I do hope that Queensland Leader of the Opposition’s call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into alleged misconduct and corruption in Queensland includes inquiry into Queensland Police alleged corruption and misconduct.
We have to remember what Mr Fitzgerald has said: coalition conservative Queensland government of R. Borbidge was brought to power with the help of Queensland police union. This is more than alarming! Mr. Fitzgerald warns us that police is capable of acting as underground political force. Therefore, it is particularly important that attention to corruption and misconduct in Queensland police should not be less than attention to corruption among politicians.
Twenty years have passed since Fitzgerald Inquiry. It is time to examine by a new inquiry of this kind how its lessons have been learned. The latest CMC report, public unrest surrounded sergeant Hurley's case, Haneef's affair etc. suggest the necessity of a new inquiry. Corruption and misconduct in police can be much deeper than it seems. For example, there are solid reasons to allege that detectives Steven Bignell and Sean Wade, and some other police officers involved in Vincent Berg’s case could be guilty of torture, perjury, fabricating evidence, conspiring to defeat justice and attempting to pervert justice.
I don't think that Mr. Fitzgerald aims "to attack" Mr. Beattie. What would be a benefit of this for him? No, Mr. Fitzgerald is fighting again for the present and future of Queensland, where certain politicians and police officers tend to forget the lessons of Fitzgerald inquiry. Hopefully, the people of Queensland do not want to live once again in a corrupted "police state".

I always felt Fitzgerald was a smug self satisfied peanut, far too full of his own importance. Like the bad football referee, he became the game, not the ref. I never could understand why every word he uttered was invested with great meaning. A bit like english teachers & Shakespear 40 years ago.

I had no time for old Joh, & even less for our Anna, but I think she's getting a bad rap here. Labor has always been a bit bent. They even have Kaiser back in the fold, so we know that the moto is "what ever it takes". But are any of them any different, & god knows the jurnos are no better. They'll print anything for a head line.

We have an old stuffed shirt, feeling a bit neglected, with not enough worshipers, beating a path to his door, any more.

He was only ever a one act play, so he tries to re-enact the old part.

It works too. A whole new crop of lightweight jurnos come out of the woodwork to pay homage.

Sickening really.

The Hon Tony Fitzgerald is a lawyer. We hear calls for a Royal Commission into the State of Affairs in the part of Australia north of the Tweed. Calling for such a thing is like putting a bandaid on a major surgical wound. What is really needed is forceful, honest and prompt action by the Commonwealth. It is now 20 months since we elected a National Government led by a chap who calls himself a Christian.

One of the central themes of Christianity is the belief that there is only One Almighty God. I had a chat with a Muslim yesterday and his central belief is that there is only One God too. Lawyers are the problem altogether. I hazard a guess that Tony Fitzgerald is an Irish Australian, so why does he not call for the total integration of all Australian jurisdictions into one. This would get rid of the moonlight State, Underbelly in Victoria, and the shocking state of law enforcement in New South Wales where the Police are terrified of criminals.

We need a government of National Unity, a Federal Government made up of forceful men and women, not obsessed with petty details but with a National Interest that overrides petty State concerns. The fractionalization of Australia by State Governments who legislate willy nilly, to rip off as much as possible from their citizens was abolished in 1899, but it continues mainly because the major beneficiaries of conflict are lawyers.

The Problems of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western and South Australia would be fixed overnight if we had an effective Australian Federal Police. If we had a National Police Force highly trained, capable of being assigned like military personnel to any part of the Nation, with responsibility for the major crimes against humanity perpetrated by lawless individuals anywhere, this would be the greatest little country on earth.

The resistance to Federation is centered in the legal profession. They love their rorts, and they love their criminal clients. Without the criminals lawyers would mostly starve. That was why for 498 years the English banned them from Parliament

We should have called Tony Fitzgerald half job Tony. He was a Royal Commissioner in 1987-8, and he should have looked at the root cause of corruption in Queensland. It was the already caused monopolization of law enforcement in the hands of State Police, initiated by Sir Joh Bjellke-Petersen, in about 1984, when he wanted to bash people who wanted to stop South Africa playing rugby, in Brisbane.

Joh was the first to introduce what are called bans on Vexatious Litigants. A Vexatious Litigant is a person who cannot get a fair hearing in any court, and Joh also introduced laws to restrict the rights of all people to initiate criminal proceedings, on summons in a Magistrates Court, and if Half Job Tony was fair dinkum, he would have identified those problems, and had them fixed.

When Goss got in he extended the restrictions introduced by Joh, and vested absolute power in Judges, with the Supreme Court of Queensland Act 1991. Our illustrious Prime Minister was a major player in that event, and since he is now Prime Minister, and has said sorry to our Aboriginal citizens doing Australia with us whitefellas, it is time KR said sorry to us all, and introduced a National Police Force, to finish the job Tony Fitzgerald started.

The major beneficiary of the Fitzgerald Inquiry was the Queensland Australian Labor Party. On the 2nd November 1989, or thereabouts, thirty two years of Conservative rule in Queensland ended. A new broom was elected, but soon degenerated into the usual rorting tootin State government, it was elected to replace.

It became the lawyer’s government under Peter Beattie. In his Cabinet and government there were at least ten lawyers. Beattie was one of them. What we do not need is another half job by the Prime Minister. It is time as a famous theme said in 1972, for a National Leader to do what should have been done in 1903. It is time for a national Judicature system, a National Police and Fire service, and a National push for the creation of One Nation

Julianne,
I think your article is too romantic. The Queensland public service is hopelessly corrupt. Queensland public servants are being paid taxpayers money to "not understand". "lose" your documents and tell you to tell somebody else about your problem. An ordinary person has no hope of justice in Queensland.
Anna Bligh's "round table", "Green Paper", etc. are just more delaying strategies.
Why do Anna Bligh, David Solomon and Robert Needham need to be told over and over and over again about the corruption?
And notice that submissions to the "round table" have to be sent to the Premier's Office. And the Premier's Office staff have a practice of automatically deleting - "filing appropriately" - emails and letters from whistleblowers. So, if you are a whistleblower, your voice is not going to be heard by the "round table".
We need an independent Royal Commission into all of the corruption in Queensland, not just the bits that Anna Bligh wants to talk about.
And we need somebody with the integrity of Tony Fitzgerald to run the Royal Commission.
And then we need independent, on-going research to check that the corruption is being effectively reduced.
At the moment this place is still being run like a criminal colony.
And the criminals have gained control of the colony.