Des Houghton on six former cops being in Queensland parliament

There are now six former police officers in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, and I find that rather reassuring, writes Des Houghton.

There are now six former police officers in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, and I find that rather reassuring.

There are now six former police officers in the Queensland Legislative Assembly, and I find that rather reassuring.

The five men and one woman collectively have served 168 years in the force in Queensland and the United Kingdom.

They worked in the CIB, homicide, child protection, fraud and drug squads, forensic sciences, firearms training, crime prevention and traffic. I’m hoping their real-life experiences can help put meat on the bones of the Crisafulli government’s ambitious “Making Queensland Safer” program.

I expect the six to hold the line against the cultural Marxists who would have us believe that perpetrators are the real victims.

Cops have a better understanding of the law. They know how to take orders, yet they will not be easily pushed around; so I am expecting good things.

Police Minister Dan Purdie is among the former cops on deck in Queensland’s Legislative Assembly.

One of the more interesting ex-coppers is Nigel Dalton, the new Member for Mackay, who told Parliament recently about his chilling days in counter terrorism during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Belfast-born Dalton was 17 when he became the 100m short course backstroke all-schools champion in Northern Ireland.

About two years later he was accepted into the Royal Ulster Constabulary training centre at Enniskillen in County Fermanagh learning about bombs and firearms.

Policing in Northern Ireland “was at best tough, and at worst horrendous” because the community was deeply divided.

Tragedy struck in 1988 when his partner John Larmour was shot dead by the IRA in an ice-cream shop.

“Some of the situations I was involved in I would not wish on anyone,” Dalton told the House.

“As a member of the security forces, one was seen as a legitimate target not only while on duty; one was also a target off duty.

“Security was continually on one’s mind. Checking underneath one’s car before driving off, varying one’s route on regular journeys and sitting with one’s back to the wall in a cafe or restaurant all became second nature.

“With the constant threat of terrorist attacks off duty, many police took their holidays overseas.”

The cops in Queensland parliament.

On a skiing trip in Europe he met a final-year dental student, Sue, who would become his wife.

“Sue and I were married about a year later. We started our married life in a rural area 15 miles from Belfast,” he said.

Later, he signed on with the Dorset police force in England.

“We set up home in a rural village near the Jurassic Coast. My wife became the village dentist,” he said.

Dalton grew up in a Christian family regularly attending a small Methodist church. He went to Sunday school, took bible classes and joined the Scripture Union. He hasn’t left it.

Sue had family in Queensland, so they decided to move here, and Dalton was accepted into the Queensland Police Service in 2002.

He was shocked by the number of family breakdowns in Mackay.

“I saw first-hand the anguish of victims of domestic violence and the knock-on effect of the violence on the children within the relationship,” he said.

Dalton had clocked up 40 years as a policeman and was the Mackay District Crime Prevention Coordinator before he quit to run for Parliament. He is a deacon of the Beaches Baptist Church and, yes, he is still swimming.

Dalton’s win in Mackay was stunning because Labor had held the seat for nearly 100 years even when Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s popularity was at its zenith.

Townsville mother-of-three Janelle Poole, the new Member for Mundingburra, brings special insights to Parliament after 28 years as a cop. The electorate is a juvenile crime
hot spot.

In the lead-up to the election Poole told the Townsville Bulletin she was receiving chemotherapy after being diagnosed with follicular Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Nevertheless, she was well enough to accept a job as the assistant minister for community safety, defence industry, veterans and North Queensland.

Poole is another swimmer. She got her Surf Life Saving bronze medallion in Year 7, one of the youngest ever to do so.

Marty Hunt returns to Parliament as the Member for Nicklin, the seat he first held from 2017-20. He was a police officer for 30 years serving in Inala, Oxley CIB and the Sunshine Coast child abuse unit before being appointed officer in charge Sunshine Coast PCYC.

He shocked the House in his maiden speech when he said children as young as 12 were using ice. He sensibly called on the government to permanently remove children from homes where parents were addicts.

Hunt espouses Catholic values he said came from his mother, Jan, who had Irish Catholic ancestry.

Former policeman and Member for Lockyer, Jim McDonald, told Parliament recently that 91 per cent of those youths who come to the attention of police by their wrongdoing never offend again.

He put the Adult Crime, Adult Time debate into some perspective:

“To say that these strong laws apply to the whole of the youth criminal cohort is just not correct,” he told the House.

“We have the police doing a great job and 91 per cent being fixed. Only nine per cent continue to offend. That nine per cent represents about 12,500 kids. Some of them stop offending on the second or third occasion and we end up with a hardcore group of about 4500 who are well ingrained in the youth justice system.

“Then we end up with about 1500 facing proper detention. Of that 1500 there are about 600 who are so clinically bad that they need to be taken out of circulation for their own protection and for the protection of our communities.”

Two Queensland Cabinet ministers were once policemen. Dale Last, Minister for Natural Resources, had a distinguished 25-year career working throughout regional and rural Queensland and finishing as the officer in charge of Townsville station. Later he was Townsville deputy mayor.

The Member for Ninderry Dan Purdie is a former cop who will be tested as Minister for Police in the Crisafulli Cabinet.

Is he up for the job?

Purdie, too, had an illustrious 20-year career in the police force working in the drug squad, homicide and child protection.

“I have seen both happy and horrible endings,” he said in Parliament.

“Some of them stay with me. In North Buderim in my new electorate I saw a mother, bashed to death by her partner in front of their two-year-old girl, her degradation compounded by having her body thrown in the boot of a car that was set alight.

“In Beerburrum a baby died in putrid squalor from acute neglect.

“In the Noosa hinterland I arrested a person for the prolonged torture and murder of a defenceless toddler. I bring all of those experiences with me into this place.

“I bring them here not because I cannot let go but because it is important that I do not let go.”

Can Purdie now help Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski deliver a safer community amid the challenges of a youth crime and domestic violence epidemic, and with increases in sexual violence and road death numbers?

Last week he told police he had their backs.

He said they were fighting a youth crime crisis with their hands tied behind their backs because Labor had “watered down” the juvenile justice laws.

Purdie also said police were demoralized and leaving in droves. He urges them to stay.

It is still early days, but Crisafulli’s adult-time-for-adult-crime laws appear to be working, with a drop in the number of car thefts and break-ins.

And a blitz on knives has led to the seizure of 953 weapons with 4800 charges laid.

Random weapons checks continue at safe night precincts, transport hubs, shopping centres and sport and entertainment venues.

How many lives, I wonder, did the weapons’ seizures save?

Irritant of the week

Senator Murray Watt. The federal Employment Minister stooped low in targeting Peter Dutton’s personal finances. Dutton’s astute investments (he bought his first house at 19) make him more electable, in my opinion.

Originally published as Des Houghton on six former cops being in Queensland parliament