Queensland police officers and staff who made racist comments in leaked recordings have yet to receive disciplinary sanctions despite the Commissioner's promise.
The officers joking about “beating and burying black people” amid other racist slurs and Islamophobic comments while working in a Brisbane watch house.
The Queensland Police commissioner Katarina Carroll said last year she believed officers who make such comments “should not be in the organisation” after The Guardian published the recordings in November 2022.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk condemned the recordings and deputy police commissioner, Mark Wheeler apologised at the time, saying the “beliefs and remarks have no place in society, let alone a professional workplace where vulnerable people are held in custody.”
However, nine months later, revealed two police officers and two assistant watch house officers were dealt with via “local management resolution” (LMR) - a process defined in QPS procedures as “appropriate” when “a disciplinary sanction is not required.”
Last year, Carroll admitted the police disciplinary system was broken after numerous examples of racist and sexist comments within the force that had been addressed via LMR.
Despite the admission, an internal investigation was conducted, the watch house officers were dealt with via LMR and no consequences have been handed down.
National Director at Change the Record and Gunggari person, Maggie Munn, said it was “mind-blowing” the officers involved had avoided repercussions and called the investigation “insufficient”.
“These things were serious enough for someone to courageously blow the whistle and it’s only been investigated internally,” they told The Guardian.
“I’m not surprised that an internal investigation hasn’t amounted to any real justice or accountability.”'
A Queensland police spokesperson said the state’s force had recently created an internal unit of “specialist investigators” to provide “consistent, objective and independent responses to these types of allegations”.
