s going to be professional and aspires to the high standards.”

Mr Gollschewski said he believed the matter involving the standing down of Gold Coast Senior Sergeant Arron Ottaway had been dealt with appropriately.

He said he had also expressed that he believes the matter needed to be dealt with quickly and fairly.

“Everyone needs certainty out of these things so that needs to be really dealt with really quickly and I’ve made that very clear,” he said.

The incident contributed to the departure of Mr Gollschewski’s predecessor Katarina Carroll.

Mr Gollschewski will fill the role during the selection process for a permanent police commissioner.

Originally published as Qld police interim commissioner Steve Gollschewski’s plan to clean up force