Ex-top cop slams toxic culture in Queensland public service

A retired senior police officer’s warning about the treatment of rape victims in the ­regions was ignored by the Queensland health department for a decade.

Former detective senior sergeant Ed Kinbacher. Picture: Brendan Radke

A senior police officer has come out of retirement to blast a toxic culture inside Queensland’s public service after his warning about the treatment of rape victims in the ­regions was ignored by the health department for a decade.

Ed Kinbacher, who last February retired as head of the Cairns Criminal Investigation Branch after 17 years in the role, said Queensland Health had “completely failed” to address victims’ needs.

“For 10 years, I and other actors in the Queensland Police Service had been trying to motivate change from Queensland Health,” he told The Australian.

“And simply what we received was lip service – we received no satisfactory responses and the consistent problem continued. That consistent problem was the total failure to properly address the needs of victims, for them to be treated appropriately, in a timely manner, with appropriate due consideration of their situation.”

Mr Kinbacher’s main concern was with lack of health staff available to conduct forensic medical examination on rape victims – including children – in the hours after they were attacked.

Rape victims have been kept waiting in hospital emergency departments for almost 24 hours unable to take a shower, change clothes or brush their teeth because there are no trained staff available to collect DNA evidence.

Other victims have been forced to drive hours in the clothes they were attacked in, for examination.

Frustrated by Queensland Health’s inaction, Mr Kinbacher and obstetrics professor Caroline De Costa established an advocacy group to push for change in 2021.

The group made submissions to an inquiry into women’s safety last year, which went on to recommend that all doctors and emergency nurses be trained to provide forensic medical examinations.

Mr Kinbacher said there was a pervasive culture across the public service where staff were “silenced” and discouraged from giving frank and fearless advice. “Unfortu­nately, the reality of employees in government departments in Queensland is that you are ­silenced, you cannot make a noise,” he said.

“If you document major problems that are potentially politically embarrassing, it is career poison.”

Mr Kinbacher said Queensland’s DNA disaster was a perfect example of why culture needed to change, after concerns from lab staff and senior police were “ignored” by senior bureaucrats.

“We heard from the politicians, the ministers in charge ‘I know nothing about it’ – why did they know nothing about it? Because there is a system designed to protect them.”

In the days after the final report into the DNA testing fiasco was released in December, Health Minister Yvette D’Ath acknowledged “cultural issues” in her department. “It is very concerning that not only are staff not willing to speak up, but staff are scared to speak up in some areas of Queensland Health,’’ she said.

“This culture has to change and there has to be mechanisms where if middle or senior leadership are not (listening) or are sweeping ­issues under the carpet that they can be escalated.”

In a separate review last year, public service reformer Peter Coaldrake described a culture entrenched in Queensland’s public service that was “too tolerant of bullying, unwilling to give life to unfashionable points of view and dominated by the occupational hazard of all governments, short-term political thinking”.

Queensland Health has invested $1.39m to increase training in forensic procedures in hospitals.