Queensland Premier Steven Miles admits he hasn’t sought briefing about rape kit backlog

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has not sought a briefing from bosses at the state government-run DNA lab this week despite disturbing revelations that more than 400 sexual assault victims were waiting longer than a year for forensic results.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles in Brisbane on Thursday. Picture: NewsWire / Glenn Campbell

Queensland Premier Steven Miles has not sought a briefing from bosses at the state government-run DNA lab this week, despite revelations that more than 400 sexual assault victims were waiting longer than a year for forensic results from their ­alleged attacks.

The Labor Premier, facing an election next month, said he had not asked lab management when the backlog of more than 1000 rape kits was expected to be cleared.

“I haven’t had a briefing in recent weeks, no,” he said. “But I do know that our hard-working staff are working around the clock to clear that backlog and they are doing their very best.”

The Australian on Monday revealed police were waiting on ­results from 1058 rape kits, 420 of which were submitted for testing more than a year ago.

Almost half of the cases have not undergone initial biological examination, which includes screening for sperm and reporting those results to police.

With cases before the court are being prioritised for testing, there are major concerns delays could be preventing police from making arrests or laying charges against accused rapists because they are waiting for DNA results.

The lab, funded by taxpayers and overseen by the justice department, is struggling to meet case demands as it implements recommendations from two major commissions of inquiry and undertakes a separate review of 40,000 cases embroiled in a botched testing scandal dating back more than a decade.

Some forensic samples have been outsourced to other labs interstate and overseas for testing, but independent forensic expert Kirsty Wright has said more needs to be done to tackle the huge backlog.

Dr Wright, who first exposed Queensland’s DNA lab disaster on the The Australian’s podcast Shandee’s Story, in April called on the state government to shut the lab down and outsource all further testing until it could be rebuilt.

The state government has committed $200m to implement recommendations from the 2022 and 2023 inquiries, and Mr Miles this week would not commit any extra resources.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman on Thursday said the government would “of course” consider giving the lab more funding to outsource samples if required “but I understand they are recruiting as quickly as they can, so they still have positions that they need to fill.

“So I’m not sure it’s about further outsourcing,” she said. “I understand they’ve got agreements with a number of other labs that they’re utilising, but it’s actually just getting the scientists in-house to focus on that DNA profile that goes to the police.”

Forensic Science Queensland chief executive Linzi ­Wilson-Wilde said in mid-2023 she was confident clearing the backlog of samples would take “two to three years”.

Ms Fentiman said it was “certainly government’s expectation” the backlog would be cleared between mid-2025 and mid-2026.

“It is not acceptable but we’ve had two commissions of inquiries which has meant we’ve had to completely overhaul the lab… to recruit brand new scientists, … to set up an independent board.

“We are doing all of that as quickly as we can,” Ms Fentiman said.