BOB CAMPBELL'S WAR
Chapter 7 Murphy takes a hit
Hooper now stepped up his attack.
"What has the internal investigations section been doing of late?" he asked the chamber. "Its members have anticipated the attacks that might be levelled against their corrupt superiors. They have embarked on a program of intimidation of potential witnesses by threatening them with transfer and suggesting their future in the police force is in grave doubt. That has been done in conjunction with the trumping up of evidence that could be vital in protecting some senior officers who are well aware of the amount of evidence against them.
"Let the police commissioner try to deny that that is going on. To put the record straight, who are the criminals in the police force who are being protected? They include none other than the commissioner himself, Mr Terence Murray Lewis, and his assistant commissioner Tony Murphy. Both officers have had meteoric rises. As boys they were banished to the bush by a former honest commissioner for their conduct but have risen to stardom under this National-Party-controlled Government. This Parliament is well aware of Mr Lewis's conduct in the Lyons fiasco.
"Mr Murphy is deeply indebted to the police union for its financial support when he was charged with perjury. That charge followed his conduct during the National Hotel Royal Commission. I might add that he was not convicted. The chief witness against Mr Murphy was Shirley Brifman who was not available owing to her untimely
death.
“His protection of a former police commissioner has also been well documented. Who has been singing the praises of Murphy for many years? None other than the police minister Mr Hinze."
And he read out the praise Hinze had heaped upon Murphy and Hallahan back in 1971, adding that: "Hallahan was subsequently kicked out of the police force because of his criminal activities."
Hooper said Hinze had ended that speech in 1971 by saying: "I conclude by saying that it is a sad day for Queensland when week after week police inquiries are held into graft and corruption on the say so of crooks,
spivs, bludgers, prostitutes and anyone else. If that is what we are coming to it is about time we gave the game away."
Hinze now interjected and said: "It was true then and it is true now."
Hooper countered: "It was not true and the minister knows it. It is now April 1982, almost 11 years later and the same charges are being laid and there is still no investigation. It has been business as usual under this
Government for the last 11 years.
"Murphy's protection of gambling joints and massage parlours is legend in the police force. All of this would come out before a Royal Commission but not before this toothless tiger tribunal.
"Let me now move to more recent times - March 9 1982, to be exact. A document was read to this House by the Police Minister. After attacking the credibility of the two former police officers who had made allegations of
corruption in high places in the Queensland Police Force, the Minister concluded his speech by saying: 'The Police Commissioner has my complete confidence.'
"In that document there was a paragraph that was not read by the Minister. It reads: 'He tells me Asst Comm Tony Murphy is an outstanding officer who is widely known as a person who has a complete aversion to drug offenders and that he has worked hard and with considerable success to put such offenders down. I accept unreservedly what the Commissioner says. I do not doubt it would be of great comfort to the drug offenders of this State if Asst Comm Tony Murphy was removed from his important work during his involvement in a Royal Commission.'
"Why a Minister, or whoever prepared that document for him, provided what can be described only as a defence of Mr Murphy in relation to drugs, and pre-empt his appearance before a Royal Commission - should one be
commissioned - that paragraph is all the more baffling when it is remembered that no person had publicly raised the name of Mr Murphy in relation to drugs or even suggested that he would be named as one of the senior police officers involved in corruption charges. So how did the paragraph come about? Has someone in the Minister's office or at police headquarters got a good crystal ball? Or could they sniff the way the breeze was blowing? I will tell the House why it was prepared. The allegations that I am making are such common
knowledge inside the force that the paragraph was typed up as a matter of course on that assumption. The defence was prepared but someone picked up the gaffe and the Minister did not make his remarks."
National Party Minister Martin Tenni said: "I have never known such a competent and highly respected police officer. I knew his wife Maureen and his family very well. It disgusts me that the name of such a person should
be brought down to gutter level in the debate today. He was one of the finest detectives that this State has ever seen and we should be proud of the number of offenders he brought to justice."
National Party member Rob Borbidge, a future National Party Premier, decried Hooper and accused him of having embarrassed his colleagues. "It is beyond my comprehension how anyone could make such statements before a
gallery of schoolchildren."
Another senior National Party figure, Bob Katter Junior, said: "I state quite emphatically that the denigration of Terry Lewis leaves a bad taste in the mouth of every fair-minded person." And he voiced the way in which
his party had long perceived the force: "Frankly, academics are not needed in the police force. What are needed are tough and intelligent men who are skilled in their particular areas. They will not obtain those sorts of skills by
running around a university learning about sociology. There is only one school they should attend and that is the school of hard knocks. I think that every member of this chamber knows in his own heart that the police force is now so much better than it was three or five years ago or whenever it was that Mr Whitrod was in charge."
But there it was. Allegations that Queensland's police commissioner and one of his assistant commissioners were corrupt were now out in the open.
The following morning the Courier Mail carried a 32-paragraph story which started with Lewis saying he had been approached by Sir Edward Lyons after the knight had been stopped for drink driving. Then there were details
from the Parliamentary debate. It was not until readers had ploughed through 26 paragraphs that they learned that Hooper had named Lewis and Murphy as being crooks.
Lewis finally agreed to appear on Nationwide to say: "My first reaction is that the comment was made by a politician under Parliamentary privilege. He then went on to qualify it by quoting one incident, and one
incident only, where he claims that I gave undue favourable advantage to a gentleman who was involved in a UIL (drink-driving) charge."
The Commissioner said he did not think he had given Sir Edward Lyons any favoured treatment at all. And no, there was no corruption at the top of the force. It was all the doing of one man, Kev Hooper, who was out on his
own. The Labor Party was no longer backing him, said Lewis.
A retired magistrate named Jock Rutherford had been widely tipped to sit on the tribunal with Judge William Carter and the union's Col Chant. Lewis phoned one of his sergeants regarding a magistrate called Rodgers.
Then came an unexpected entry in Lewis's diary, saying that ALP police spokesman Bob Gibbs phoned him "re ALP members disassociating themselves from Mr Hooper's comments".
That night Hooper was back on Nationwide where the anchorman recalled how Lewis had said it was not the Labor Party making allegations against him but one man, Kevin Hooper. The anchorman said: "Echoing Mr Lewis's
comments from the least expected quarter today came Mr Hooper's party colleague Mr Bob Gibbs, pointing out that he and not Mr Hooper is the police spokesman and that he had only respect for Mr Lewis and had seen no evidence from his party colleague to suggest otherwise."
Hooper told the camera: "Well. I'm rather surprised because I think the opposition has had a marvellous win. I'm at a complete loss to understand why Mr Gibbs is so..."
The interviewer interrupted him to ask why the split had occurred.
"Oh, the Labor Party is a democratic party and Mr Gibbs is entitled to his opinion. I certainly agree with you that if handled properly it could and should be an election winner."
The interviewer asked Big Kev if he thought Gibbs would have any reason for wanting to protect the commissioner.
"Oh I wouldn't think so. I wouldn't think that Mr Gibbs would have any reason to protect any member of the Queensland Police Force," said Hooper.
"So where's the logic then?" asked the interviewer.
"Well, I agree with you Jane. There doesn't seem to be any logic."
Next day Lewis phoned the Premier regarding Rodgers. Magistrate Phillip Rodgers was eventually appointed to the tribunal.
The Courier Mail reported: "The Labor Party's police spokesman Bob Gibbs last night cut the ground from under Labor's outspoken police critic Kevin Hooper on allegations of corruption in the force. Mr Gibbs said Mr
Hooper's allegations were causing a credibility problem for the Opposition." Gibbs, who had replaced Hooper as police spokesman about 18 months earlier, said the Opposition had a responsibility to act in a responsible manner. If charges were made there was an obligation to prove them.
Brian Bolton, Lewis's mate on the Sunday Sun, reported on April 4 that deputy commissioner Les Duffy was upset with Hooper's criticism. Duffy hit the nail on the head when he said he must be regarded as a prize dill. "If
you believe what you hear in Parliament these days I'm letting two men who have been labelled as crime czars operate right under my nose. I must be asleep on the job. I should be sacked." He said as officer in charge of internal investigations he must be a total failure not to recognise criminals working alongside him. "So must the section's five top-line investigators, all hand-picked by me for their expertise, experience and, above all,
impartiality."
Bolton also focussed on the Gibbs-Hooper row. Gibbs was quoted as saying: "I don't deny Kev Hooper his right to make statements but as Opposition spokesman I can also put up the alternative views which I believe are held by the majority of the Labor caucus," Hooper countered that Gibbs was "probably the quietest Opposition police spokesman he had seen in Parliament". And Hinze said: "It's not Gibbs against Hooper, it's the Labor Party. The
Government was aware last week that a number of ALP members had indicated they did not want to be associated with him."
It was then revealed that Gibbs had been given a ride by Police Minister Hinze in the police aircraft to a mid-week race meeting out in the country.
On the 5th, Lewis asked Insp Bradbury how his inquiry into the Woolloongabba Worrier was going. Bradbury said Campbell and Cook were the main offenders.
On the 8th, Lewis saw the Premier regarding the police tribunal and "the need for experienced membership, for example A B Duncan"! Then Lewis met Hinze to push Duncan as being an ideal member for the tribunal.
Duncan had been the senior officer who had once described Hallahan as an outstanding detective and who honest commissioner Ray Whitrod had removed from the team looking after Shirley Brifman after leaks to the underworld about her as she started naming corrupt officers.
On April 24, Campbell wrote to the chairman of the tribunal, Judge Carter. He could see no point in dealing with the tribunal, he said.
On May 4, Lewis went to see Judge Carter regarding the police tribunal and noted in his diary: "R. Gibbs phoned re 'dossier' on him, support for us."
Campbell and his family were finished. Apart from Hooper, they had found no support in the battle of honesty against corruption.
They slipped quietly out of the State, taking their possessions, hopes and what was left of the cash from the sale of their home to the island state of Tasmania. They rented a house in Sandy Bay, a Hobart suburb. Campbell shaved off his moustache and they kept as low a profile as possible. He did not bother defending writs. He decided that if he spent money and time contesting them, there was always the risk of the case coming up before a judge who favoured the other side. And his opponents had all the money of the State behind them.
Still he couldn't get a job. He believed prospective employers were contacting his previous employer and were being put off. And because of this it was likely Lewis would already have someone searching the Apple Isle for
him.
Money was fast disappearing. Campbell decided to make the most of his enforced leisure by returning to university for a year. Perhaps when he had finished, Lewis and Murphy might have been removed.
In years to come members of the police complaints tribunal would claim that they failed to deal with corruption because the tribunal was 'reactive' rather than 'pro-active'. In other words, it could only react to complaints and was not allowed under its Act to initiate investigations. Its secretary, for example, issued just such a statement in October 1987. Yet in 1982 the initial chairman, Judge Carter, said quite plainly that the tribunal had initiated inquiries into misconduct. Of the Campbell affair, Carter said: "On Friday, June 25, 1982...the tribunal resolved to take no further action."
On July 19 1982 Mrs Campbell was at home when there was a knock at the door.
"Mrs Campbell?"
"Yes?"
It was all Dennis O'Day needed. He was a server of writs.
"I don't know where Bob is," she said. "He may be in Brisbane living with his mother."
O'Day left his card and said he would be back.
Lewis had written in his diary two days earlier: "Phoned Max Robinson re ex-Sen Cons Campbell located at Sandy Bay, Hobart." They had hunted down their quarry.
On July 28 O'Day, armed with a photo of Campbell taken from a video of the Nationwide program, hitched a ride from Hobart out to Sandy Bay. Not for him a taxi or his own car. The police network meant that he was chauffeur driven in a police car. At Mt St Candice Convent where Campbell was hoping to obtain a job as a teacher, O'Day served Campbell with the writ.
"Are you Mr Campbell?"
"Yes. Why were you following me in a police car? It was you, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"What were you doing in a police car?"
O'Day said he had requested it and that it was a frequent procedure.
"Mr Campbell, you had ample opportunity to ring me as I left my card with your wife."
"I know all about the card. I am now going to Max Bingham to make an official complaint about police persecution. I have done nothing wrong in this state."
Bingham was the police minister.
Lewis still seemed to be intent on revenge. On August 24 he talked to Col Chant and another union official about charging Cons 1/c Cook.
The Fitzgerald Report said later that Bradbury's report concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone with anything. But Bradbury told Cook the Commissioner was extremely upset and had put Cook at the
top of his hit list. The best thing he could do was resign, said Bradbury, who added that he would even type the resignation for him. Cook refused and was told he would be moved to Longreach, a small town right in the middle of Queensland's vast outback. The posting had - said the report - been proposed by Murphy, who himself had been sent to the same town in exile back in 1975 by honest commissioner Whitrod. Cook's wife was based in Brisbane as an air hostess and would have to leave her job so he refused the move. He was immediately suspended without pay. The union negotiated with Lewis and a deal was arranged so that if Cook agreed to plead guilty to a departmental charge of failing to obey a lawful direction he would only be sent 50 kilometres away from home to Ipswich. He did so and for three years he drove 100 kilometres to work and back each day. The
stress and victimisation cost him his marriage.
It seemed that once again 'they' had won and that everything Campbell and others had tried had come to nothing. It appeared to be business as before for corruption unlimited.
Campbell and his colleagues weren't to know it, but they had achieved a major triumph.
Murphy could have continued serving for many years, rising almost certainly to deputy commissioner. But on October 1, 1982, he tendered his resignation. Murphy referred to discussions with Lewis about what had led to the defamation actions.
The letter discussed the effect of "the slander emanating from that program" on Murphy's prospects of promotion and said they had agreed that Murphy would not seek further promotion. "I now find myself somewhat disconcerted by this chain of events and have consequently decided to opt for early retirement on December 21, 1982. Please be assured of my continued loyalty and personal friendship."
At 55 his career was over. Now, just one of the original Rat Pack remained.
With an election due, Lewis gave what was almost a party political speech in favour of Joh and the Nationals. His gushing speech, reported by the media, included sentences such as: "The people of Queensland and the police force owe the Premier a very deep gratitude. The free enterprise policy of the Bjelke-Petersen Government has been responsible for Queensland's tremendous growth."
Would the people remember the Nationwide program? And would they take heed of Terry White, a Liberal Minister who had taken the reins of the Liberals in Parliament, had torn up the coalition agreement with the corrupt Nationals and was promising honest accountable government? Voters ignored both and when counting had finished, the Nationals were two short of governing in their own right for the first time. Two Liberals forsook the people who had voted them into Parliament by becoming turncoats and joining the Nationals. One of them was Rat Pack associate Donald Frederick Lane!
Joh proposed Lewis for a knighthood. But Buckingham Palace refused on the grounds that it was too soon after the awarding of an OBE.
Campbell's torment reached the stage where he was suffering from a duodenal ulcer. He also had exceptionally high blood pressure which had to be treated before he could be operated on for the ulcer. He wasn't worrying about himself but what could happen to his children. He was convinced 'they' would do something. And perhaps 'they' would load him up with drugs.
He still had not given up trying to get something done about the corruption. In 1984 he wrote to the National Crime Authority (NCA) which had just been set up, despite strong opposition from the State Government. Back in
1982 the Government had apparently been so worried about the possible effect of the authority's predecessor, the Costigan Commission, that Lewis recorded in his diary on September 9: "Allen Callaghan phoned re moves Government could make to counter Prime Minister and Costigan." And Lewis had given the Premier the dreadful news that Frank Costigan QC was a Labor man.
The NCA sent along a policeman from Victoria who kept making excuses for the Queensland police as he interviewed Campbell. Campbell wrote other letters to the Federal body. He did not receive replies.
He did gain some secret revenge by helping to shape the characters and events in a wickedly realistic three-part 'fictional' TV film on corrupt police and the way they ran crime and even killed. Police union president Col Chant, a man who insisted there was no corruption in the Queensland force, said the union planned to insist on seeing the series, Scales of Justice, to vet it before it went to air. The morning after the first episode, union secretary Callaghan said the wives of senior policemen had been physically sick. The film was 'absolute drivel' he said. The union demanded the resignation of the ABC chairman and an apology. It threatened to instruct police not to talk to ABC journalists. And Labor frontbencher Gibbs said all Australians should boycott the final episode. The film should be publicly condemned, he said.
In 1987 the documents from Hooper's safe were given to the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Campbell found a degree of fulfilment as a counsellor and teacher of religion, English and social studies at a Christian Brothers College in Tasmania, having qualified as a psychologist in 1983 and as a teacher at the
end of 1987. But he could not forget the worry and expense, and the damage to his health and to his family's happiness. And he was still living in a 'foreign' land where he did not want to be.
"What has the internal investigations section been doing of late?" he asked the chamber. "Its members have anticipated the attacks that might be levelled against their corrupt superiors. They have embarked on a program of intimidation of potential witnesses by threatening them with transfer and suggesting their future in the police force is in grave doubt. That has been done in conjunction with the trumping up of evidence that could be vital in protecting some senior officers who are well aware of the amount of evidence against them.
"Let the police commissioner try to deny that that is going on. To put the record straight, who are the criminals in the police force who are being protected? They include none other than the commissioner himself, Mr Terence Murray Lewis, and his assistant commissioner Tony Murphy. Both officers have had meteoric rises. As boys they were banished to the bush by a former honest commissioner for their conduct but have risen to stardom under this National-Party-controlled Government. This Parliament is well aware of Mr Lewis's conduct in the Lyons fiasco.
"Mr Murphy is deeply indebted to the police union for its financial support when he was charged with perjury. That charge followed his conduct during the National Hotel Royal Commission. I might add that he was not convicted. The chief witness against Mr Murphy was Shirley Brifman who was not available owing to her untimely
death.
“His protection of a former police commissioner has also been well documented. Who has been singing the praises of Murphy for many years? None other than the police minister Mr Hinze."
And he read out the praise Hinze had heaped upon Murphy and Hallahan back in 1971, adding that: "Hallahan was subsequently kicked out of the police force because of his criminal activities."
Hooper said Hinze had ended that speech in 1971 by saying: "I conclude by saying that it is a sad day for Queensland when week after week police inquiries are held into graft and corruption on the say so of crooks,
spivs, bludgers, prostitutes and anyone else. If that is what we are coming to it is about time we gave the game away."
Hinze now interjected and said: "It was true then and it is true now."
Hooper countered: "It was not true and the minister knows it. It is now April 1982, almost 11 years later and the same charges are being laid and there is still no investigation. It has been business as usual under this
Government for the last 11 years.
"Murphy's protection of gambling joints and massage parlours is legend in the police force. All of this would come out before a Royal Commission but not before this toothless tiger tribunal.
"Let me now move to more recent times - March 9 1982, to be exact. A document was read to this House by the Police Minister. After attacking the credibility of the two former police officers who had made allegations of
corruption in high places in the Queensland Police Force, the Minister concluded his speech by saying: 'The Police Commissioner has my complete confidence.'
"In that document there was a paragraph that was not read by the Minister. It reads: 'He tells me Asst Comm Tony Murphy is an outstanding officer who is widely known as a person who has a complete aversion to drug offenders and that he has worked hard and with considerable success to put such offenders down. I accept unreservedly what the Commissioner says. I do not doubt it would be of great comfort to the drug offenders of this State if Asst Comm Tony Murphy was removed from his important work during his involvement in a Royal Commission.'
"Why a Minister, or whoever prepared that document for him, provided what can be described only as a defence of Mr Murphy in relation to drugs, and pre-empt his appearance before a Royal Commission - should one be
commissioned - that paragraph is all the more baffling when it is remembered that no person had publicly raised the name of Mr Murphy in relation to drugs or even suggested that he would be named as one of the senior police officers involved in corruption charges. So how did the paragraph come about? Has someone in the Minister's office or at police headquarters got a good crystal ball? Or could they sniff the way the breeze was blowing? I will tell the House why it was prepared. The allegations that I am making are such common
knowledge inside the force that the paragraph was typed up as a matter of course on that assumption. The defence was prepared but someone picked up the gaffe and the Minister did not make his remarks."
National Party Minister Martin Tenni said: "I have never known such a competent and highly respected police officer. I knew his wife Maureen and his family very well. It disgusts me that the name of such a person should
be brought down to gutter level in the debate today. He was one of the finest detectives that this State has ever seen and we should be proud of the number of offenders he brought to justice."
National Party member Rob Borbidge, a future National Party Premier, decried Hooper and accused him of having embarrassed his colleagues. "It is beyond my comprehension how anyone could make such statements before a
gallery of schoolchildren."
Another senior National Party figure, Bob Katter Junior, said: "I state quite emphatically that the denigration of Terry Lewis leaves a bad taste in the mouth of every fair-minded person." And he voiced the way in which
his party had long perceived the force: "Frankly, academics are not needed in the police force. What are needed are tough and intelligent men who are skilled in their particular areas. They will not obtain those sorts of skills by
running around a university learning about sociology. There is only one school they should attend and that is the school of hard knocks. I think that every member of this chamber knows in his own heart that the police force is now so much better than it was three or five years ago or whenever it was that Mr Whitrod was in charge."
But there it was. Allegations that Queensland's police commissioner and one of his assistant commissioners were corrupt were now out in the open.
The following morning the Courier Mail carried a 32-paragraph story which started with Lewis saying he had been approached by Sir Edward Lyons after the knight had been stopped for drink driving. Then there were details
from the Parliamentary debate. It was not until readers had ploughed through 26 paragraphs that they learned that Hooper had named Lewis and Murphy as being crooks.
Lewis finally agreed to appear on Nationwide to say: "My first reaction is that the comment was made by a politician under Parliamentary privilege. He then went on to qualify it by quoting one incident, and one
incident only, where he claims that I gave undue favourable advantage to a gentleman who was involved in a UIL (drink-driving) charge."
The Commissioner said he did not think he had given Sir Edward Lyons any favoured treatment at all. And no, there was no corruption at the top of the force. It was all the doing of one man, Kev Hooper, who was out on his
own. The Labor Party was no longer backing him, said Lewis.
A retired magistrate named Jock Rutherford had been widely tipped to sit on the tribunal with Judge William Carter and the union's Col Chant. Lewis phoned one of his sergeants regarding a magistrate called Rodgers.
Then came an unexpected entry in Lewis's diary, saying that ALP police spokesman Bob Gibbs phoned him "re ALP members disassociating themselves from Mr Hooper's comments".
That night Hooper was back on Nationwide where the anchorman recalled how Lewis had said it was not the Labor Party making allegations against him but one man, Kevin Hooper. The anchorman said: "Echoing Mr Lewis's
comments from the least expected quarter today came Mr Hooper's party colleague Mr Bob Gibbs, pointing out that he and not Mr Hooper is the police spokesman and that he had only respect for Mr Lewis and had seen no evidence from his party colleague to suggest otherwise."
Hooper told the camera: "Well. I'm rather surprised because I think the opposition has had a marvellous win. I'm at a complete loss to understand why Mr Gibbs is so..."
The interviewer interrupted him to ask why the split had occurred.
"Oh, the Labor Party is a democratic party and Mr Gibbs is entitled to his opinion. I certainly agree with you that if handled properly it could and should be an election winner."
The interviewer asked Big Kev if he thought Gibbs would have any reason for wanting to protect the commissioner.
"Oh I wouldn't think so. I wouldn't think that Mr Gibbs would have any reason to protect any member of the Queensland Police Force," said Hooper.
"So where's the logic then?" asked the interviewer.
"Well, I agree with you Jane. There doesn't seem to be any logic."
Next day Lewis phoned the Premier regarding Rodgers. Magistrate Phillip Rodgers was eventually appointed to the tribunal.
The Courier Mail reported: "The Labor Party's police spokesman Bob Gibbs last night cut the ground from under Labor's outspoken police critic Kevin Hooper on allegations of corruption in the force. Mr Gibbs said Mr
Hooper's allegations were causing a credibility problem for the Opposition." Gibbs, who had replaced Hooper as police spokesman about 18 months earlier, said the Opposition had a responsibility to act in a responsible manner. If charges were made there was an obligation to prove them.
Brian Bolton, Lewis's mate on the Sunday Sun, reported on April 4 that deputy commissioner Les Duffy was upset with Hooper's criticism. Duffy hit the nail on the head when he said he must be regarded as a prize dill. "If
you believe what you hear in Parliament these days I'm letting two men who have been labelled as crime czars operate right under my nose. I must be asleep on the job. I should be sacked." He said as officer in charge of internal investigations he must be a total failure not to recognise criminals working alongside him. "So must the section's five top-line investigators, all hand-picked by me for their expertise, experience and, above all,
impartiality."
Bolton also focussed on the Gibbs-Hooper row. Gibbs was quoted as saying: "I don't deny Kev Hooper his right to make statements but as Opposition spokesman I can also put up the alternative views which I believe are held by the majority of the Labor caucus," Hooper countered that Gibbs was "probably the quietest Opposition police spokesman he had seen in Parliament". And Hinze said: "It's not Gibbs against Hooper, it's the Labor Party. The
Government was aware last week that a number of ALP members had indicated they did not want to be associated with him."
It was then revealed that Gibbs had been given a ride by Police Minister Hinze in the police aircraft to a mid-week race meeting out in the country.
On the 5th, Lewis asked Insp Bradbury how his inquiry into the Woolloongabba Worrier was going. Bradbury said Campbell and Cook were the main offenders.
On the 8th, Lewis saw the Premier regarding the police tribunal and "the need for experienced membership, for example A B Duncan"! Then Lewis met Hinze to push Duncan as being an ideal member for the tribunal.
Duncan had been the senior officer who had once described Hallahan as an outstanding detective and who honest commissioner Ray Whitrod had removed from the team looking after Shirley Brifman after leaks to the underworld about her as she started naming corrupt officers.
On April 24, Campbell wrote to the chairman of the tribunal, Judge Carter. He could see no point in dealing with the tribunal, he said.
On May 4, Lewis went to see Judge Carter regarding the police tribunal and noted in his diary: "R. Gibbs phoned re 'dossier' on him, support for us."
Campbell and his family were finished. Apart from Hooper, they had found no support in the battle of honesty against corruption.
They slipped quietly out of the State, taking their possessions, hopes and what was left of the cash from the sale of their home to the island state of Tasmania. They rented a house in Sandy Bay, a Hobart suburb. Campbell shaved off his moustache and they kept as low a profile as possible. He did not bother defending writs. He decided that if he spent money and time contesting them, there was always the risk of the case coming up before a judge who favoured the other side. And his opponents had all the money of the State behind them.
Still he couldn't get a job. He believed prospective employers were contacting his previous employer and were being put off. And because of this it was likely Lewis would already have someone searching the Apple Isle for
him.
Money was fast disappearing. Campbell decided to make the most of his enforced leisure by returning to university for a year. Perhaps when he had finished, Lewis and Murphy might have been removed.
In years to come members of the police complaints tribunal would claim that they failed to deal with corruption because the tribunal was 'reactive' rather than 'pro-active'. In other words, it could only react to complaints and was not allowed under its Act to initiate investigations. Its secretary, for example, issued just such a statement in October 1987. Yet in 1982 the initial chairman, Judge Carter, said quite plainly that the tribunal had initiated inquiries into misconduct. Of the Campbell affair, Carter said: "On Friday, June 25, 1982...the tribunal resolved to take no further action."
On July 19 1982 Mrs Campbell was at home when there was a knock at the door.
"Mrs Campbell?"
"Yes?"
It was all Dennis O'Day needed. He was a server of writs.
"I don't know where Bob is," she said. "He may be in Brisbane living with his mother."
O'Day left his card and said he would be back.
Lewis had written in his diary two days earlier: "Phoned Max Robinson re ex-Sen Cons Campbell located at Sandy Bay, Hobart." They had hunted down their quarry.
On July 28 O'Day, armed with a photo of Campbell taken from a video of the Nationwide program, hitched a ride from Hobart out to Sandy Bay. Not for him a taxi or his own car. The police network meant that he was chauffeur driven in a police car. At Mt St Candice Convent where Campbell was hoping to obtain a job as a teacher, O'Day served Campbell with the writ.
"Are you Mr Campbell?"
"Yes. Why were you following me in a police car? It was you, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"What were you doing in a police car?"
O'Day said he had requested it and that it was a frequent procedure.
"Mr Campbell, you had ample opportunity to ring me as I left my card with your wife."
"I know all about the card. I am now going to Max Bingham to make an official complaint about police persecution. I have done nothing wrong in this state."
Bingham was the police minister.
Lewis still seemed to be intent on revenge. On August 24 he talked to Col Chant and another union official about charging Cons 1/c Cook.
The Fitzgerald Report said later that Bradbury's report concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone with anything. But Bradbury told Cook the Commissioner was extremely upset and had put Cook at the
top of his hit list. The best thing he could do was resign, said Bradbury, who added that he would even type the resignation for him. Cook refused and was told he would be moved to Longreach, a small town right in the middle of Queensland's vast outback. The posting had - said the report - been proposed by Murphy, who himself had been sent to the same town in exile back in 1975 by honest commissioner Whitrod. Cook's wife was based in Brisbane as an air hostess and would have to leave her job so he refused the move. He was immediately suspended without pay. The union negotiated with Lewis and a deal was arranged so that if Cook agreed to plead guilty to a departmental charge of failing to obey a lawful direction he would only be sent 50 kilometres away from home to Ipswich. He did so and for three years he drove 100 kilometres to work and back each day. The
stress and victimisation cost him his marriage.
It seemed that once again 'they' had won and that everything Campbell and others had tried had come to nothing. It appeared to be business as before for corruption unlimited.
Campbell and his colleagues weren't to know it, but they had achieved a major triumph.
Murphy could have continued serving for many years, rising almost certainly to deputy commissioner. But on October 1, 1982, he tendered his resignation. Murphy referred to discussions with Lewis about what had led to the defamation actions.
The letter discussed the effect of "the slander emanating from that program" on Murphy's prospects of promotion and said they had agreed that Murphy would not seek further promotion. "I now find myself somewhat disconcerted by this chain of events and have consequently decided to opt for early retirement on December 21, 1982. Please be assured of my continued loyalty and personal friendship."
At 55 his career was over. Now, just one of the original Rat Pack remained.
With an election due, Lewis gave what was almost a party political speech in favour of Joh and the Nationals. His gushing speech, reported by the media, included sentences such as: "The people of Queensland and the police force owe the Premier a very deep gratitude. The free enterprise policy of the Bjelke-Petersen Government has been responsible for Queensland's tremendous growth."
Would the people remember the Nationwide program? And would they take heed of Terry White, a Liberal Minister who had taken the reins of the Liberals in Parliament, had torn up the coalition agreement with the corrupt Nationals and was promising honest accountable government? Voters ignored both and when counting had finished, the Nationals were two short of governing in their own right for the first time. Two Liberals forsook the people who had voted them into Parliament by becoming turncoats and joining the Nationals. One of them was Rat Pack associate Donald Frederick Lane!
Joh proposed Lewis for a knighthood. But Buckingham Palace refused on the grounds that it was too soon after the awarding of an OBE.
Campbell's torment reached the stage where he was suffering from a duodenal ulcer. He also had exceptionally high blood pressure which had to be treated before he could be operated on for the ulcer. He wasn't worrying about himself but what could happen to his children. He was convinced 'they' would do something. And perhaps 'they' would load him up with drugs.
He still had not given up trying to get something done about the corruption. In 1984 he wrote to the National Crime Authority (NCA) which had just been set up, despite strong opposition from the State Government. Back in
1982 the Government had apparently been so worried about the possible effect of the authority's predecessor, the Costigan Commission, that Lewis recorded in his diary on September 9: "Allen Callaghan phoned re moves Government could make to counter Prime Minister and Costigan." And Lewis had given the Premier the dreadful news that Frank Costigan QC was a Labor man.
The NCA sent along a policeman from Victoria who kept making excuses for the Queensland police as he interviewed Campbell. Campbell wrote other letters to the Federal body. He did not receive replies.
He did gain some secret revenge by helping to shape the characters and events in a wickedly realistic three-part 'fictional' TV film on corrupt police and the way they ran crime and even killed. Police union president Col Chant, a man who insisted there was no corruption in the Queensland force, said the union planned to insist on seeing the series, Scales of Justice, to vet it before it went to air. The morning after the first episode, union secretary Callaghan said the wives of senior policemen had been physically sick. The film was 'absolute drivel' he said. The union demanded the resignation of the ABC chairman and an apology. It threatened to instruct police not to talk to ABC journalists. And Labor frontbencher Gibbs said all Australians should boycott the final episode. The film should be publicly condemned, he said.
In 1987 the documents from Hooper's safe were given to the Fitzgerald Inquiry.
Campbell found a degree of fulfilment as a counsellor and teacher of religion, English and social studies at a Christian Brothers College in Tasmania, having qualified as a psychologist in 1983 and as a teacher at the
end of 1987. But he could not forget the worry and expense, and the damage to his health and to his family's happiness. And he was still living in a 'foreign' land where he did not want to be.
