Queensland police rejects diversity targets including ‘critical' proposal to hold senior officers accountable
The review, conducted by the state Human Rights Commission, was demanded by the 2022 commission of inquiry that found a 'failure of leadership' had allowed a culture of sexism, misogyny and racism to flourish.
Human rights commissioner Scott McDougall's report found that significant 'resistance' to reform remained within the police service (QPS), in particular among the 'most senior leaders' of the organisation. His review called for diversity targets to address very low numbers of women, First Nations people and people from culturally and linguistically diverse (Cald) communities joining the QPS.
The police service accepted most of the recommendations but 'declined' the call to establish minimum diversity targets at each rank.
The QPS also declined to implement performance indicators – prioritising diversity and inclusion – that would measure whether members of the executive leadership team had contributed to reform.
Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email
McDougall described the recommendation as 'critical' and said he was disappointed it had been rejected.
'This response confirms our findings about the strength of resistance within the service that continues to act as a barrier, particularly to the progression of women in the service.'
In the report, the Human Rights Commission identified 'significant organisational and individual resistance' within the QPS to reform. It said resistant views were 'most strongly held by QPS's most senior leaders in the executive leadership team, noncommissioned officers and male officers'.
'Throughout the review the commission heard from many dedicated police officers – from all levels and backgrounds – who want real change,' the report said.
'They are officers who joined the police motivated by the opportunity to serve the community, remain deeply committed to QPS and its mission, and have made significant personal sacrifices for this cause. However, their belief in QPS's capacity for change is being tested.
'Positive change requires reconstructing some of QPS's most deeply held values and ways of working, permanently altering power dynamics and how benefits are distributed.'
McDougall said it was also disappointing the QPS had ceased taking advice from an advisory panel established to guide the review process.
'The review made 36 recommendations to drive equality across the service,' he said.
Sign up to Breaking News Australia
Get the most important news as it breaks
after newsletter promotion
'The commission's extensive research found that to access the best talent, and get the most out of its workforce, QPS needs to dismantle structural disadvantages to women, First Nations and culturally diverse peoples.
'The commission's review was informed by input from over 2,700 QPS members, police liaison officers and recruits. I am pleased that QPS has accepted, without limitations, to embed victim-centred and trauma-informed practices into their policies.'
In a statement on Wednesday – released hours before the announcement of Olympic venues in Brisbane – the QPS said it had accepted or partially accepted many of the recommendations. Some were accepted subject to the resourcing decisions by the state government.
'Where recommendations are unable to be progressed, the proposed work is either considered out of scope, the intent can be delivered through other means, or there are significant impediments to making progress at this time,' the statement said.
'Additionally, some of the recommendations align with ongoing work resulting from the commission of inquiry into QPS responses to domestic and family violence.'
Acting deputy commissioner Mark Kelly said it might take 'some time' to implement the accepted recommendations, but that the 'QPS is committed to driving meaningful change and striving to become a more inclusive organisation that better reflects the diversity of our community'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scotsman
14 hours ago
- Scotsman
Scottish Labour MP launches bid for 'untouchable' prison bosses to lose immunity from prosecution
The campaign comes after an inquiry into two deaths at a Scottish jail found a 'catalogue of failures' in the prison system. Sign up to our Politics newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... A Scottish Labour MP has put forward plans to strip 'untouchable' prison bosses of being shielded from prosecution over suicides in a Scottish young offenders institute. Blair McDougall, the MP for East Renfrewshire, has tabled a ten minute rule bill in the House of Commons, calling for Crown immunity in UK prison estates to be abolished. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad An inquiry into two deaths at Polmont young offenders institute found they could have been avoided Crown immunity, which has been previously removed from the NHS and police, essentially halts any criminal consequences for the prison service due to failings. Under the current law, the Crown, including the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), cannot be held criminally responsible for deaths in custody. Both the Scottish Government and the SPS have backed calls to remove the Crown immunity but it would require action at Westminster to do so. Mr McDougall's constituents, Linda and Stuart Allan, lost their daughter Katie, 21, when she died in Polmont Young Offenders Institution in 2018. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A fatal accident inquiry (FAI) last year found that Katie's death and that of 16-year-old William Brown could have been prevented but for a 'catalogue of failures' in the prison system. Speaking in the House of Commons, the MP said: 'The problem with prison deaths is UK-wide but these losses are a particular problem in Scotland. 'The loss of young people in prisons is felt especially.' Katie Allan, 21, and William Lindsay, 16, who died within months of each other in 2018 at Polmont Young Offenders' Institute | Contributed Mr McDougall pointed to research showing 'our prison death rates are akin to those in Azerbaijan' and findings that 'Scotland's suicide rate was more than two and a half times higher than the average and about double that of England and Wales'. The Labour MP highlighted so-called 'ligatures" - anything that could be used to tie something in a way that poses a risk of strangulation or hanging. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad READ MORE: Suicide prevention strategy launched in wake of Polmont YOI deaths He said: 'Years after both deaths, nobody in the prison service had thought to remove the doorstops or to replace them with safer, sloping alternatives. Bunk beds had not been removed. 'Nothing for me signifies that institutional lack of care - the failings that someone somewhere should have been held legally responsible for.' Scottish Labour MP Blair McDougall | Jane Barlow/TSPL Mr McDougall said that 'eventually, the authorities said there was enough evidence to charge the prison service with breaches of the health and safety act'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad He added: 'But there was no prosecution…because of Crown immunity. 'The Health and Safety at Work Act places duties on state-run prisons but Crown immunity means they cannot be prosecuted for breaching those duties. If they'd died in a privately-run prison, there would have been prosecutions.' The MP warned that the Scottish Prison Service is 'untouchable because of Crown immunity'. He added: 'An untouchable service remains unaccountable. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Without legal consequences, prisons across the country appear incapable of learning lessons or making changes. Every day with immunity risks more avoidable deaths. 'If those running our prisons won't act, and they haven't, they should lose their protection from legal consequence.' Mr McDougall's bill will now move forward through the Westminster legislative system. A Scottish Prison Service spokesperson said: "We recognise the profound responsibility we hold in caring for people during some of the most vulnerable periods of their lives. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad "When someone dies in prison custody we know families, and the wider public, rightly expect us to do everything possible to prevent further tragedies.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
The huge problem with Australia's so-called First Nations Ambassador - and it's not just the massive travel bill that's raising eyebrows
By any reasonable measure, the numbers are absurd. Australia's so-called First Nations Ambassador, Justin Mohamed, has seemingly managed to spend more time airborne than in any substantive engagement likely to improve the lives of Indigenous Australians. In just two years, Mohamed has clocked up 261 travel days (an entire working year) at a cost of more than $730,000 to taxpayers. Add to that a contract worth just shy of $1million over two and a half years, and the obvious question arises: what exactly has he achieved? This isn't some isolated administrative extravagance, by the way. It's emblematic of the broader drift and performative politics that characterise the Albanese government. And they claim they want to cut spending and fix the budget! We've seen this movie before. Airbus Albo, as the Opposition dubbed him, doesn't mind taxpayer-funded travel perks, not least his well-documented preference for Qantas upgrades and photo ops abroad. So it's hardly surprising that a pet foreign policy project dressed up as First Nations engagement would follow the same globe-trotting script. But here's the problem: while Mohamed racks up hotel points and business-class miles to destinations like New York, Geneva, Paris, Dubai and Hawaii, the supposed mission to 'implement a First Nations approach to foreign policy' remains nebulous at best. Even within DFAT, the exact objectives and outcomes of the role appear to shift depending on the press release spinning a defence. First it was about supporting the Voice, until the Voice referendum failed. Then it was about regional engagement and economic diplomacy. Now, it's part of some vague effort to counter China 's influence in the Pacific. If it all sounds like policy on the run, that's because it is. And you're paying for it. Of his 46 taxpayer-funded trips, just five were to Pacific Islands. In contrast, Mohamed spent more than twice as long in the United States alone. That's not regional engagement, it's tourism with talking points. When Daily Mail Australia previously revealed that a single two-week trip to Kansas City and Washington DC cost taxpayers over $75,000, it raised eyebrows. But even that wasn't the whole picture. FOI documents showed his team has burned through nearly $400,000 on travel, separate from his own expenses. And yet there's still no public explanation (let alone evidence) of what measurable benefit this travelling roadshow has delivered for the Indigenous communities the ambassador is supposed to represent. This matters not just because the waste is galling, but because this kind of performative diplomacy erodes public confidence in the very causes it purports to champion. If you wanted to design a role that fuels scepticism about reconciliation, appoint a taxpayer-funded roving ambassador to attend international conferences with no clear mandate, no KPIs and no link to tangible outcomes for those suffering entrenched disadvantage back home. If this were a corporate role, it would be axed in the next round of budget cuts. Instead, it's being defended by the government with the often hollow rhetoric of diversity, inclusion and soft power, as though those buzzwords justify burning through public funds with no accountability. The truth is you can't close the gap from business class, and symbolic diplomacy, no matter how well-intentioned or well-funded doesn't help when it's divorced from practical policy. If the Albanese government can't see that this is wrong, they're not listening. And if the Coalition has any sense, they'll stick to their pre-election pledge to abolish this role on day one of returning to office. But God only knows how far off into the distance that day might be. The real work of reconciliation will remain stuck on the tarmac until this bloke gets the boot.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- The Guardian
First Nations leaders walk out of Mark Carney meeting on Building Canada Act
Several First Nations leaders have walked out of a meeting with Mark Carney , as an event the Canadian prime minister hoped would assuage their concerns over his Building Canada Act instead left many with growing concern that it would violate their rights. Carney has spent recent weeks promoting the act, which passed last month as part of Bill C-5 and which he says is a key part of his campaign promise to ensure Canada's economy is less dependent on the US under Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened huge tariffs. The legislation sets out a framework for major building projects, such as pipelines and mines to exploit natural resources infrastructure including ports, railways and electricity grids. Under the act, certain projects designated as 'nation-building' could be fast-tracked and override environmental and other planning regulations. To qualify, it says the projects should strengthen Canada's autonomy and security, provide economic 'or other' benefits and support the interests of Indigenous peoples, while meeting Canada's objectives to tackle climate change. The government has not yet said which projects will be fast-tracked, but the minister responsible for Indigenous relations, Rebecca Alty, said it would consult provinces, territories and Indigenous peoples to agree those suitable. Earlier this week, however, nine First Nations in Ontario communities launched a constitutional challenge against the federal government over Bill C-5, and against the province over similar legislation recently passed there. They allege that unchecked, fast-tracked development which is not subjected to laws and regulations, and which excludes consultation with First Nations on whose land some of the proposed projects will be built, violates the Canadian constitution, which mandates that Indigenous groups be consulted on any decisions that could affect their treaty rights. At the meeting on Thursday, held at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, Carney promised to hundreds of assembled First Nations delegates that new infrastructure would enrich generations of Indigenous peoples, and that First Nations communities affected by any development would be thoroughly consulted. Some leaders expressed cautious optimism at his remarks, but several others told reporters they were frustrated they did not get time to speak to the prime minister or members of his cabinet ministers, and that they felt they were not being listened to. A delegation of First Nations youth also staged a protest, holding signs with slogans including: 'We won't be silenced'. Several First Nations leaders walked out of the meeting after a few hours, saying it was a crude attempt at public relations designed to mitigate the damage the Liberal government had already done in pushing the law through parliament quickly without first consulting Indigenous groups properly. 'I don't even know what this is, but this is not engagement. This is definitely not consultation. I'm speechless,' the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake grand chief Cody Diabo, who was among the leaders who left, told the Canadian Press. Gwii Lok'im Gibuu (Jesse Stoeppler), deputy chief of Hagwilget Village Council in northern British Columbia, told the CBC: 'I didn't have much faith in the process to begin with, and I'm leaving very concerned.' Carney told leaders at the meeting that he was optimistic about finding consensus, but the negative reception could increase pressure on him to urgently repairs marred relations with First Nations communities, said Bruce McIvor, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia who specialises in Indigenous law. Otherwise the government could face more legal challenges or wider protests, he said. 'I'm not optimistic based on what this federal government has done to date. It's more rhetoric and damage control than meaningful engagement with Indigenous people,' said McIvor, who is also a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation. First Nations communities have argued that consultation cannot be meaningful under legislation that is specifically intended to bypass legal obligations in order to build as fast as possible. McIvor noted, however, that the duty to consult Indigenous peoples has been made clear by Canada's supreme court. 'Unfortunately, now, in a rush, the federal government has decided we will abandon those principles,' he said. 'What's required under Canadian law is for the government to engage early on, take as much time as it needs and, importantly, do not simply make a decision and then say 'trust us'.' Carney has said he will conduct more regional dialogues with First Nations communities this summer. Chief John Powell of the Mamalilikulla First Nation in British Columbia said had spoken to the prime minster for a few minutes at the meeting, and that he had appeared sincere. He said it was hard, however, to believe the government would keep its promises when First Nations peoples were not consulted before the law was passed. 'The fear is they're going to push through projects,' he said. 'After all, we've experienced over 150 years of the government being the people who benefit from all of the extraction of what they call our 'resources' and what we call our 'responsibility'.'
