SHREDDERGATE -
THE AUSTRALIAN MEDIA ON TRIAL -
SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, REPORT NO EVIL

Article presented with documentation on Shreddergate to delegates at the World Association of Press Council's conference held in Brisbane in June 1999.

No society which values freedom of the press and the rule of law can allow any government deliberately to destroy public records of child abuse of children in its care to prevent their use in court.

This abuse of public office has been covered up for over nine years.

Welcome to Queensland; welcome to Shreddergate; welcome to freedom of the press Australia-style as practised by The Courier-Mail in Brisbane.

Two weeks ago the Forde Commission of Inquiry into the Abuse of Children in Queensland Institutions tabled its damning report in Parliament. It found unacceptable and sickening abuse of children in many Queensland Institutions, including State run Youth Detention Centres like the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre. It found that abuse had been concealed or ignored for many years.

The Forde Report recommended criminal charges in 14 cases. It recommended that the Queensland Government spend some $100m on the welfare of children in institutions to ensure such abuses never occur again. It said this about the handcuffing abuse at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre at page 173: "That as more than 12 months have elapsed since the date of the commission of the offence, no prosecution for any such breach can now be made."

This was not a tragedy suddenly revealed, which no one knew about. Justice should have been done nine years ago. The background to the establishment of the Forde Inquiry, the events surrounding the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre and the aborted 1989/90 Heiner Inquiry and shredding of its evidence were well known.

In one of its most breath-taking examples of journalistic double standards The Courier-Mail on 9 June 1999 had the cheek to ask why did all this (ie child abuse) take so long (to be exposed). It then claimed that it was responsible for revealing the abuse at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre that triggered the Forde Inquiry last year.

The truth is that The Courier-Mail had no other option than to jump on the bandwagon around May 1998 after years of ignoring the issue. The stench of the shredding of the Heiner Inquiry documents became even too much for The Courier-Mail to ignore. It could no longer ignore the extraordinary intervention of Queensland's former police commissioner into the Centre's activities of some nine years earlier when he discovered in May 1998, by talking to long ignored witnesses, that child abuse had occurred at that State run Institution and been covered up for years.

But, as professional journalists, you may well ask: What has the media been doing? Wasn't anyone complaining to the ever-vigilant media whose privileged role in a free society is to guard its freedom and not become beholden to any government by unprofessional reporting.

There was one lone voice of dissent. It was Kevin Lindeberg's. There was one lone journalist who listened. It was Bruce Grundy's of The Weekend Independent and Inside Queensland.

As you read this document the scandal remains unresolved. The final chapter has not been written because no one in authority wants to turn the page to squarely face where ultimate responsibility lies. What makes it all the more disturbing and hypocritical is how and why mainstream print media have assisted in allowing the facts to be covered up.

Even when patting itself on the back for purportedly bringing about the Forde Inquiry because it headlined the child abuse incidents The Courier-Mail has failed to champion the larger issue of holding a Queensland Government to account over criminal acts committed nine years ago directly linked to the reason for the Forde Inquiry: the knowing shredding of evidence of child abuse.

At the heart of this affair is that the Queensland Government on 5 March 1990 secretly and deliberately shredded evidence of child abuse gathered by the Heiner Inquiry into the Centre in order to cover it up. It also shredded the evidence when knowing that it was required for court. The law forbids such conduct.

For over nine years, day after day, Lindeberg, who lost his job when he challenged the Queensland Government's plan to shred the evidence, has relentlessly told Queensland authorities that the shredding was illegal. He has wanted it to be thoroughly and impartially investigated. It has never been properly investigated because "Queensland's system of Government" would be put on trial. The matter has even reached the Australian Senate.

Nine Network's Sunday programme in February and March 1999 screened his story nationwide. It was called "Queensland's Secret Shame." It revealed that the Queensland Government was aware that evidence of child abuse was being shredded when it ordered the destruction of the Heiner Inquiry documents. It showed that the entire Cabinet may have broken the law. It showed lies being peddled by former Ministers.

The Forde Inquiry was only permitted by the current Queensland Government to investigate the incidents of child abuse. It was not permitted to investigate the shredding by the Cabinet nine years earlier because of its crafty Terms of Reference. Even when confronted with the facts of the shredding, the Forde Inquiry did not seek to extend its Terms of Reference. Sitting in the current Queensland Government responsible for the Terms of Reference are five senior Ministers who ordered the shredding nine years ago.

Lindeberg told the Forde Inquiry that its lack of preparedness to do anything about the shredding:"…displays an "unacceptable sycophantic deference to the Beattie Government" because it must know that the shredding of evidence of maltreatment of children by the Crown cannot be separated from the actual maltreatment, especially when the shredding was done for the express purpose of covering up the maltreatment."

THE ROLE OF THE AUSTRALIAN PRESS COUNCIL

In July 1997 another remarkable incident occurred showing how far "the system" would go to suppress this scandal. It occurred at the Connolly/Ryan Judicial Inquiry into the Effectiveness of the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC). A submission (Exhibit 394) prepared by Lindeberg's counsel was declared a public exhibit by the Inquiry on 13 May 1997. It was placed on the Inquiry public register and read. The Gold Coast Bulletin newspaper filed a story on 20 May 1997. ABC-Radio 4QR filed Statewide news stories on it shortly afterwards. In effect, it was published to the world.

On 7 and 8 July 1997 at the request of the CJC, and other parties, the Connolly/Ryan Inquiry placed a suppression order on Exhibit 394 after being a public exhibit for nearly two months. It applied the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1950 retrospectively. Both Lindeberg and Grundy separately challenged the suppression order declaring it an unprecedented abuse of power and an affront to freedom of the press.

They took their concerns to the Australian Press Council (APC). They requested that it be taken up urgently as a matter of principle. The Council's Freedom of the Press Committee took advice from Queensland Newspapers and wrote to the then Queensland Attorney-General concerning the use of the Commission of Inquiry Act 1950 by the Inquiry.

In order to defend freedom of the press Grundy published extracts of Exhibit 394 in The Weekend Independent, and then published the entire submission on the newspaper's Web page. The Courier-Mail did nothing publicly to defend freedom of the press.

The APC took the view that, as the Connolly/Ryan Inquiry had ceased to exist, and as the Attorney-General could have legal difficulties in instituting contempt proceedings arising from Grundy's publication, it closed its file declaring that the document was in the "market-place of ideas."

Grundy, one journalist amongst hundreds who rely on freedom of the press, took his profession seriously!

A MATTER OF CONTEMPT OF PARLIAMENT

Attached to this document are privileged documents tabled in the Queensland Parliament on 10 June 1999.

A perusal will show that there is conclusive evidence that Queensland Premier Beattie wilfully misled Parliament on 4 March 1999. It is alleged that he did so in order to defeat an Opposition motion for the establishment of a commission of inquiry to investigate possible impropriety involving criminal conduct of five of his senior Ministers. Beattie claimed 10 inquiries had investigated Lindeberg's allegation. The facts show that his claim is untrue.

The Opposition's motion was moved after the nationwide screening on the shredding. If found in contempt, the Beattie Government could have been placed in considerable jeopardy with its majority of one.

The Beattie contempt of Parliament matter was moved on 10 June 1999 to have it referred to the Members' Ethics and Parliamentary Privileges Committee. Privilege matters normally go through on the voices but this time the Queensland Government defeated the motion 43-42, with an Independent Member of Parliament voting with the Government.

The Queensland Government's use of numbers to prevent a serious allegation of contempt from being referred to the Privileges Committee is a newsworthy matter, but nothing is normal in this affair as "the system" tries desperately to keep a lid on it. This extraordinary event surrounding contempt of Parliament was witnessed by the Press Gallery but not one mention of it appeared in The Courier-Mail or on ABC-Radio.

THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA

The media can expose corruption just as easily as it can ignore it. It can highlight the trivial and downplay the significant. It can protect democracy just as easily as it can bow to tyranny.

The Australian Society of Archives and other world archives bodies view the Heiner shredding as a cause celebre realising that unless a society can properly protect its public records, democracy will be endangered.

Shreddergate has plagued our nation's political scene for over nine years. It will continue to do so until justice has been done. Its corruption reaches into the following areas:

The role of the Australian print media in keeping Shreddergate from being completely uncovered cannot be easily explained away. It is covered on the Internet and documents are available on the public record. Web page at:

http://www.gwb.com.au/gwb/news/goss/

This gathering of journalists would do well to check out the facts of Shreddergate. You would do well to ask how and why a scandal wider in breadth than Watergate could be allowed to remain unresolved if the media has been doing its job resolutely and with professional integrity. You may well ask how and why the Australian media has swallowed the myths, nonsense and lies peddled by "the system" knowing that "the system" has much to gain in hiding the truth, and all the while justice was denied to many.

This gathering of journalists could help restore respect for the print media if it were to express its deep concern for the breaches of professional press conduct in Queensland over this affair.