Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

In this sitting of parliament, I have been talking about the pretty disturbing stories about the Tasmanian police service. This is not about the majority of hardworking, dedicated police officers that we have, who put their lives on the line for Tasmanians every day. This is about some rotten apples in our police force who are involved in cover-ups and, in some cases, campaigns of intimidation against some of their own serving police officers who are just trying to do the right thing.

Today I'm going to tell you the story of Christine. Christine had been a loyal and effective admin officer for Tasmania Police for over a decade. In 2019 she was the licensee of the Police Academy bar. According to Christine, the books were a mess, so she set about sorting it out. A few weeks in with a new boss, Christine was approached by a senior officer who told Christine he was providing free drinks to other police personnel at the bar. Christine told him he would need to send an email so that she could square the books. Her request was met with anger and then retribution.

What the Tasmanian police did to this hardworking, loyal, ethical and intelligent woman is absolutely appalling. When Christine escalated her concerns to the deputy secretary, she was stood down and told to work from home. Christine was told she was being investigated for gross misconduct and, then, in a shocking example of overreach, Christine's home was raided by the Tasmania Police Serious and Organised Crime Division and Tasmania Police's professional standards unit. When this raid took place, Christine's autistic son's computer was confiscated but hers was not taken. This was despite being told by Christine's partner that their son was enormously reliant on his computer. A police officer even said that they were 'going to put his mum in jail'. To say that in front of an autistic child is absolutely shameful. I should note here that Christine's son is still extremely traumatised by the event and, when people visit—and I have been there—he retreats to his room until the coast is clear.

For Christine, the matter of working from home and deleting generic networked emails from a shared networked email account—meaning several other state service employees were also using this email account—went before the Magistrates Court of Tasmania. Christine's case was thrown out from lack of evidence—of course. The search warrant had redacted the justice of the peace's name. That's all you need in Tasmania—a justice of the peace to sign off on a search warrant. Christine has subsequently found out that the justice of the peace was not registered on the Department of Justice's website.

When Christine eventually returned to work, instead of getting support, she faced humiliation, discrimination and a breach of the antidiscrimination laws. I'll just remind you again that the reason Christine was being put through this was that she needed to account for the free alcohol consumed by the Tasmania Police Academy bar. Christine was told that, because she was on the autism spectrum—this is shocking—she would be required to buy signs that indicated a person with autism was working. This was both humiliating, as you can imagine, and completely unnecessary. Christine was banned from using the same tearooms, toilets and entrances as her colleagues. Within a month, Christine was stood down again. This time, as the criminal matter for deletion of networked emails didn't stick, a state service breach of code of conduct was applied. The pattern was clear to Christine. This wasn't process; it was pressure. It wasn't just pressure; it was bloody bullying. I'll call it—it was absolute bullying.

In 2021, Christine was cleared of any wrongdoing. When she approached the legal counsel for the Tasmanian Integrity Commission, Christine told her story and asked for help. The department then commissioned an independent investigation into Christine's case. That report was completed and given to the secretary of the department in February, but Christine had to wait until May to discover she was cleared of any wrongdoing. During this time, the department deleted all of Christine's emails, so she had no evidence of what happened, and, even after being cleared in May, she was not allowed to return to the workplace until the following January.

When Christine did return, she once again faced discrimination and exclusion. Despite formally lodging complaints about the raid and other mistreatment, Christine was unable to access the Tasmania Police's professional standards unit for help or support because officers within this unit were involved in the misconduct being complained about. Even after sending her complaints through to the acting commander of the professional standards unit, nothing happened. She was repeatedly told her complaints had been registered, and only through right-to-information requests and the involvement of the ombudsman did she discover that none of the complaints had been recorded or investigated.

Christine's case raises serious and alarming questions. If complaints about Tasmania Police misconduct cannot be properly registered or investigated, how on earth can victims of more serious crimes, likes sexual assault by their own, come forward and trust that their complaints will be taken seriously? This is a pattern of systemic failure here. Victims have been left without protection, and abusers have remained in positions of power. There's Eden Westbrook's case, the Sue Neill-Fraser case, the Helen Bird case and Sally's case, which I spoke about on Wednesday, to name just a few—and there are more to come.

Current oversight bodies, including the Tasmanian Integrity Commission, lack sufficient powers to address corruption or systemic abuse.

Christine went to see the legal counsel of the Tasmanian Integrity Commission and was told by the counsel that they don't investigate corruption, as it isn't in their act. Can you believe that, Australia? We have an integrity commission, as it's called, in Tasmania, and it doesn't investigate corruption. How laughable and how shameful on Tasmania and its government! They don't investigate Tasmanian police because—wait for it—they have a quid pro quo arrangement with the police. That is the Tasmanian police doing investigations for the integrity commission. They're just like Defence, regulating themselves and marking their own homework. It is absolutely shameful! By the way, the Tasmanian Integrity Commission has never held a public hearing or even done a prosecution. That is what Tasmania has to rely on. Shameful, isn't it?

Christine loved her job and was good at it. Just because she needed a paper trail so that booze wasn't being lifted from the academy bar without proper accounting, her career in the Tasmanian police service is now over.