During Estimates hearings on Friday 26 July 2024, I asked the Crime and Corruption Commissioner about the options for an independent police integrity unit arising from scoping works.
You can read my question and his full response below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard) here.
Mr BERKMAN: Sure. I will make it very quick. I will preface this by saying that I apologise that I was not able to catch all of the evidence earlier about the scoping work on a police integrity unit, but I was hoping, Mr Barbour, you could provide the committee some additional information on what that scoping work recommended regarding the most appropriate model for the unit but specifically around which or what proportion of complaints against police would be investigated by civilians.
Mr Barbour: Thank you for the question. The consultancy that was undertaken in conjunction with work from the CCC was extremely extensive and we endeavoured to engage with a very broad group of stakeholders who had not only been involved in the COI and had worked with Judge Richards or had been involved in discussions with her but a broader group beyond that. We held a number of meetings with the relevant stakeholders. Unfortunately, the police unions refused to attend those particular stakeholder meetings. Ultimately the document that was provided to the government did not put forward a specific preferred option. One of the options of course was the option which was recommended by Judge Richards in her report and there were a range of other options put forward to the government. That document, as I understand it, is cabinet in confidence. I am reluctant to go into details. However, we did not put forward one option over another and we saw potentially that at least one of the other options put forward could be a legitimate stepping stone towards implementation of the full recommendation as recommended by Judge Richards.
I also add that I see this as being an incredibly important issue and one that should have been pursued with greater haste than it has been. I believe that the current commissioner through discussions with him and also the previous commissioner in discussions with her—police commissioners—were very supportive of efforts to improve the handling of police complaints, including a greater degree of civil oversight in relation to those complaints. So certainly QPS senior executives are supportive of that, most of the community representatives and stakeholders are supportive of that and the CCC is supportive of that.
Mr BERKMAN: Wonderful. Thanks very much, Mr Barbour