Cranky Queenslander

It didn’t take long for the CMC to get back to me about the Heiner Affair. As I’ve always said, if you want to get something done quickly, choose to do nothing.

Stephen Lambrides, assistant commissioner for misconduct, wrote back to me and had this to say;

The allegations have been investigated and canvassed on several occasions including in a number of Senate Inquiries. They relate to events with occurred almost 20 years ago.

In these circumstances the CMC does not intend revisiting them.

Fantastic. Why do we even have a CMC, if it refuses to do it’s job? Here we have plenty of evidence of a criminal act, and yet nobody is willing to take it to court and give it a proper airing.

How can we have a free and open society in this country when the people we elect to run things are free to do whatever they wish without any oversight?

Comments welcome, please let me know what you think. Who else can I write to that might actually have the will and the power to move on this?

It seems the state governments law and order policy revolves around booking as many motorists for driving over the speed limit as it possible can. That being said, sometimes I wonder about the way it goes about it, and I always wonder if its worth the effort.

The other day I was driving down Hale street heading for Milton road. There were three, motorcycle cops parked on the off ramp to milton road, and two of them (yeah, TWO of them!) were standing in the middle of the road aiming radar guns at oncoming traffic.

Apart from the excessive number of cops required for this job, it was also a joke due to the fact that it was peak hour and traffic was choked and slow along this stretch of Hale street.

Still, they had managed to pull over a couple of people, and one lady looked like she wasn’t too pleased about the interruption to her day.

So if we are going to continue to have police wasting their day looking for speeding motorists, how about we put them somewhere that they can catch the real speed demons; You know the sort that do 130+ and change lanes three times per kilometre? Leave the guy doing 98 on Ipswich road alone.

While we are at it, how about we RAISE the speed limits on roads? 90 on Ipswich road is a joke, and the Gateway and M1 could be 120 in large part.

Then, get rid of speed cameras and radar guns, and put all those police on the streets patrolling. Have them pull over people who are driving recklessly, tailgaiting and running red lights. These are the people that cause accidents, and they only get the message when a police officer gives it to them in person.

Having all those extra police mobile and in our city means that when some punk decided to stick up the 7-Eleven, its more likely we can get some cops there in time to nab him. I would love to see more police in our suburbs keeping us safe than parked on the site of the freeway doing nothing.

How about stiffer penalties for people who recklessly cause accidents? The fools that clog up our major arterial roads cost thousands of us as we all get stuck in their mess.  Disqualify them from driving for 3 months and force them to do advanced driver training.

Yeah, I know, it will never happen. But a guy can dream can’t he?

While I am still trying to get my head around the full story of the Heiner affair, what is clear is that the cabinet of the day did something very very wrong in destroying documents holding evidence relating to the rape of a 14 year old girl.

Former Premier of Queensland Peter Beattie told Alan Jones shortly before he left parliament that the reason the documents were shredded was because the Heiner enquiry had been setup without giving privilege to those giving evidence. So apparently, the cabinet of the day got legal advice saying that they should shred all the evidence collected thus far, so as to protect those who gave evidence from legal action.

Just last year, shortly after Premier Beattie left parliament, Senator Joyce in an adjournment speech, attempted to table the Rofe Audit Report into the affair, and was blocked by a labor member of the senate (who I have yet to identify, does anyone know who that was?)

In his speech, he made the point that the Queensland Parliament could have passed retrospective legislation to give privilege to the Heiner enquiry, thus solving the litigation problem they were so worried about, and allowing things to proceed and justice to be sought for the victims of abuse that the enquiry was setup to investigate.

So now its time I sent out some letters on the subject. I’ve come up with three so far, and I would love to have some suggestions on who else I should write to, and what else I should be asking them;

Letter to Senator Joyce – Commending him on bringing the matter to the federal parliament and asking what future steps he plans on taking to further the cause of justice in this matter.

Queensland Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee – Asking them to investigate the matter and bring charges where evidence exists of criminal conduct.

Leader of the Opposition in Queensland, asking him to get on board and publicly push for a proper investigation into the matter. As a prospective leader of our state, he should be yelling most loudly about it.

I thought I’d title this post as a question, because I have never heard of the Heiner affair. Until today, that is, I was blissfully unaware that allegations of criminal misconduct were floating around against many prominent Labor politicians, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd!

From what I have learned so far, the story is that an inquiry by retired magistrate Noel Heiner into complaints of sexual abuse at the Brisbane Youth Detention Centre was shut down only weeks after the Goss government came to power in 1989.

Not only that, but the cabinet of the day decided, for reasons that have yet to be uncovered in court, to shred all documentation collected thus far. These people knew that the information they were destroying was necessary to bring criminal charges against those involved in the abuse, yet they still chose to destroy them.

Various senior officials are implicated in a nine-volume audit report by leading Sydney barrister David Rofe, QC. Despite that is said to contain as many as 68 specific allegations with enough evidence to bring charges.

Some of those named include current Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, and his proposed new Governor General Quentin Bryce.

Those who have waited nearly 20 years for justice to be served might finally be in luck, as the Rofe report has been loged with the Queensland Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee on February 14. Its a shame that the same report was not able to tabled in Federal Parliament back on 19th September 2007. All it took was one Labor senator to object, and Senator Barnaby Joyce was unable to table the document.

Having learned this much so far, it makes me wonder what kind of people we have elected to run this country. I only hope that the facts are uncovered publicly and that whatever wrong doing has occurred is uncovered, and those responsible punished accordingly.

In the coming day’s I’ll draft up some letters to the relevant people and see if we can move things along.