Received

Details
Category: Received
Hits: 108

Queensland's highest-ranking police officer has detailed being subjected to sexual harassment and sexism early in her career as the service's culture comes under scrutiny.

Commissioner Katarina Carroll was visibly emotional during her second day of evidence at Queensland's inquiry into the police response to domestic violence.

This week's hearings have been told of incidents of behaviour directed at female officers that Ms Carroll previously described as "disgusting, predatory and unacceptable".

On Thursday, Ms Carroll said she was subjected to similar behaviour by more senior officers on a number of occasions in the 1980s and 1990s.

The most serious incident involved being attacked by a "sexual predator" when she was taken to a forest and had her seatbelt removed before she ran back to her station.

"I just wanted to say that my station protected me," Ms Carroll told the inquiry.

Other incidents included being "pinched on the arse" as well as being told she was taking the job of a male officer and was going to fail.

Ms Carroll said she chose to report some incidents but not others when she felt she was protected by the people in her station.

Processes for reporting bullying and sexual harassment have been a focus of the inquiry, as a culture of fear of speaking out is laid out.

Counsel assisting the inquiry Ruth O'Gorman told Thursday's hearing about the experiences of one female officer detailed as part of a review provided to leadership in 2018.

She said she knew of five incidents in which women had been raped and didn't know of any policewoman "who has not been offended against".

The woman's story included being subjected to unwanted touching and kissing and being called a sl*t and a lesbian.

The review helped establish Juniper - a unit designed to tackle issues of culture and gender within the force that was later rebranded after being described as "a toothless tiger".

It was replaced by two operational units within the police.

Ms Carroll agreed sexism and misogyny were prevalent, of concern and consistent in particular teams, stations and districts.

She agreed a system often used to determine consequences for those at the centre of complaints, known as a local managerial resolution, was broken.

The inquiry is also investigating incidents of racism within Queensland police.

Ms Carroll said she had heard a recording of a sergeant at the police academy, charged with teaching new recruits, saying the words "you can smell them before you see them".

The commissioner said the sergeant had also mentioned a town and agreed the inference was that she was referring to Indigenous people.

Ms Carroll described the actions as "extraordinarily disturbing" and "absolutely horrific".

"Listening to it was horrific," she said.

"That sergeant is not living by the values of the organisation and should not be in that role."

The officer has now been moved to a different role, the inquiry was told.

Ms O'Gorman detailed several incidents where officers reportedly used racist slurs to describe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

"It has been brought to my attention, obviously, and it's absolutely disgusting," Ms Carroll said.

She agreed there is "definitely racism in the QPS" and it's an issue that must be dealt with.

Resourcing in the service's domestic and family violence command, led by Assistant Commissioner Brian Codd, was also a point of focus on Thursday.

Ms Carroll agreed the command was "in some ways" under-resourced and said she was committed to improvement.

"I've already asked (Mr Codd), anything you want, and nothing's come back to me," she said.

Ms Carroll called for "no confidence" powers which would give her discretion over an officer's career, in line with powers held by commissioners in some other states.

She said anyone impacted would still get natural justice and procedural fairness including a right of review and appeal.

Lifeline 13 11 14

beyondblue 1300 22 4636

© AAP 2022

Details
Category: Received
Hits: 82

Star Entertainment could lose its two Queensland casinos and its showpiece Brisbane venue before it opens after the firm was declared unfit to hold a casino licence in the state.

Queensland Attorney-General Shannon Fentiman made the decision in response to former judge Robert Gotterson's report into Star, released on Thursday following a public inquiry.

Mr Gotterson found the ASX-listed casino operator neglected its anti-money laundering and responsible gaming duties and deliberately misled regulators.

Ms Fentiman says the company will be issued with a show-cause notice and given 21 days to respond before facing penalties, such as licence cancellation.

"We have in black and white some damning findings about how this company has operated, how they dealt with the regulator, and their obligations to act in the public interest clearly were not taken seriously," she told reporters on Thursday.

"So these are damning findings and the government will now act."

The government will appoint a special manager to run the Star Gold Coast and the Brisbane Treasury casinos in the meantime.

Ms Fentiman said her declaration had implications for the licence for Star's $3.6 billion Queens Wharf development in Brisbane, due to open in 2023.

In a filing to the ASX, Star said it was considering "matters raised by Mr Gotterson and will continue to work co-operatively" with Queensland regulators.

The Gotterson report said a focus on profit resulted in a "serious dereliction" of Star's Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) responsibilities.

"The serious shortcomings in The Star's AML/CTF Program and its practical implementation ... are ones which show a serious disregard for the compliance regime," he wrote.

"The deficiencies, however, arose from The Star's poor culture and attitude towards compliance and not from any serious deficiency in the regime itself."

Star encouraged people banned from its NSW and Victorian venues, who it had "grounds to suspect may have been involved in criminal activity", to gamble at its Queensland premises.

It even offered some of them free private jet flights, luxury accommodation and gifts including a $50,000 Rolex watch.

"As a consequence, some of the business that was drawn in placed the casinos at real jeopardy of infiltration by persons whom The Star had reason to suspect were likely to have been involved in criminality," Mr Gotterson wrote.

The casino operator also deliberately misled the regulator about changing its policies to conceal $55 million in banned transactions from Chinese lender China UnionPay.

Mr Gotterson said Star's failure to run its casinos in line with state laws was similar to failures identified by the NSW inquiry, which also found it unfit to hold a licence in September.

"The two Star casinos presently carrying on business in Queensland (Star Gold Coast and Treasury Brisbane) have been operated in a way that is inconsistent with the achievement of the objectives of the Casino Control Act," the report said.

The attorney-general said Queensland casino laws would be strengthened urgently in line with Mr Gotterson's recommendations.

Ms Fentiman said the maximum fine for a casino will be raised to $100 million and there will be periodic reviews of each operator's suitability to hold a licence.

A special manager will be appointed to supervise casino operations and there will be a mandatory casino code of conduct with fines for non-compliance.

Operators will also pay a supervision levy as part of their licence conditions and will be expected to exclude patrons banned interstate.

All gamblers will have to use cards linked to their personal identification and have to set their own daily, weekly and monthly loss limits.

Time limits will be imposed on gambling and all transactions of more than $1000 will have to be cashless.

© AAP 2022

Details
Category: Received
Hits: 93

Brittany Higgins says former defence industry minister Linda Reynolds told her she did not think her accused rapist was "capable of something like that".

A jury is hearing evidence from Ms Higgins in the ACT Supreme Court criminal trial of Bruce Lehrmann.

Lehrmann has pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent.

The pair were working in Senator Reynold's office as staffers at the time of the alleged assault.

Ms Higgins told the court she had a meeting with Senator Reynolds and her chief of staff Fiona Brown after the alleged rape.

She described being panicked because she was in the same office with the couch where Lehrmann had allegedly assaulted her.

"The words were a little lost ... she (Reynolds) said something to the effect of 'I didn't think he was capable of something like that'," Ms Higgins told the court on Thursday.

She said Senator Reynolds apologised to her, but the conversation then turned to the upcoming 2019 federal election.

After dreaming of becoming a political media adviser, Ms Higgins said she feared she would lose her job if she made a complaint to the police.

"My interpretation of that was that if I raised it with police there were going to be problems," she said.

She said she wanted to keep working for the Liberal Party and assist during the election but also wanted to proceed with the complaint.

"It became really apparent it was my job on the line ... I'd gone my entire life working towards this moment," she said.

She said she decided to "toe the party line" and not proceed further with the police complaint.

Ms Higgins worked with Senator Reynolds during the election but told the court she felt as though the senator did not like her because of the problems she had caused with the allegations.

"I felt like she (Reynolds) did not like being around me based on the fact of how little she would have me on the road with her as a media adviser," Ms Higgins said.

After the election, Ms Higgins began working with another Liberal senator Michaelia Cash.

The jury was earlier shown footage from inside Parliament House on the night Ms Higgins was allegedly raped.

She cried in the witness box as the CCTV footage was played.

The jury was also shown pictures of Senator Reynolds' office taken by police two years after the alleged assault.

They show various angles of the office as well as a photo of a grey couch directly in front of the minister's desk.

When a close-up of the couch was shown, Ms Higgins described how she was "jammed up in the corner" when she woke up to Lehrmann having sex with her.

"I felt like a prop," she said.

Visual footage showed the pair arriving at the building entrance in the early hours of Saturday, March 23, 2019 and being signed in by two security guards.

Footage also showed Lehrmann leaving Parliament House about an hour later and an Uber collecting him.

Ms Higgins was seen leaving the building at 10am that morning, wearing a jacket she said she borrowed from a bag of clothes in the minister's office.

Prosecutor Shane Drumgold will continue questioning Ms Higgins before she is cross-examined by Lehrmann's defence lawyer Steven Whybrow.

© AAP 2022

Details
Category: Received
Hits: 93

Sydney is on the cusp of its wettest year on record as widespread drenching rain puts many parts of western NSW on flood alert.

The city is on track to exceed the previous annual record of 2194mm of rain by the weekend, reaching 2157.2mm on Thursday morning.

Sydney is 27mm away from the 1950 record.

"We have seen some pretty isolated falls above 50mm across NSW but the heaviest falls are along the coast," Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Jonathan How told ABC TV on Thursday.

The deluge will see rivers on and west of the Great Dividing Range hit by moderate to major flooding, affecting towns including Tamworth, Dubbo and Bathurst.

There is a severe weather warning for heavy rain and thunderstorms across inland NSW, with no reprieve in sight this week.

Much of the state will see showers and thunderstorms on Thursday afternoon, with the southwest set for severe storms, heavy rainfall, possible hail and damaging winds.

Sydney had its wettest July on record this year after only two weeks, passing the 1950 record of 336.1mm on the way to a total of 404mm.

March broke a 1942 record of 521.4mm when 554mm fell.

The SES' shift to the Australian Warning System last month is seeing its first test, with Advice and Watch and Act warnings issued around the state.

More than 40 warnings are current, with particular concerns about flooding in the communities of Forbes, Warren, Dubbo, Nyngan and Bathurst, SES assistant commander Sean Kearns says.

"We are also watching this weather system as it may move across metropolitan areas on the east coast," he told Nine's Today program.

Flood Recovery Minister Steph Cooke said flood threats across the state had more than 500 SES volunteers in the field.

"Our landscapes are entirely saturated, our dams are basically full and the river systems, those channels, are also full," she said.

"Any additional rain, even the smallest amount, vastly increases the risk of both riverine but particularly flash flooding."

A warning area for severe weather extends from the Queensland border in the north to Wilcannia in the state's central west.

Farmers are concerned the latest deluge will destroy another crop and graziers have been warned to to shelter their stock from the wind and rain.

"There is a risk of losses of lambs and sheep exposed to these conditions," the BOM warned.

Many NSW towns are dealing with renewed flooding, including the town of Warren, where major flooding is occurring again on the Macquarie River.

"It hasn't been hammering with rain, but we have had such a lot of rain consistently, basically since Christmas, that it just doesn't have a chance to dry out," Macquarie Caravan Park owner Carolyn Monkley told AAP.

"Rainfall here is totally different to rainfall on the coast. A couple of inches out here makes it very very ... soggy."

Other towns of concern include Condobolin, Nyngan, Cobar, Bourke, Wanaaring and Brewarrina.

Flood warnings are current across inland catchments including the Namoi, Macquarie, Bogan, Lachlan, Murrumbidgee, Murray, Edward, Culgoa, Birrie, Bokhara, Warrego, Paroo, Barwon, Darling, Macintyre and Snowy rivers.

Minor flooding is predicted on Thursday in western Sydney's Hawkesbury-Nepean region.

Coastal catchments including the Hunter, Hawkesbury and Colo rivers, and Wollombi Brook, are being monitored with rises expected.

The federal government has announced disaster assistance will be extended to 27 local government areas in inland NSW.

The funding can help people whose homes or properties have been damaged, help councils with restoring assets, or assist primary producers and small business owners.

© AAP 2022