Media Release.
Shadow Police
Minister Bill Byrne says the Queensland Police Service restructure announced by
the Police Commissioner Ian Stewart last week is now up in the air after Premier
Campbell Newman has backed away from supporting legislation to sack
police.
Mr Byrne said
last week the Police Commissioner and Deputy Premier Jeff Seeney said they would
change the legislation if they needed to make it possible to fire police
officers.
“The proposal
by the Deputy Premier to change the legislation to facilitate mandatory
redundancies in the police service should never have been floated in the first
place because it has the potential to undermine the integrity of the QPS,” he
said.
“But I
understand that after threats from the Queensland Police Union today of an ‘all
out war’ if this measure was to proceed, the Premier has back-flipped on last
week’s plan and ruled out changing the legislation.
“This now
leaves the entire restructure in limbo, with the QPS effectively showing no
confidence in the new Police Commissioner and the Premier running a government
that has to be forced to back away from bad ideas.
“The Premier
and Police Minister Jack Dempsey need to explain to the people of Queensland
whether the police restructure announced last week will still
proceed.
“This is
another example of the haphazard way in which this government ham-fists major
announcements and then backtracks on them at a later date.
“This is also
indicative of how little consultation was conducted on this restructure before
it was announced, as it is obvious the QPU were not properly consulted before
last week,” he said
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