Authors: Matthew Condon
As Opposition Police Spokesman, Hooper received wave after wave of tip-offs. Often, the data was as imprecise as his handwriting. As early as 1978, for example, he was being told seemingly tall tales of the ‘Mr Bigs’ in the state’s drug scene and the going rates for various services in Brisbane brothels (‘Topless hand relief = $15; Full oral = $50’). At one point he was also the recipient of anonymous notes, pointing to the suspect real estate portfolio of a senior National Party minister. It was all grist to Hooper’s mill.
In early 1984, around the same time he was going into battle on the floor of parliament with Police Minister Glasson, Hooper received a 15-page, single-spaced typed document that was so rich in detail, so frighteningly wide-ranging, that even he must have been astonished. The document, complete with an annexure, was compiled by a group of serving Queensland police officers, concerned about rampant corruption within the force, and its impact on the future of the police department. Indeed, the Police Commissioner would often make mention of Hooper’s ‘police’ informants in his diaries – disaffected officers who ran to Hooper to air their grievances, just as they had once consulted the former Labor MP and attack dog, barrister Col Bennett.
But this was different. The manifesto that landed on Hooper’s desk in 1984 appeared to be a ‘coda’ to the corrupt system known as The Joke, outlining its history, its internal workings, its primary players and specific details of who did what within the system. At the top of the document it read: ‘In Strictest Confidence’.
‘It is our belief whether rightly or wrongly, that you were the man behind the resignation of [former assistant commissioner Tony] MURPHY and it was your influence that prevented his obtaining further promotion in the Queensland Police,’ the document stated. ‘If this be true we can only thank you. His name is synonymous with organised crime, fear, set up’s [sic] and murder.’
The document claimed that Murphy, then retired and living at Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island, was making a bid to replace Merv Callaghan as secretary of the powerful Queensland Police Union. ‘We’re sure, Sir, that we don’t have to tell you how disastrous that would be for the Queensland Police and in fact the citizens of this State,’ the document stated. ‘In that position, MURPHY would in fact control the Queensland Police Department. His control would be more absolute than if he were Deputy Commissioner. The man is so sick with a “power” complex that [it] is frightening.’
The authors then went on to explain that organised corruption in Queensland was so ‘intricate and controlled that it would do justice to any security agency’. It made explicit reference to the system of graft payments rife in the force, outlining the operation of The Joke. ‘The overall commander is called “The Godfather” and is, of course, ex–Assistant Commissioner Tony Murphy. Under Murphy’s able leadership this group controls most of the organised crime in this State. They are also affiliated with a similar group in the New South Wales Police Department … in Police circles the Queensland Police has the reputation of being one of the most corrupt Police Departments in the Western world, second only to the New York Police Department.’
The document pointed out that the corruption within the force could be traced all the way back to faction fighting within the force in the 1950s – the Irish Mafia versus the Masons. It said Commissioner Lewis had kept ‘a foot in both camps’ and had the ‘great backing’ of former commissioner Frank Bischof.
Hooper would have been stunned by the history lesson. The document claimed that high-level corruption only existed and thrived because of high-level political influence.
The men of the Rat Pack have been able to ‘corrupt’ politicians, men of other government departments and leaders of industry by using the resources of the Police Department for non-police purposes.
Illegal tapping of phones and use of sophisticated electronic surveillance gear, control of illegal gambling, prostitution at all levels and the keeping of comprehensive files on citizens of prominence are all ways in which this group of men are able to get appointed to high rank in the Department.
These men are able to exert influence over not only politicians but members of the Judiciary, Magistrates, Trade Union leaders, Businessmen and Jurors. There is not a level of society that these men do not have contacts and informants who work for them either through fear of exposure or for monetary gain.
The document also gave an unprecedented insight into how The Joke was structured. Beneath the top level were a series of structured cells. One person, known as the ‘control’, was in charge of each cell.
For example, at level 3 a ‘control’ may have six persons who answer to him. These six persons know only their ‘control’. Their ‘control’ would answer to a ‘control’ on level 2 … and not deal with any other person.
The groups are known as ‘cells’. The same principle is operated by organisations such as the KGB and CIA … in the case of the Queensland Police if there is a Royal Commission this type of system makes it virtually impossible for any evidence to be obtained against the ‘top echelon’ of the Rat Pack … there may be many rumours as to who the men in overall control are … but no concrete evidence.
The document’s ‘annexure’ offered a potted history of The Joke and its primary figures.
The Rat Pack … [are] predominately Irish Catholic, also known as The Irish Mafia. Controller … ex–Asst Commissioner Anthony MURPHY, known as the ‘Godfather’. Commissioner Terry LEWIS … subordinate to MURPHY but on ‘the board’ that makes major policy decisions re group activities.
Inspector Kevin DORRIES … did control the Sunshine Coast area, primarily in the supply and distribution of drugs. Controls Gold Coast and Brisbane.
The document stated that Dorries was a part-owner with other police of the Zodiac Massage Parlour at West End. It named several other police officers before presenting a list of major crimes that had been mounted by corrupt officers on the orders of the ‘Godfather’. The allegations included: the death of the principal witness [Shirley Brifman] against the ‘Godfather’ on conspiracy charges over the National Hotel inquiry; the death of the police officer [John Connors] in the grounds of the All Nations club at Mareeba; the Whiskey Au Go Go fire, ‘for the sole purpose of destroying the credibility of COP [Commissioner of Police] WHITROD with the government of this State’.
Other cases cited were the murder of National Hotel manager Jack Cooper, armed hold-ups, drug and fauna smuggling, major robberies in south-east Queensland and the disappearance of brothel madam Simone Vogel (‘… the Godfather is believed to have ordered her silence at any cost including her death if necessary’).
The document also firmly recommended that ‘the honourable Don Lane not be trusted with any information involving entrapment of corrupt police’. It concluded:
Legally we realise that a Royal Commission is the only answer. We do hope you or the Police Minister may be able to initiate some sort of action that will enable the Queensland Police to begin to become a non-corrupt force and one in which honest officers won’t be afraid to stand and be counted.
The letter sent to Hooper was a bombshell document, giving the greatest insight to date into The Joke, its structure, operation, breadth and membership.
Hooper, however, would never get the chance to raise the allegations in parliament. Just over a week before he was due to enter hospital for a basic medical procedure, he stood in parliament and discussed the case of Senior Constable Lorelle Anne Saunders – whom he had championed – and the appalling conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in relation to her being charged with attempting to procure to unlawfully kill a fellow officer. Hooper wanted to expose the Queensland police behind the conspiracy, and see them charged and gaoled.
The confidential document in his possession went into detail about the policemen behind the Saunders scandal, including former assistant commissioner Tony Murphy, and the anonymous allegations would have almost certainly bolstered his stance. He may have taken some comfort in the ‘coda’, given he had been tracking the same protagonists for years, and been howled down by police and the National Party for his troubles.
But as for the rest of the extraordinary material about The Joke and its players, it did not see the light of day on the floor of parliament via Hooper, who went into hospital for a routine biopsy and never went home.
Frozen into Shivering Immobility
Early in 1984, in what was to be a major cultural event in Brisbane, the University of Queensland Press were set to publish the second volume of historian Ross Fitzgerald’s
A History of Queensland
. The first volume –
From the Dreaming to 1915
– had been released to critical acclaim two years earlier. Now, the bulky
From 1915 to the Early 1980s
was ready to be launched.
It was a big deal for the small but prestigious press, under the leadership of the estimable Laurie Muller. It had published some of Australia’s greatest writers – David Malouf, Peter Carey, Frank Moorhouse, Roger McDonald and Barbara Hanrahan. It was also reprinting the novels of the brilliant and irascible Thea Astley, who had never shied away from portraying the political and social realities of her home state of Queensland.
Astley had written of the bordellos of Brisbane, for example, from her teenage memories as a citizen of the city, and when she settled in Far North Queensland, she relished in the frontier nature of life, sparing the sensibilities of no one. She was once asked what she thought of the city of Cairns, and she replied it was ‘full of real estate agents and hookers’. The quip unleashed a storm.
As for Ross Fitzgerald’s book, a launch was organised, and the book was to be sent into the world by then state secretary of the ALP Peter Beattie.
Ross Fitzgerald, about to turn 40, was born in Melbourne and completed his PhD in political theory at the University of New South Wales in the late 1970s. He was erudite, thought well on his feet and had the skill to reduce complex political argument and analysis into something digestible to the public. In early 1977 he had been offered a position as lecturer in political philosophy at Griffith University in Brisbane. Come the state election in November, he was immediately picked up by Channel Seven as a political commentator for the election coverage.
As he settled into his new life with wife Lyndal Moor, herself a former top fashion model and ceramicist, at their home in Kenmore, it dawned on Fitzgerald that a comprehensive history of Queensland had never been written. He became acquainted with the last published effort –
Triumph in the Tropics
by Sir Raphael Cilento and Clem Lack Snr, released in 1959. Cilento was a noted public health administrator and barrister. Lack was the Nicklin government’s State Public Relations Officer who had also written a book of verse.
Triumph in the Tropics
was a peculiar volume that even appeared outdated for its time. In its introduction, the authors wrote: ‘The story of the self-governing State of Queensland is essentially the record of the white man’s triumph over climate and his taming of the tropics.’
In a section on ‘The Bush Blacks’, they concluded: ‘Like his own half-wild dogs, he could be frozen into shivering immobility or put to frenzied flight by people or things that provoked impressions of terror; or moved to yelps of delight or to racing around, or striking grotesque poses, or to expressing frantic excitement by any sort of clowning … in his bushland home he lived in such insecurity that his immediate response to any situation of surprise was almost a conditioned reflex – instantaneous: to strike, to leap aside, to fall and roll.’
Fitzgerald was incredulous that this was the last official history of his newly adopted state, so he set to work on his two-volume history. When UQP sent out review copies to the press, they were anticipating another success following the triumph of the first volume. Instead, Fitzgerald and the publishers received almost instant fury from the then Chief Justice, Wally Campbell, and the then Attorney-General, Neville Harper.
On page 354, Fitzgerald had written about the controversial appointment of Campbell as Chief Justice over Justice James Douglas in 1982. In concert with Campbell, Harper threatened Fitzgerald and the University of Queensland with criminal libel. (A case on such a charge had not been seen in Australia since the scrap over Frank Hardy’s political novel
Power Without Glory
in Melbourne in 1951.)
The threat from Campbell was delivered to Muller in the publishers’ offices on campus at St Lucia. The irony was that Campbell, in threatening the university with libel and potential prison, was in fact indirectly suing himself – at the time he was the Chancellor of the University of Queensland.
UQP had printed about 3000 copies of the book. Around 1000 were in public circulation when the legal threat arrived. The publishers immediately attempted to recall the media review copies (surprisingly they got back the vast bulk of them from journalists) and pulped the edition.
Ross Fitzgerald had no idea what he’d stumbled into in Queensland. A history book had almost financially ruined him and threatened to send him to gaol. He had heard stories of fellow academics in the Sunshine State who had been set up on false drink driving charges because of their adverse views on the Bjelke-Petersen regime. And Fitzgerald himself was warned that a public exposure frame-up would not be beyond the realms of possibility, given that he had been for years a sober alcoholic.