Queensland parole scandal

It says something about a government when a scandal goes unpunished and it’s the whistleblower who gets sacked. This saga began in 2012 when Tim Pullen, from Mackay in north Queensland, was tortured and killed over drug debts. Those implicated in his death were convicted but his body has never been found. Pullen’s parents, Gary and Leanne, were determined to give their son a proper burial, and their campaign led to new “no body, no parole” laws taking effect in Queensland in August.

They came to Brisbane for a media conference with Corrective Services Minister Mark Ryan to promote those laws. Yet Mr Ryan already knew the Pullens would receive no benefit from them because on July 31 the parole board had made an early confidential decision to release one of the killers, Ben Oakley. The Pullens were oblivious to this disturbing state of affairs until told by this newspaper’s Hedley Thomas, who had relied on a well-placed source. The Mackay couple were understandably shocked and angry. Mrs Pullen said: “It is an absolute kick in the guts and it is two-faced to the extreme. It is just so callous of them to stand there and hug us in Brisbane and shake our hands for the photographs and media conference when the decision had already been made by the parole board on Oakley’s ­release.”

The Pullens had been treated appallingly. The Crime and Corruption Commission made preliminary inquiries into whether there had been “deliberate political interference in the decision-making of the parole board” but said it could go no further in the absence of evidence of a criminal offence. Mr Ryan said he had done no wrong.

As we reported yesterday, Thomas’s whistleblower source — Paul Turner, a senior staff member with the Department of Justice — has been sacked. Mr Turner had acted because of the wrong done the Pullens. Oakley, without revealing the whereabouts of Tim Pullen’s body, was due to be released from prison yesterday in Rockhampton. It’s a disgrace.