Milligan said he did not invent things.
‘You are not saying he [Hallahan] ever had anything to do with drugs are you?’ he was asked.
‘Well, I don’t wish to answer that question,’ Milligan replied.
One investigator attached to the commission reflects: ‘Milligan made some very serious allegations against Lewis, Murphy and Hallahan going back to the 1960s. Those allegations were swept under the carpet by the Williams Royal Commission.’
Milligan was again asked if he had any information relating to Hallahan and drug trafficking.
‘No,’ he said.
‘No further questions.’
Shobbrook was flummoxed. He was shocked that the five-page statement of allegations against Hallahan, ordered to be produced by Thorley in Sydney, wasn’t introduced and that Milligan wasn’t asked about it.
Around this time, senior Canberra-based officers for the Australian Federal Police flew to Brisbane to ‘counsel’ Shobbrook. In short, he was told to lay off Hallahan and the entire investigation.
Shobbrook broke down. His work had been for nothing.
Within a couple of months he would be superannuated out of the force, deemed ‘medically unfit’. He was 32.
In 1981 Justice Williams would be knighted.
Super Saturday
Constable David Moore was doing such a good job in public relations that he was put in charge of the unit.
He designed posters that depicted police officers as human beings, and began to modernise school presentations about ‘stranger danger’ and other important educational messages. He produced pamphlets and eye-catching stickers. The PR office was next door to the Crime Prevention Bureau down in Makerston Street, and the small unit used to have a few laughs at the ‘hick show’ their office neighbours put on week after week.
Moore, in turn, was given a ‘long leash’, and his class presentations in schools across Brisbane were proving popular. The police force was getting some substantial congratulatory feedback courtesy of Moore’s initiatives.
One day he was summoned to Ron Redmond’s office.
‘What are you doing on Saturday?’ Redmond asked Moore.
‘Why?’
‘You’re going up on television,’ Redmond said.
‘No, I’m not,’ he replied emphatically.
Producers of the popular children’s program, Super Saturday, hosted by Fiona MacDonald, television celebrity Jacki MacDonald’s sister, wanted a policeman to appear in a small slot.
Moore, contrary to his outgoing character, hesitated. He was a bit cautious of the television medium. Still, he did as he was ordered, and appeared on the show.
During his segment he was paired with the show’s wildly popular and satirical puppet Agro, a cross between a Muppets character and a bath mat. Agro was witty, cynical, and managed to extol humour that simultaneously appealed to children and adults. Agro was the mischievous imp, harassing the show’s host, eating flies and committing naughty acts.
‘They put him [Moore] on TV with him. At that time Moore was a Constable First Class,’ recalls a colleague. ‘This was a one-off. They wanted someone to talk about stranger danger or road safety. So he sat there. Agro came on. He absolutely took the piss out of Moore.
‘He [Agro] called him “Constable Economy” because he was Constable First Class. He [Moore] thought, you little bastard. He gave it back to him.
‘The thing was Moore could speak; he wasn’t the perception of a dumb cop.’
The episode descended into chaos.
‘At one point Moore was breaking up with laughter so much he couldn’t breathe,’ the colleague recalls. ‘Everyone was in fits of laughter. In the end the producer came up to Moore and she said that that was the most fantastic thing. All weekend he worried about it. He thought he was going to be in trouble.’
Host Fiona MacDonald remembers Moore as a good-looking, likeable young man. ‘He was a charming and gregarious young policeman,’ she says. ‘He had a very easy-going way about him and he was eager to chat. We all liked him a lot.
‘He was a great communicator. He shared a lot of interesting information and stories. He was Mr Nice Guy.’
On the following Monday, Moore was summoned to his superior Sergeant Ross Melville’s office. ‘You’re going back up there again next Saturday,’ Melville told Moore. ‘The switchboard lit up. You were a huge hit and they want you back.’
‘Constable Dave’ was born. He appeared with Agro every Saturday and ultimately presented his own segment about police work.
‘He started to involve other police,’ Moore’s colleague said. ‘He would take traffic branch police up. He even had John “Bluey” O’Gorman up there, blowing up a piece of mince wrapped in alfoil in the bush outside the studios to demonstrate how you don’t play with bombs or firecrackers.
‘It was every Saturday of his life. He couldn’t do anything. A taxi would take him up and bring him back.’
Then Moore had a masterstroke idea. Why not induct Agro as a police constable? ‘He approached Terry Lewis,’ the colleague said. ‘By this time Moore had quite a lot of contact with Terry Lewis. He needed permission to do stuff. What could he do or say, what couldn’t he do or say on television?
‘Moore went to Greg Early and Greg would ring him back and say – the boss has approved that. He had direct access to Early and often the boss would be there and he would come out and speak with Moore about what was happening.’
Fiona MacDonald says the program also began to develop a strong relationship with Commissioner Lewis. ‘Lewis was close to us,’ she recalls. ‘I remember him being up in the studio a lot. It was very good publicity for the police image.’
Constable Dave quickly became a celebrity in small-town Brisbane and soon started working on local radio. It was here he would meet and befriend the popular and successful ABC broadcaster, William Hurrey.
Another Briefcase Full of Cash
In the lead-up to the 1980 state election in late November, Dr Denis Murphy, newly elected Queensland President of the ALP, received a remarkable communique from Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
Bjelke-Petersen suggested they meet on some urgent political business, and Dr Murphy obliged. He met the Premier in his office in the Executive Building on George Street.
Denis Murphy was an extraordinary conciliator as well as a respected academic and author. He had managed to negotiate an internal reorganisation of the Labor Party – the change from the Old Guard to the New Guard – without much long-standing fallout or enmity, and was determined to not only modernise and replenish the Party’s finances but to make the ALP a viable election force. But nothing could have prepared him for the offer Bjelke-Petersen was about to put on the table.
The then Federal Leader of the Opposition, former Queensland police officer and minister during the Whitlam era, Bill Hayden, was keeping an eye on Labor candidates for the state election when his attention was drawn to the Party’s man standing for Ipswich – Joe Sciacca. Sciacca was up against the formidable Llew Edwards.
‘I didn’t give him much chance of beating Edwards because Edwards was very highly respected and popular, although he wasn’t a populist sort of political operator,’ says Hayden. ‘He [Joe] was a very private person. And the family had a coal mine … a coal miners’ background. His father worked in the mines. They’d been busted by the Depression.
‘All of a sudden Joe’s spending money, got a TV company in. And I thought, Jesus, this is going to be costly. And I said, “Where are you getting that money from, Joe?” And he said, “It’s coming from head office. I don’t ask any questions. I just take it.” And it’d be thousands.’
Hayden was nonplussed, so he paid Dr Murphy a visit.
‘Denis Murphy … told me that Bjelke-Petersen had contacted him and offered him so many thousands,’ Hayden recalls. ‘It was a … five fig
ure amount and a very big five figure amount. And he [Murphy] went up and had a talk with [Bjelke-]Petersen and [Bjelke-]Petersen said, “Well, we’ll give this money to you but you’ve got to spend it on these campaigns.” They were all … seats that the Liberals held. Edwards was one and I don’t know who the others were, but Joh wanted to get rid of them.’
According to Hayden, Denis Murphy was to proceed to the offices of broking business Bain & Company to pick up the money. He was then handed a cheque.
‘[Dr Murphy] said, “Oh, no. I’m not going to accept a cheque. I want money in a … in a briefcase. I want new notes”,’ Hayden recalls. ‘And he told me he got all that money later in notes in the briefcase. And … he said, “I couldn’t take bloody [ALP State Secretary] Manfred Cross. He’s been a boy scout for too long. He won’t be part of this.”
‘And when this came out, but no one knew the detail, Manfred said, “I think they’re trying to blame me as going with Murphy.” He said, “It’s just not true. I know nothing about it.” ’
Hayden says: ‘But that was the depth of animosity between the coalition parties … [Bjelke-Petersen] wanted to get rid of the … he would rather have a Labor man in Ipswich than Llew Edwards.
‘So he was … Joh Bjelke-Petersen was fighting on two fronts. Basically within his coalition he was fighting the Liberals and he was fighting the Labor Party on the other front.
‘I honestly don’t think he took Labor too seriously. I think he thought he’d get away with it. There was arrogance there. Been running around for a long time doing all of these Machiavellian deals. You know, they were pretty ruthless bastards …’
Legendary ALP figure Manfred Cross confirms the cash transaction: ‘It was a secret deal. We were offered money. I have no doubt it happened. It was not out of character for Denis – he was very pragmatic. He might have gone to pick up the money on his own. I don’t think the Administrative Committee knew about it.’
Hayden’s story would later be supported by another anecdote from farmer and grazier and the member for Callide, Lindsay Hartwig.
‘It was an August evening just prior to my overseas trip to Zambia [in 1980, three months before the state election],’ he recalled. ‘I was sitting in the [parliamentary] dining-room – I can show honourable members the table – when the member for Archerfield [Kevin Hooper] walked in.
‘I was the only member in the dining-room at that time and the honourable member made to go to the area in which the Labor Party usually sits.
‘I said, “Kevin, come over here and sit with me. There are two of us here; let’s talk, even though we are on opposite sides of the fence.”
‘Within a few minutes we were joined by the Premier. I am prepared to go on any lie-detecting machine that anybody can bring forward and I am prepared to swear an oath on the Bible that in the ensuing minutes the Premier and the member for Archerfield discussed ways and means of defeating Liberal Party members at the coming election.’
Hartwig said independent Labor members were mentioned. ‘I heard the Premier say, “Kevin, we have to seek ways and means of defeating these Liberals.” I don’t tell lies, but I kept that a secret. As a matter of fact, I went outside and had a good vomit.’
Commissioner Lewis was fully au fait with who the Premier liked and disliked in the Liberal Party. Bjelke-Petersen had a particular enmity for Treasurer Llew Edwards, according to Lewis.
‘You couldn’t trust Llew in any shape or form,’ Lewis says. ‘Even old Joh, he was a condescending fellow if you like … [he said] when Llew’s around you sleep with one eye open.
‘Joh tolerated him because he had the brains if you like to be Treasurer, plus the fact that in those days the National Party had to live with the Liberal Party … what he [Edwards] put up they had to accept. I’m sure he [Joh] didn’t like him.’
There were possible reasons, too, for Lewis disliking the Treasurer and Deputy Premier. Around this time Edwards had been told by a member of the Liberal Party Executive that Commissioner Lewis was ‘unhappy about my leadership of the Liberal Party’ and that it needed a change of leadership.
Edwards got on the phone to Commissioner Lewis. ‘He denied that he had ever told anybody this and that I had his full support,’ Edwards would recall later. ‘I indicated to him at this time that it was none of his business to be involved in politics. He assured me that he was not involved in any way.’
A mutual distrust was developing.
Edwards called the Commissioner again not long after, saying he had heard that Lewis, while attending a Police Union meeting, had told those present that the department’s diminished funding rates and subsequent low staff numbers were the fault of Treasurer Llew Edwards.
‘He categorically denied that he had said this and he informed me that he thought I was doing my best to get money for the police force and that my story was totally inaccurate,’ Edwards remembered.
Llew told Lewis he thought morale was low in the force because some specific commissioned officers had been given rapid promotions. ‘I particularly mentioned Mr. [Tony] Murphy, Mr. [Ron] Redmond and Mr. [Syd] Atkinson as having received rapid promotion whilst Mr. [Basil] Hicks, Mr. [Noel] Creevey and Mr. Tom Pointing had indicated to me their fairly stationary position,’ Edwards said. ‘He assured me he would investigate those matters and report back to me and he also indicated to me that I should not advise the Premier of our conversation on that date and I told him I had already advised the Premier of my intended conversation [with Lewis] …’
It didn’t end there. As Edwards was also the Racing Minister, he was concerned about illegal SP bookmaking.
To counter this thriving trade, Edwards thought of establishing a special squad of police, ‘hand-picked and trusted’, who would work with Racing Department officials to knock SP gambling on the head.
‘… I raised this matter with the Premier who indicated that it would be a good idea but before he did anything about it he would speak to the Commissioner of Police,’ said Edwards.
‘Within 24 hours of my raising this issue with the Premier I received a telephone call from the Premier indicating that he had discussed the matter with Terry Lewis and he said that both he and the Commissioner would not support any moves in this direction because they wanted the police force to remain as one unit.
‘I never had any direct conversation with … Lewis about this proposal.’
Justice Williams Reports
After Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had implored Justice Williams to explore allegations that some Queensland police and politicians were involved in the illicit drug trade following an explosive parliamentary debate in late November 1979, the good Justice’s special 30-page Report to the Queensland Government on Matters of Particular Relevance to the State of Queensland was completed in April and tabled in the House.
Justice Williams dismissed many allegations raised by Opposition leader Ed Casey during that debate as being based on hearsay. He said North Queensland most certainly had ‘attractions in terms of geography, climate and population distribution to those who illegally import, produce and traffic in drugs’ for the supply of larger southern markets, as in Sydney and Melbourne.
‘An example of activities so organised and controlled – in this case from Sydney – is provided by the activities of John Edward Milligan and his associates … which so excited the interest of Mr. E.D. Casey, Leader of the Opposition.’
More importantly, he reported that the public in North Queensland had a ‘loss of confidence’ in the enforcement of the criminal law dealing with drugs.
‘There is no question of recrimination in respect of this loss of confidence,’ Williams concluded. ‘Its causes can be identified and steps can and should be taken to regain it. Reasons for it include the circulation of the stories of police involvement and corruption earlier referred to. Pressure of demand on police resources and on policemen are another reason.’
Justice Williams recommended that ‘a number of police officers of drug squad experience’ be stationed in North Queensland. ‘These officers would also be available to assist other police in the area in their efforts against criminals engaged in illegal drug trafficking and be free to concentrate a proportion of their activities on identifying and dealing with, either alone or in conjunction with other police forces, large scale activities in the area.’
It was a recommendation that the government and police took seriously. By the end of the year, Commissioner Lewis’s chief fixer – Tony Murphy – would be deployed to Cairns to try and take control of a rampant drug problem. He would be followed shortly after by crack undercover operative Jim Slade.
One-Armed Bandits
One of the vexing problems for the pious Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen into 1980 was whether or not to introduce poker machines into the state’s pubs and clubs.
The issue had been debated in the media, and the Registered and Licensed Clubs Association in Queensland was lobbying hard for pokies, given New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory already had them. But the government had yet to take the bull by the horns.
It did, to a degree, on 26 May.
In what was to be Cabinet Decision No. 32985, it was determined: ‘That a Departmental Committee be established comprising representatives of the Departments of Police, Justice, Welfare Services and Culture, National Parks and Recreation to examine the detrimental effects on the community of poker machines and that a report be submitted to Cabinet as soon as possible.’
A week later Lewis wrote to the various departments asking for the names of their representatives on the poker machine committee. He also penned a memo to Assistant Commissioner Brian Hayes, nominating him as chairman of the committee and asking him to ultimately ‘furnish a report to me for submission to the Minister in terms of the Cabinet Decision.’
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