View the recording of this speech here.
Record of Proceedings, 1 May 2024
Forensic Science Queensland Bill
Following the member for Currumbin’s contribution to this bill is difficult because she has covered many of the issues that I would have mentioned, albeit in a far more elegant manner than I could present. I associate myself with her comments about this bill and thank her for her work on the committee of which she was a member until the very final stages of the committee’s consideration of this bill.
The murder of Shandee Blackburn was a tragedy, as are all murders, unlawful killings and other violent crimes committed against people, wherever they are in Australia or the world. Crimes like these affect more than just the direct victims of the offences. The families of victims are also victims of crime, as are their friends and the wider community, who have trauma inflicted upon them. We have seen that in the case of Shandee Blackburn. Shandee’s mother has tirelessly kept alive Shandee’s memory and the tragedy of her death. It is important that we recognise the tragedy that occurs from violent crimes, but the bigger tragedy in the context of this bill is the system that failed Shandee, her family and friends and thousands of other victims of crime.
I do not think the impact can be overstated—37,000 cases that might have been impacted by a failure in a DNA lab. I do not think people really understand the gravity of that situation. For members of the government to come in here and claim some sort of virtue for fixing what was a debacle is, quite frankly, unbelievable. The inquiries we have had uncovered a cultural problem that enabled the failures in the DNA labs to continue for far too long. Being in government and being in public life and allowing cultures to exist where mistakes are made and covered up repeatedly year after year does not provide an opportunity for government members to claim virtue for fixing them—especially when they are members of a political party that has been at the helm of government in Queensland for so long and has seen that cultural problem develop. We have a cultural problem with the Queensland Public Service. Just ask Peter Coaldrake about that.
Mr McDonald: Let the sunshine in.
Mr KRAUSE: I take that interjection: let the sunshine in to the Queensland Public Service.
A government member interjected.
I take that interjection from the minister. He demonstrates once again the cultural problem by making cheap political comments when I am talking about an extremely serious situation in the failure of a DNA lab. Some 37,000 cases have been caught up in that, and all the minister wants to do is make cheap political comments disparaging Professor Peter Coaldrake, who wrote in his report about problems of people being too afraid to speak up for fear of retribution, demotion and isolation in the Public Service. It is exactly that sort of problem that led to the DNA debacle. I note again that the member for Caloundra took issue with the member for Currumbin calling it a debacle during either this inquiry or the inquiry about double jeopardy laws.
An honourable member interjected.
It is a debacle, yet members of the government do not want to call it what it is. I do not think the cultural problems in the Queensland government are being fixed at the moment. We saw it from the minister, who is making cheap political interjections. The cultural problems that allowed the DNA debacle to occur need to be fixed. The actions of government members on the committee and of the government in bringing forward this bill show me that they have not been fixed. When we consider the 37,000 cases and 103,000 samples that may potentially need to be retested, it is an absolute debacle. I place it on the same level of maladministration and tragedy for Queensland’s confidence in the Public Service and in the administration of justice as the issues outlined years and years ago in the Fitzgerald inquiry. They are different issues and different layers of the Public Service, but they shake to the core in much the same way people’s confidence in Queensland’s system of government.
Rather than coming into this place and implementing fully the recommendations of former Justice Sofronoff, especially when it comes to recommendation 121 and the advisory panel for the new DNA service, the government has chosen to go its own way. I took issue with this in the inquiry process with the director-general of Health. Given their track record on how they have treated this issue, particularly given their track record on how Dr Kirsty Wright and others in the system were treated when they tried to call out the mistakes being made, when they tried to make things right and when they tried to do the right thing for victims of crime—they were shut down by the government and by some of the same bureaucrats, no doubt, who appeared before us in committee—for them to come in here and say that it is okay to divert from the recommendations of Sofronoff I think is a big mistake, because it shows that the culture of arrogance, of cover-up and of the department knowing what is best at all times simply has not changed.
Sofronoff’s recommendations and the recommendations of the other commissions of inquiry should have been implemented lock, stock and barrel—just like Fitzgerald years ago. The confidence issues that came from this debacle are just as great as the confidence issue that came from that debacle all those years ago. There are 37,000 cases involving thousands of victims who never saw justice, and who may have to go through the retraumatisation of a retrial. In the last sitting of parliament we saw a bill passed from a justice perspective that may enable people to be retried if retested DNA samples lead to potential retrials.
Ms Camm: Double jeopardy.
That is the double jeopardy bill—exactly. That means retraumatisation of victims, yet the government does not seem to fully acknowledge the gravity of that situation. They should have implemented Sofronoff’s recommendations in full. It is not disappointing but frightening that they have not recognised the importance of restoring confidence in the system. People get the feeling that the government has not got the message.
I again want to pay tribute, as others have, to Vicki Blackburn for keeping the memory of Shandee alive. In doing so, she has enabled thousands of other victims to see this bill come forward, to see the two commissions of inquiry be brought about and to see rectification, albeit at a very late stage, of a failed system of DNA testing here in Queensland. I also want to again pay tribute to Dr Kirsty Wright. She put her career on the line, as others have done.
I hope that this bill fixes the problem and that we do not see the emergence again of debacles in DNA testing in Queensland. The government had a job to do in ensuring right from the top that the message of cultural change will be heeded throughout the public sector but especially in this particular government service. They failed to do that. We support this bill and we hope that it fixes all the issues that have been identified.