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| NEWS > 19 May 2007 |
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Officer's hearing open to publ
An Evansville Police Department officer recommended for firing by Chief Brad Hill will appear in front of the Police Merit Commission next month for a disciplinary hearing.
The commission on Monday afternoon set a 2 p.m. Aug. 3 hearing date for Martin Montgomery, a three-year veteran who was accused in a personnel order of neglect of duty, improper conduct and other violations.
In addition to the internal investigation into Montgomery's conduct, a criminal probe also was launched. A grand jury will consider possible charges against him Monday.
Citing the ongoing inve... Read more
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 Article sourced from
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Courier Mail - Australia
19 May 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
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Fitzgerald put light on dark s
EXPECTATIONS were not high when Tony Fitzgerald, QC, was appointed 20 years ago to inquire into allegations of illegal activities within the police force and in high places. Queensland had lived through inquiries before with minimum effect on the way of life.
But as Fitzgerald was to find, corruption was endemic. His appointment followed six months' work by this newspaper after it set out to identify key figures running the seamier side of life in Fortitude Valley despite police assurances prostitution was under control and government denials of illegal gambling parlours.
An ABC Four Corners program tipped the scales as far as acting premier Bill Gunn was concerned. He already held a list of questions The Courier-Mail had put to police which could only have been based on deep suspicion of a protection racket.
While premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen's attention was diverted in his quest to storm federal politics, Mr Gunn called an inquiry.
Mr Fitzgerald, not the first candidate for the job, produced a landmark result; a model for the way inquiries should be conducted. No report has been as comprehensive or sweeping as the document he produced two years later.
Despite facing criticism for drawing a line in the sand before tackling drug lords, he produced a defining blueprint for public policy development and recommendations for changes including two enduring bodies to continue his work. By then, new premier Mike Ahern had undertaken to introduce any recommendations "lock, stock and barrel" – although he may not have envisioned the commissioner would have demanded an end to the infamous gerrymander. Mr Fitzgerald was officially acknowledged for his services to the people of Queensland in 1991. Mr Ahern had to wait almost 19 years.
The reforms instituted as a result of the inquiry were euphemistically described as the beginning of an age of accountability. This has proved a misnomer. Freedom of information laws which set a new standard in Australia when introduced have been eroded by successive governments – none more than the current one.
Secrecy has become the administrative mantra. A key plank in the Westminster system has been dismantled as the independent and frank advice of a public service is increasingly replaced by filtering through a phalanx of political staff and contracted executive service. While the case for making politicians' lies an offence based on the deceptive conduct provisions of the Trade Practices Act is being made out in the public domain, the Queensland Parliament has mandated an MPs'-freedom-to-lie law.
The police union and the police commissioner are far too cosy in their relationships with the police minister. Police have avoided introducing an accountability provision demanded by the Crime and Misconduct Commission when it rubber-stamped the introduction of encrypted digital radio communications two years ago.
Free and discounted meals for police - once frowned on by the anti-corruption watchdog – now come under the banner of reportable benefits and do not breach the code of conduct if under a $250 limit; this is not corruption but it represents "slippage".
Of course, appropriate societal safeguards must constantly evolve. Mr Fitzgerald's seminal work should be regarded, in 2007, as a rear-vision mirror on the past rather than as a prism to the future.
But we must be wary of revisionists with a barrow to push. And we must impress on the current Government the enormous disservice over which it has presided in removing or circumventing accountability planks. It is true we live in a vastly improved system over that of 20 years ago, following a painful cleansing. But philosopher George Santayana had a sobering warning which can be applied today: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
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