 Well, good afternoon everybody. Today we're just announcing that it's a success of Kube Blitz which has been carrying on throughout the whole of the state for particularly the last two weeks. We've got another two weeks of this operation going and it's been a significant successful operation in which we've had over 8,000 police hours put towards this successful operation and over 10,000 traffic offence notices issued to drivers ranging from high-range speeding to seat belts to fatigue for mobile operations of their phones within their vehicles. But it's here to send a clear message also that traffic is the responsibility of all Queenslanders. Police are out on the streets, they're enforcing it, they can only do so much and I do call on all Queenslanders to stand up, take responsibility, look after themselves but also their loved ones in their vehicles and if you see someone who is doing the inappropriate thing within a vehicle please tell those people to actually change their behaviour because they're not just putting their lives at risk, they're putting other people's lives at risk in that vehicle, other members of the community and the emergency service workers they have to attend and clean up this mess at the end of the day. So this Blitz has gone on for the last two weeks, it's been very proactive and it's going to continue right up to when the normal holiday and Christmas Blitz start and for the technical side of it and more detail I'll just pass to the commissioner. Thanks minister, certainly this was action we decided to take to check whether people are receiving the message about road safety and the clear answer is they're not because 10,000 traffic infringements or arrests for drink driving and drug driving have resulted in this enforcement action. We decided to go very public with this now because we don't want any more lives lost this year, we've had a very very bad year in terms of fatalities on our roads and the only way we'll ever stop this is people start taking responsibility themselves. How disappointed are you then with drivers in general? Look we're very disappointed and we basically did a soft launch of cupelets meaning that we just got our officers out there doing the extra enforcement and this enforcement is over and above our normal enforcement so this 8,000 extra hours over the last couple of weeks has certainly been targeted on road safety and enforcement activities and to find that we've got this level of non-compliance with the road rules it's it's pretty shocking and we had over sorry we just had over you know to date there's 248 Queenslanders have lost their lives on the road and that is slightly up 17 on last year and the loss of any life is unacceptable but we need to implore that all Queenslanders have to take responsibility. Queensland Police are out there, we're doing special operations, we're enforcing the Traffic Act but we've got to make sure that Queenslanders take responsibility in their own actions on the road. Are you surprised by the basic nature of these offences like not wearing a seatbelt for instance? It defies logic that people still will drive a vehicle and not wear a seatbelt it really does and we know how dangerous that is because often in fatalities the fatality is linked to exactly that people being unrestrained in the motor vehicle it's a really simple thing it's been around a long time and we will take our action to enforce those rules. Are you also looking at distractions such as you know mobile phones? We are and the numbers are relatively small about about 300 or sorry about two and a half hundred over the last two weeks but again it is an offence that we're very concerned about it those inattention type offences that can can also include fatigue we are very very worried about those. Do you consider making it a fatal fight to include that? Well they're the type of things we're looking at presently to rather increase and put inattention in with fatigue to maintain the fatal four or increase it to a separate offence because we've had an increase in the mobile phone type of offences particularly during this operation for the last two weeks so whether we extend it to the fatal five or the fatal four the rebadging and naming is is fantastic but the end of the day Queenslanders have to stop offending and committing these type of traffic offences because you can only see from the particularly from the statistics of the last two weeks we've had done over 30 000 rbt testings there's still the amount you know people haven't learned the message about drug and alcohol taking drink driving and drug taking in the operation of the vehicle and you know we really have to send a clear message to all Queenslanders that you can't drink and drive you can't take drugs but also in relation to phone usage is you have a responsibility it's it's it's a privilege to have a license it's not a right and when you're out on the road you have to obey those rules for the sake of all of the community and particularly where we've seen this increase of of mobile phone usage activities we will be looking at other ways of either extending it to a fatal five or included in the attention but we're getting those statistics back to see if if how we can make it simpler to get that message out which is so important excuse me i i'm still got backed by the high-range speeding offences that occur now i don't have the specifics with me but i do know that we've had a couple of quite high speeds caught by our mobile radars and also also that the camera detective faces it just defies logic that people would be behaving this way and the worst part about this is this is the month before christmas a time where we want everyone to be safe right throughout the year but but particularly at that christmas time and to see this level of non-compliance is really quite shocking it was part of it but it was also to test whether people are taking notice of the the advertising the road safety messages that go out every day and it's about high visibility policing trying to get greater visibility of the police on the road so people will obey the rules but what what this is demonstrating is that we still have those in the community who have no regard for their own safety and the safety of others what this suggests to me is we are really going to have to increase our enforcement capacity and our focus on road safety and people will have to suffer the consequences because it appears that other methods are having little effect simply by refocusing some of our effort focusing back on the front line getting more people on the front line to do this sort of work no part of our current review of the organization and our restructure that I'll be talking to the government about shortly will free up even more officers back to the front line and that'll be right across the state and one of the areas that I'm vitally interested in is making the community safer it's part of the mantra that I've been preaching since I became the commissioner I'm sure you've had that dreadful experience of having to do a death knock I mean what's your strongest message to people because maybe they just don't get it that this is about life and death I mean that's that's what you're really ultimately saying whether it's your family that's affected or a stranger the really sad part about this though is that there are those in the community who never think it's going to happen to them and what they've got to wake up to is that that it may that this is about family and friend this is about brothers sisters mothers fathers and it's time people just woke up look as the minister rightly said we're plus 17 at right at this moment that will still bring us under if we don't have a surge but that's not the point one death is one death too many and I'd rather it be zero I'd rather it be plus nothing because unfortunately the the cost to the community the trend the tragedy of a death on the road the sudden and suddenness with which it occurs people never being able to say goodbye it is too high a price and it's easily fixed it's easily fixed by people are buying the rules absolutely that's right and it's a clear indication for the deaths on the road are particularly linked to these type of offenders that are committing traffic offences so you know it's it's it's not rocket science when we say don't speed don't drink and drive wear your seatbelt if you're tired don't drive it's very important that we that we take our driving responsibility serious the police are going to take it serious the government are taking it serious in relation to obviously cutting down that red tape and so forth we've got the introduction of hoon legislation that'll be going through to parliament shortly that will actually reduce it's anticipated the reduction in police hours is over 30 000 police hours just in the hoon by redoing the the hoon legislation so that will then give police officers more time to be out on a proactive and on the front line and more so than involved in doing paperwork and sitting behind desks thank you are there any other questions so you can talk about 10 000 and mention the figure of 10 000 this is more than 6 000 that's correct yeah yeah because we've got two weeks worth now yeah of data just a question on a separate subject yeah um do you think that police need more protections to engage in the issues from a government from a government side of it it was uh way before the uh even before the last election we identified that there would be issues in relation to to police pursuits and from the feedback we're getting from the community is that the lack of of penalties that offenders were uh being uh precipitated with in the court process so that's why we've we've introduced the evade police powers in relation to five and a five and a half thousand dollar penalties and a loss of license for two years and we've seen that successfully uh gone through the courts in in the Fraser coast and in the Cablture district recently where people copped the six thousand dollar fine and lost the license two years so it sends a great deterrent but we're going to reinforce that deterrent with the changes of the honing legislation as well to make evade police a confiscation of a vehicle so if you participate in any speed trials dangerous driving serious offences in relation to honing your car will be confiscated for 90 days taken off the road and if you commit another offence in five years your vehicle will be either confiscated or crushed now what that does from the academic side of uh of the of the pursuits and the information that we've got worldwide is if you need stronger penalties to to to send a message to people to stop and think before participating in police pursuit because at the end of the day is uh that no theft of a property is worth a person's life and uh we can all think that uh we can you know talk tough in relation to police pursuits but when it comes back to a loved one a a police officer a member of the community or even someone that's been offended that loses their life it's too late to look back in hindsight and say we could have done and we should have done and but we're working with the best evidence uh from from a worldwide base to make sure that we send the clear message we're looking at other states as well with obviously what's happening in in the w a and so forth and and i'll certainly be working and getting advice from the the commissioner in relation to how we'll look at it in the in the first part of next year as well if there is things that we need to uh to slightly change i'll yeah specifically talking about officers themselves rather than the perpetrators do you think there should be more legal protection from officers for causing property damage or injuring sort of people on that it's it's an interesting conundrum because at the end of the day um engaging in urgent duty driving is about balancing the risk we don't have a non-pursuit policy in this state what we have is a pursuit policy which under certain circumstances allows our officers to take uh action to drive in a way which is urgent to follow an offender or to try and cut off an offender who may be about to commit a very very serious offense on known knowledge that's the leeway that we allow our officers but to pursue people for minor traffic offenses for a stolen car that's not worth the risk and that's what we preach to our officers certainly there is there are issues about um about liability legislation i'm not sure how that would work i'm not a lawyer but certainly uh we will undertake a review of our pursuit our current pursuit policy because we want to see how the new mandatory legislation will affect the outcomes of of the ability for people to run from police whether that will have a an effect or whether we will go back to government and ask for adjustments and perhaps even further um deterrent legislation that may be available we've also had two successful cases just on the Gold Coast recently where people have tried to pursue from police and have actually been located by the police helicopter so as the rollout of the new police helicopters come into line for two for the southeast Queensland plus coupled with the events is what the commissioner is very passionate about in relation to the technology side of it we'll be able to then identify offenders and then follow that action up we've basically been able to task force certain areas to saturate them in relation to a police response over particular offenders that are that are stubbing the nose at police and so we'll be able to have the resources because by reducing the red tape and paperwork they do across the board will actually have not just you know the 1100 new police that we're bringing forward but the police officers themselves will be freed up from a considerable amount of paperwork that they're currently doing well the simple message for the whole of school is stay safe and look after your mates and obviously this person's mates let him down now you can have this occurrence happening in any regional town or centre you know whether it be on a Friday or a Saturday night anywhere in Queensland you know from the tens of thousands of schoolies that attended schoolies and from what I saw there last night I was very proud of the way that the schoolies behaved in consideration of having over 10,000 young people together celebrating their graduation you know when I've said before whether it be what you learn in the sandpit at school a preschool or whether on the sands of the beach of the surface paradise it's quite simple is you have respect for other people you make sure that you use your pleas and thank you's and you and you bring forward the same values of looking after your mate now that starts at prep and it goes right through the schoolies and you know what that continues even when through us as adults as well to make sure we look after each other so I'm sure that the family of that young man are very relieved and I'm sure that his mates understand that they probably should have taken a fair bit of care because from a government and police perspective Queensland ambulance perspective Queensland fire and rescue services this event I believe for what's run for over two weeks is doing remarkably well you know 345 extra police officers 16 Queensland ambulance service officers 18 SES officers hundreds of volunteers in line a number of numerous security providers coupled with the interaction of the whole schoolies committee that works in with the with the resort operators the motel operations to make sure that it's a network and what I found very pleasing was that the schoolies were taking ownership of their own schoolies they didn't want the toolies there they didn't want the the aggressiveness they wanted to be able to have a celebration for the 12 years of hard work that they've put in and you know that's a side of the schoolies that we don't see you know out through the rest of the state but I had to say great credit to the organisers the emergency service workers the volunteers and great credit to the schoolies themselves and I wish them the best over the next two weeks I know it'll be uh it'll be hard on them but uh it's uh it certainly uh is is uh is pleasing to see that these types of events are run smoothly