Thirty years on, the Fitzgerald Inquiry still looms large over Queensland politics

TJ Ryan Foundation Research Associate, Chris Salisbury, writes in The Conversation (1.7.19) about the 30th anniversary of the Fitzgerald Inquiry report, noting that with its details of widespread police and government corruption, the inquiry (and report) remains a cataclysmic event in Queensland politics which still resonates today.

‘This week marks 30 years since the landmark Fitzgerald Inquiry report was handed down in Queensland.

‘It’s no overstatement to suggest the inquiry’s findings transformed Queensland’s political landscape more than any event in the past six decades. Such was the inquiry’s impact that the state’s politics are now typically characterised in “pre-” and “post-Fitzgerald” terms.

‘The Fitzgerald Inquiry – officially the Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct – was a watershed moment in exposing entrenched police and government corruption.

‘… The taint of official corruption exposed by the inquiry, and the public’s faith in accountability reforms embodied in Fitzgerald’s report, can partly explain why the Nationals and Liberals (now LNP) have struggled to regain and hold office over the past three decades in Queensland.

‘But the accountability agenda is one that leaders on both sides of Queensland politics have pursued before and should commit to upholding still.’

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• Queensland urged not to be ‘self-congratulatory’ about Fitzgerald Inquiry »
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• Queensland to repeal police discipline system set up after Fitzgerald inquiry »
• Moonlight State: The Bagman, the secret codes, and the payments to bent cops in web of corruption »
• Moonlight State: The honest cop who helped blow the whistle on Australia’s most corrupt police force »
• Tony Fitzgerald on the Queensland Government’s abuse of power »
• Remember Fitzgerald? ‘Past lessons are haunting the PM of the present’ »
• Accountability – from the perspective of the Joh era »