[Peetwo]

Breaking the trail of obfuscation on recommendations -

Q/ Is Senator Barry O the MAN??

Bit of a long tale here so my first reference goes to last Monday's excellent 4 Corners program (titled: Breaking the Brotherhood):

Moonlight State: The honest cop who helped blow the whistle on Australia's most corrupt police force
Four Corners
By Mark Willacy, Wayne Harley and Alexandra Blucher
Updated Wed at 3:16pmWed 14 Jun 2017, 3:16pm

Photo: Journalist Chris Masters (left) with AFP officer Dave Moore, who was assigned to look after him. (Four Corners)

It was an unusual assignment, and Australian Federal Police officer Dave Moore wasn't happy about it.

"I had a call to go and visit the assistant commissioner," he recounted.

"He asked me to keep a lookout for a bloke by the name of Chris Masters from Four Corners."


Photo: "The Joke" was a system of protection involving illegal gambling, bookies and brothels. (Four Corners)

To Mr Moore, babysitting a journalist was not part of his remit.

"I'll be honest, I told [my assistant commissioner] I didn't want to do the job," he said.
But an order was an order.

It was 1987, and the AFP hierarchy had information that Masters was in danger.
He wasn't at risk from the criminal underworld, but from the corrupt members of the Queensland police.

"It was made very clear that they were concerned for Chris's safety," said Mr Moore, speaking for the first time about the AFP's secret role in protecting the Four Corners reporter.

"So we put the resources of the AFP, discreetly, behind keeping a lookout for Chris."
'We were being watched and shadowed'

Masters was getting too close to a brotherhood of bent cops and their network of graft and corruption, an arrangement known as "the Joke".

What was the Joke?

The Joke was a vast system of graft and protection involving illegal gambling, starting price bookmakers, brothels and massage parlours that stretched back decades in Queensland.

The dirty money flowed to the police, particularly to several senior members of the infamous Licensing Branch, who in exchange for regular cash payments turned a blind eye to vice.

In its later and most lucrative form, the Joke was administered by Jack Herbert, who, by the time it all came crashing down, was passing on nearly $60,000 a month in protection money to police.

Herbert was estimated to have received more than $3 million in payments.

In early 1987 The Courier-Mail ran a series of articles about unchallenged vice in Brisbane.

Then in May, The Moonlight State program was broadcast on Four Corners, revealing that police were being bribed to protect vice in Queensland.

The next day the acting premier Bill Gunn called a judicial inquiry.

The Fitzgerald Inquiry would run for two years and hear from more than 300 witnesses.

Evidence from the inquiry would lead to four government ministers and police commissioner Terry Lewis being jailed.

Other police would go to prison, while senior officers — including the assistant commissioner Graeme Parker — would give evidence in exchange for indemnity from prosecution.

The Fitzgerald Inquiry would also lead to the establishment of Queensland's first anti-corruption body.

Stretching back several decades, the Joke was a system of protection payments that flowed from brothel owners, SP bookies and illegal gaming operators into the hands of corrupt police.

It was worth millions, and the Joke's tentacles reached right to the top of the Queensland force.

In late 1986, early 1987, Masters had been sniffing around Brisbane's red light district of Fortitude Valley for weeks talking to pimps, prostitutes and disgruntled police.
His inquiries were making the brotherhood nervous.

"We were being watched and shadowed," Masters recalled.

"I didn't really know that until Dave started to point out people who were surveilling me."
Mr Moore says he first met Masters "up at the Tower Mill [Hotel]".

"It became quite apparent to me that there was someone paying quite a lot of attention to Chris across the road," he said.

"We later found out it was a hired vehicle which was being used by officers of the [Queensland] Police Force."

Photo: Chris Masters had been investigating corruption in Brisbane's red light district. (Four Corners)

The plan to frame Chris Masters

As Masters got closer to cracking the Joke, the police brotherhood knew it had to destroy the Four Corners reporter before he destroyed them.

"They took him extremely seriously, to the point where they were on the brink of literally setting him up," said Matthew Condon, the author of a three-book series on police corruption in Queensland.

"The plan was that they would plant an underage boy in Masters' hotel room in the city and ultimately, whether they could prove it or not, the mud would have been thrown against Masters to discredit him."

Masters would only be told of the plan to stitch him up many months later, after The Moonlight State had gone to air.

"I learnt of it through [former rugby league player] Tommy Raudonikis. He'd heard of it from a police mate and he then tipped off my brother Roy who told me," Masters said.

"But when it was all supposed to happen I wasn't in Brisbane, I was back in Sydney."

The plan revealed the lengths the corrupt Queensland police brotherhood was prepared to go to protect the Joke.

It had flourished for years under the stewardship of a man known as "the Bagman".

The Bagman

Former Queensland police officer Jack Herbert (aka 'The Bagman') was at the centre of the state's web of cops and crooks.

Jack Herbert was a former police Licensing Branch detective who for years was the conduit between the crooks and the cops.

He doled out hundreds of thousands in bribes to corrupt police.

Masters travelled the state speaking to and interviewing people about the Joke.

On May 11, 1987, The Moonlight State went to air on Four Corners.

"The pivotal thing about The Moonlight State and why it caused an earthquake was that for the first time, what Masters achieved, was a link between criminal figures, the underworld and corruption and police," Condon said.

"That's what caused so much drama and why it was an astonishing piece of television journalism."

For Masters, the day after The Moonlight State would bring fresh drama.
"I wake up to the sounds of my own heartbeat," he said.

"These are scary moments, sometimes the worst moments because you've done your best, you're pretty much exhausted, but then a whole new battle begins."

That battle would become the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

It would run for two years, hear from 339 witnesses and see the police commissioner, Sir Terence Lewis, jailed and stripped of his knighthood.

Also convicted were senior police and Valley kingpin, Gerry Bellino, who was sentenced to seven years in prison for paying bribes.

As for Jack "the Bagman" Herbert, he escaped jail by rolling over and telling all to the inquiry.

Watch Four Corners' Breaking the Brotherhood on iview.

The Moonlight State, the 1987 report that prompted the Fitzgerald Inquiry, can be viewed in full on the Four Corners website.

Photo: Tony Fitzgerald QC hands over the Fitzgerald Report to then-Queensland premier Mike Ahern. (State Library of Queensland)

My next reference goes to Nick Xenophon's (NXT party) policy webpage under Aviation: 

Aviation

A safe and strong aviation sector is vital to Australia's needs. Having our aircraft maintained in Australia is an integral part of ensuring high safety standards and trust in the aviation industry. 

What needs to be done:

• There should be an Inspector General of Aviation that acts as an impartial watch-dog over all aviation regulators -  in particular CASA and the ATSB - to ensure that they operate in the public interest.
  
• Implement recommendations from Senate reports on aviation and safety. 
  

 
The 2nd bullet point above (in red) is perhaps the biggest bugbear for any Senators/members of parliament involved with aviation safety inquiries and nearly all industry advocate groups &/or stakeholders...  
Now to the Barry O connection...
Next reference is Senator O'Sullivans profile webpage (note the parts in bold red):

Senator Barry O’Sullivan

Whether it be as a country police officer, grazier, business operator or member of the LNP executive, Barry O’Sullivan brings a wealth of experience to his role as Senator for Queensland.

During his first 100 days in the position, Barry has explained his clear objective is to advocate and initiate policies that lift the standard of living, including service-delivery and economic sustainability, across rural and regional Queensland, which has sustained generations of his family for more than a century.

Born in Gogango, Central Queensland, Barry was educated at St Joseph’s Wanda Convent and the Christina Brother College (now Cathedral College) at Rockhampton.

Upon leaving school, he was employed as an office boy at The Rockhampton Morning Bulletin and The Longreach Leader newspapers before joining a road construction crew building the Beef Development Road from the Five Ways north of Cloncurry to the Gregory River Crossing.

Barry joined the Queensland police in 1976, the same year he married Annie Van Lathum of Barcaldine.

His commenced his policing career in Brisbane serving in Inala, the City Beat, the Metro CIB the Burglary Unit, the Fraud Squad and the Drug Squad.

However, wanting to return his young family to regional Queensland, Barry transferred to the Rockhampton Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) in 1979 and later served in the Moranbah CIB region (a one man detective office), which included the districts of Nebo, Glenden, Dysart, Moranbah, Clermont and Charters Towers.

Among his achievements during this period was a research grant to attend the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) National Academy to study the profiling of serial offenders.

Following the Fitzgerald Inquiry, Barry was appointed to be among the Queensland “change” agents to implement the recommendations in the Central Police Region, which stretched from Bowen to Gladstone and across to the Northern Territory border.

He was appointed Acting Staff Officer to the Assistant Commissioner in the central region, having the responsibility of supervising the project that restructured the framework of the Queensland Police Service in line with the Fitzgerald recommendations.

In 1990 Barry worked with the Corrective Services Commission by the Queensland Public Service to facilitate the implementation of the recommendations from the Black Deaths in Custody Royal Commission and the Kennedy Review into Queensland prisons.

Over some 15 years of police service, Barry was awarded – two imperial honours (Bronze medal for Bravery, the Police Long Service and Good Conduct Medal); a Commissioner’s Commendation for Bravery, an additional Commissioner’s Commendation for Service and two Commissioner’s Favourable Records.

Upon retiring from the police force, Barry established an Insurance Loss Adjusting practice which specialised in the preparation of briefs of evidence in civil litigation cases associated with world-wide catastrophic aviation accidents (principally international flights). He has worked on crash investigations all over the world.

Barry also established Jilbridge (currently NewLands) – a vertically integrated construction and development business (both civil and structural) based in Toowoomba, which currently employs over 100 staff.

Barry and his family have also operated livestock properties and contracted earthmoving services across leased and owned holdings at Cooyar, Ravensborne and Goondiwindi.
In the lead up to the merger of the Liberal and National Parties, Barry was asked to assist in overseeing the registration of the new entity, the LNP. He was appointed honorary Treasurer.

He served in role during the 2008 merger until his pre-selection to the Senate seat vacated by Barnaby Joyce, who had resigned to contest the House of Representatives seat of New England at the 2013 federal election.

Barry served on the Candidate Review Committee between 2009 and 2013, going on to be appointed Chair of the Committee in 2010, before winning pre-selection himself in 2013 to take over the senate seat made available following Current-Minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce’s decision to challenge the Lower House seat of New England in regional New South Wales.

Barry was officially appointed to the Senate by the Queensland Parliament on 11 February 2014.

Barry used his maiden speech the following month to state his primary focus during his time in Federal Parliament would be dedicated to pushing for policies that enable the ‘rehydration’ of rural and regional Queensland.

As Barry said in his Maiden speech: “decades of progressive restructuring of government agencies with an emphasis on a corporatized model – compounded by the overarching principles of economic rationalism – have seen us significantly and aggressively reduce government based and government funded services to many parts of regional and rural Australia. 

“Whilst all levels of Government acknowledge community services obligations and a responsibility to distribute the wealth of our nation evenly amongst its citizens, we tend to struggle in the delivery of these commitments the further we get away from places where the postcodes end in three zeroes.

“During my time in this chamber, I will be applying the test of fairness and equity to policies and legislation that has the potential to impact the great people of regional and rural Queensland. 

“I will be particularly looking for things that support the rejuvenation of non-metropolitan communities, things that will help small family businesses and the family corporations – particularly those in agriculture and allied support industries. In short, I intend to support businesses that underpin this Nation’s wealth and economic security. Those enterprises that directly impact on the fortunes of our standard of living.”

Barry and Annie, who passed away in 2008, raised four children together. The extended O’Sullivan family now includes six grandchildren. He lives in Toowoomba.

Do you reckon there would be a more perfectly groomed candidate for the position of Chair/Deputy Chair of the Senate RRAT committee? - just saying...


MTF...P2