Authors: Matthew Condon
Lewis additionally offered a critique of ‘The Moonlight State’, calling it ‘disgraceful’. He said ‘knowing the calibre of some of the people interviewed’, they lacked any form of credibility.
In the same edition of the
Sunday Mail
, columnist Quentin Dempster offered a warning about the forthcoming inquiry. ‘It all comes down to the terms of reference,’ he wrote. ‘While the appointment of an open inquiry into organised crime and allegations of police corruption in Queensland will provide an historic challenge for a judge or senior lawyer, it will be the Government’s riding instructions which will be the foundation stone.
‘If public confidence in the police is to be restored, the Government, by its stated terms of reference, will have to give the inquiry leader substantial investigative powers and facilities.’
A week after his exclusive interview with Commissioner Lewis, Ric Allen reported that the police inquiry would be limited to allegations made in the previous five years. The buck would stop in 1982.
Deputy Premier Bill Gunn, who predicted the inquiry would last for four weeks, offered his rationale on the terms of reference. ‘My legal advisor and myself are of the opinion that it’s useless to pursue any action which may have occurred before the five-year deadline,’ Gunn said. ‘Anything going back over five years is useless. The trail is cold and a lot of the witnesses are gone and it’s virtually impossible to get a judge to convict on such old evidence.’
Gunn rejected calls that the inquiry examine the era of former commissioner Frank Bischof. The Deputy Premier may have appeared firm in his stance, but there was a lot of discussion happening behind the scenes in relation to the ‘shape’ of the proposed inquiry. Gunn met with then Attorney-General Paul Clauson. They dined at Milano Restaurant at 78 Queen Street, Brisbane city, and privately discussed a raft of issues. ‘Bill Gunn was not going to cop the same level of obfuscation that all the previous [police] ministers had with this,’ says Clauson. ‘He was going to get to the bottom of it.
‘Bill and I went down there [to Milano’s] and had dinner and we talked about what we should do at the next Cabinet meeting [in Roma]. He said, “You’ll have to set it up, can you do this and do that?” We talked about the mechanics of it. He said, “I’m not going to put up with this situation by myself …”.’
Opposition Justice Spokesman Wayne Goss described Gunn’s terms of reference as ‘defective’. ‘I understand that most of the information of two witnesses who appeared on the
Four Corners
television interview predates June 1, 1982,’ he said. ‘That makes me very suspicious.’
Even members of the police force feared a ‘whitewash’. ‘If there are any corrupt policemen out there, they have got nothing to worry about,’ one officer told the
Courier-Mail
. ‘And that’s a pity because it means police in Queensland will continue to have to put up with never-ending allegations that they are paid off.’
As the debate raged, Brisbane’s once free-wheeling massage parlours and illegal casinos began quietly closing their doors. A storm was on its way, but nobody could predict with any certainty the dimensions of its ferocity.
Director of Prosecutions, Des Sturgess, may have had a better appreciation of the synaptic chart. He had heard the rumours that Judge Eric Pratt of the Police Complaints Tribunal might preside over a limited inquiry. He knew from experience that judges and corruption inquiries did not mix well. He went to see Chief Justice, Sir Dormer Andrews, and offered his opinion. Sturgess, on a mission, then met Neville Harper, the Minister for Lands and immediate-past Attorney-General. Harper and Sturgess could always speak candidly with each other. Harper was packing his papers for the impending country Cabinet meeting in Roma in western Queensland. Sturgess told him of his thoughts on the Pratt appointment, and his meeting with the Chief Justice. ‘He asked me whom I’d recommend to take Pratt’s place,’ Sturgess later recalled. ‘I told him [Gerald Tony] Fitzgerald.
‘He hadn’t heard of him. I assured him he’d stand up to any examination; he was a former Federal Court judge and I’d just finished briefing him in an appeal to the High Court.
‘He [Harper] thanked me and said he’d put his name forward.’
Satisfied, Harper headed off to Roma, and Sturgess returned to his office in the State Law Building.
The Tiger’s Tail
Almost 11 years to the day after Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had a personal discussion with then Inspector Terry Lewis in Cunnamulla in western Queensland following a country Cabinet meeting, he was back with his Cabinet in Roma, about 515 kilometres west-north-west of Brisbane.
After all those years, the issue that would now dominate discussion would be about Commissioner Lewis’s police force, and whether it had engaged in corrupt practices. Joh flew out for Roma knowing full well Cabinet had to thrash out the finer details of the inquiry, announced by Deputy Premier and Police Minister Bill Gunn in the wake of ‘The Moonlight State’.
The Premier and his Cabinet ministers stayed in the Overlander Heritage Motel on the Warrego Highway just out of town. The motel, only opened since 1984, had reputedly the best restaurant west of Toowoomba and its décor – early Australian settler-style – may have made several members of the Cabinet feel at home. The motel was built by Heyward Robertson and run by the Robertson family, including the head of the family, David, and Heyward’s sister Amanda.
On the Sunday the VIPs arrived, a barbecue lunch was held. Attorney-General Paul Clauson observed some deep and prolonged discussion between Bjelke-Petersen and Transport Minister Don Lane. ‘Lane was onto Joh because he was trying to control … if this was going to happen, and it’s only my assumption, he [Lane] wanted to appoint someone who was going to be a stooge to run the commission of inquiry,’ remembers Clauson.
‘I can’t remember who it was … some fellow who was at the Bar. There was a guy who was a QC, a reserve defence force advocate, who’d been a colonel or something in the army … that was a name that Don was putting forward … Gunn said to me that he wasn’t going to be railroaded on any of this. Gunn was very adamant about that. That he wasn’t going to be blind-sided. I said that’s fair enough.’
In his memoir,
Trial and Error
, Lane recalled that shortly before he left Brisbane for Roma, he received a call from ‘a city lawyer whom I had been acquainted with for several years’ with news of the rumour that Tony Fitzgerald, QC, was going to head up the inquiry. ‘He [the caller] claimed that Fitzgerald had recently given legal advice to the Labor Party, and advised that the Government should be cautious about appointing him,’ Lane said.
‘I remarked that I had never heard of him and that I did not wish to be embroiled in the issue. I did, however, take the time to telephone a senior member of Joh’s personal staff and passed on the information.
‘The staffer said a similar call had been received from the same source but she did not know if it was correct.’ It was the precise message that Police Commissioner Sir Terence Lewis had passed on to the Premier face to face, during his rushed trip to Kingaroy the day before.
That Sunday evening, Joh got a message to Clauson and Gunn that he wanted to see them in the motel restaurant for a late dinner. ‘What’s all this about?’ Clauson asked Gunn.
‘Lane’s been in Joh’s ear, and there’s no prizes for guessing what they’re talking about. They’re going to try and sink this inquiry.’
‘What are we going to do?’
‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry about it,’ said Gunn. ‘It’s not on.’
The Overlander Heritage restaurant was already well known for the quality of its steak, and the Premier loved his steak. It was also renowned for its pianola. Often, Amanda Robertson would sing along to it before the meals were served. But there was no music on this night.
Heyward Robertson remembers the austerity of the Bjelke-Petersen government when it stayed at the motel. ‘When dining with his entourage in the restaurant the meals for everyone were very spartan,’ he says. ‘We were instructed that everyone was to drink water or cordial as the meals were being paid for by the state government. They were allowed a piece of bread or toast and soup for the entrees, with the main course of chicken, fish or steak. There was to be no desserts or alcoholic drinks whatsoever.’
Amanda, who was working in the restaurant that night, said the meeting was ‘very serious’. ‘They were very conscious of their privacy at the dinner,’ she says. ‘Even though we only had three or four people per night on average at the restaurant at that time, a late dinner was best for privacy. Joh was very stressed. We were very conscious of the fact that he was stressed. You could tell he was under a lot of pressure.’
Gunn later recalled the late-night meal with the Premier. ‘On our arrival at the motel’s dining room, Sir Joh indicated to us to sit either side of him,’ he said. ‘Some of his staff were also at the table. He said words like, “I’m greatly concerned about this inquiry. I don’t think it’s a good idea at all.”
‘I explained that the allegations that had been made had been around for a long time, hanging over the heads of several police ministers.’
Bjelke-Petersen said to Gunn: ‘You know Bill, you’ve got a tiger by the tail and it’s going to bite you.’
‘I’m not worried about that, Joh. It’ll end up biting you, if anything,’ Gunn replied.
‘Well, I think you should knock it right out of the ring.’
‘Now listen here, you have been talking to Lane for hours,’ Gunn said. ‘If you want him to be your police minister you can bloody do it tomorrow, because I am not going to tolerate that.’
‘Oh, well, you know …’ the Premier said.
‘Look, the subject’s closed. It’s finished. It’s done. And that’s all there is to it.’
‘Oh well, you know best, but you’ll be sorry about this,’ the Premier warned his old colleague.
‘No, if this doesn’t go ahead I know who’s going to be sorry.’
Gunn said the conversation was strained, and some of the Premier’s staff had left the table. Clauson remembers the atmosphere in the room: ‘He [Bjelke-Petersen] wasn’t wound up or furious or anything like that, it was almost like a father saying to a son, you know, if you get a motorbike it can be dangerous riding it. It was in that context.
‘I don’t think he was happy about it, but generally politicians aren’t happy about holding inquiries. Let’s not beat around the bush here. No one likes an inquiry, particularly when you are the incumbent government, and you’re setting one up and you don’t know where it’s going to lead.’
At the Cabinet meeting on Monday, the possibility of getting Judge Eric Pratt to head the inquiry was mentioned. Gunn produced a letter from Chief Justice Andrews, recommending the government steer clear of a judge for inquiry commissioner. Clauson remembers the meeting: ‘There were some very nervous nellies around the table that day.’
Gunn pulled out a piece of paper and asked the room what they thought about Tony Fitzgerald, QC. ‘I said he was very well regarded and would be very capable of running the inquiry,’ Clauson recalls. ‘Gunn said, “Good, go and ring him.”’
Gunn handed Clauson the sheet of paper which had Fitzgerald’s telephone number on it. ‘I went out and rang him from a public phone box near the Catholic church,’ says Clauson. ‘There were people hanging around the bloody phone box … I rang Fitzgerald and asked him whether he’d be prepared to head the inquiry.
‘He said, “Yes”.’
During the stay at the Overlander Heritage Motel, the Premier’s Cabinet colleagues witnessed something extraordinary. Between official business they saw Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen on his hands and knees assisting World War II hero, David Robertson, lay some tiles around the motel verandah. The Premier explained to Robertson that he always felt a measure of relaxation by doing some form of manual labour. It was indicative of the pressure Sir Joh was under.
One former Cabinet minister says the Fitzgerald Inquiry probably came about by accident. He says both Bjelke-Petersen and Gunn confused the definitions of an ‘inquiry’ and a ‘Royal Commission’.
‘Joh succumbed to an investigation, but he didn’t know the difference between investigation and inquiry, and some journalist said to him, “You mean an inquiry?”, and he said, “Yes, yes, yes”. He didn’t know the difference … suddenly, publicly, he was stuck on the inquiry.
‘Gunn was one of the laziest ministers, but it was the only good decision he ever made … there’s no doubt that the commission was a mistake by Gunn, which Joh never forgave him for … but he did a good thing, I think.’
Bjelke-Petersen was also adamant the wrong person had been chosen to head the commission. Joh told everyone that Fitzgerald was a ‘Labor man’.
Former premier Mike Ahern remembers Gunn getting together with National Party President Bob Sparkes, to discuss the inquiry. ‘Gunn was not a powerful character at all,’ he recalls. ‘Sparkes was the top guy and Sparkes put it all together. He got [Neville] Harper in and Harper was former Attorney General, a mate of his, and they identified this fellow called Tony Fitzgerald.
‘And then Sparkes got on the phone to the ministers and said this is the time to sort all this out. I don’t think they knew what they were doing. They hadn’t thought it all through. They had just arrived on the day with Tony Fitzgerald and no one had heard about him before.’