In the early 1990s, I wrote to Terry MacKenroth, then Police Minister, to seek redress for the lives that Queensland Special Branch had tried to destroy during the struggle for democratic rights in Queensland in the 70s and 80s.
The Minister wrote back that we could not get access to our files, saying that our files had been destroyed. According to the Minister, no further redress was needed. Tomorrow, I am facing political charges arising out of the May Day celebrations in Brisbane, held this year on the 6th of May, 2024. I stood in quiet disapproval of the Queensland Premier and yesterday’s man, Steven Miles, because of his government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians.
The conviction will be automatically spent after a set time has passed (the rehabilitation period) in which there have been no more convictions.
Yesterday, I went to Police prosecutions to obtain the details of the charges. Attached to the charges sheet was a document called Queensland court outcomes. It listed 14 charges that arose from my direct participation in street marches in the 1970s and during the SEQEB dispute in 1985. Tomorrow, the 28th of November, over seven months after May Day celebrations, I go before a magistrate to answer the charges.
The Magistrate only gets the charge sheet
I have made enquiries and apparently, the only document the magistrate will see is a Queensland Police Service Court brief called the QP9. I do not know if this is true or not. Bear in mind my letter to the police minister who said all our police files had been destroyed. Terry MacKenroth was talking about police files held in police HQ in Makerston Street in Brisbane CBD.
I have the benefit of having visited the building where the files were kept. I was there on a search for speaking equipment that police had confiscated. In those days, there were no security checks, and I walked freely into the building and came to the rooms where the files were stored. According to the document I was given yesterday by Police Prosecutions, some of the charges listed come from files that I saw in Makerston street in 1978.
The charges sheet is both incomplete and inaccurate. I have kept records of my charges and the ensuing court cases and appeals to higher courts from those days over 40 years ago.
What I am saying is my records from the 1970s and 80s are accurate, whereas the ones held by police are not. The files held by the Queensland special branch were subject of a Masters thesis at Griffith University The Queensland Police Special Branch 1948 to 1989: History, Function and Impact by former special branch officer Barry Krosch. His complicity in the repression of ordinary people’s resistance to the Bjelke-Peterson government is recorded in these pages . His unit was dissolved by the Labor government government in the early 1990s. This officer and others clearly kept a number of the files, inaccurate as they were.
The police that issued the warrant for my arrest and had it executed on the 8th of November this year came from the tactical crime squad. Now, this is a dangerous police unit because they are active in the repression of people opposed to Israel’s genocide in Palestine. The police officer who prepared the court brief certified that “the facts as outlined in this court brief are a true and accurate summary of all of the facts concerning this investigation as presently known to me.”
B*******
People involved in political organisation need to be cautious in dealing with these police because they are and have become a political police presence defending the genocide. Queensland Police Service Major Events and Planning are coordinating with tactical crime squad to target specific activists and to bring them before the court as a form of harassment, regardless of the merits or accuracy of the case. Unfortunately for activists oppose to the genocide these police are obtaining help from outside organisations including the Queensland council for unions who ordered the attack on trade unionists at the podium at this year’s May Day Celebrations in Brisbane.
Ian Curr
27 November 2024