Most Queenslanders will cringe in
horror at your story on Police brutality. It’s real back to the
future stuff for us. We must remember that Peter Dutton was in fact a
police officer in Qld, and was also supported
financially by the Qld Police Union during the last
campaign where they even sponsored a billboard saying “Queensland Police Support
Peter Dutton” with a nice picture of a police car!

The conservative parties in Qld have an interesting history with the
police Union and no less than ten officers stood for them at the last
state election. The current leadership of the QPU was also responsible
for the infamous “memorandum of understanding” with the National Party
in the mid 1990s, wherein the Nats agreed, among other things, to give
the QPU final say on selection of the Police Commissioner.

But other federal members have been
involved as well, Mal Brough was invisible in his
electorate until, 18 months out from the last election, he launched a petition
calling for more police numbers for Caboolture.
Supported by the local press and the QPU he released a range of damaging “inside
information” which relaunched his flagging career.
State issue of course but “all politics is local.”

Theresa Gambaro also had election billboards saying “Theresa Gambaro, fighting
local crime.” The ALP in Qld has always gone very
softly on the QPU and of course the current minister, Judy Spence, is from a
policing family. We keep hearing from the Beattie government that the Fitzgerald
reforms worked and that there is now a manageable level of corruption in the
force but now and then there’s a little niggle that all is not quite right, and some of the sexual
assault horror stories that come from women cadets who have attended the police academies are not comforting.

Nonetheless, I believe that there has been a
significant culture change in the police service despite the QPU. After all, as
with governments we get the Police Service we deserve and it is really up to the
public to support its police service, and certainly, in
Queensland at least we
need to actively improve the public/police interface.