 Paparempote pa mainiadoa pirehiña... Outā Alexandra. Pa pa rungo  Britia sain na... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Bapusn— ya pa rungo ymni. 1985. Pacific frontline for being here this afternoon. It's been a lot of speculation about issues relating to officer safety in the last couple of weeks. I'm here to tell you today that the Queensland Police Service puts officer safety as its number one priority. It always has and it always will do everything in its power as an organisation to minimise any risk to our officers. But it's got to be said that policing is a very complex and at times dangerous occupation. It can be a very physical occupation, as many of you would know from news articles over the past years. Certainly in that environment we train and equip our officers to deal with any situation, particularly conflict situations, and thankfully, thankfully, very few times with all of the interactions that we have with members of the public every year. Do we have serious injuries or worse for our officers? I'm certainly here today to talk to you also about our processes and procedures in relation to our ballistic vests and that we issue and give access to our frontline troops in their daily work and the access to service firearms. I'm happy to take any questions on those issues as well. Commissioner, are you dead and spoke directly to the Minister about this? No, I'm actually not. The Queensland Police Union and the Queensland Commissioned Officers Union are very passionate about the safety of their members in their daily work. They are no more passionate than I am in that regard. They obviously believe that they have a case to put. They have been in communication with me over the last couple of weeks and I have told them, as I will tell you, that we have processes in place where officers feel that they have a need for special dispensation to utilise covert body armour or to perhaps even take their firearms home, then they can make application. That policy has been around for a very long time. But we always have to balance this in terms of the real risk that is out there and there are very many competing factors in relation to all of those issues. Commissioner, they can clearly be rolled out in stages. Minister Jaff depth refused to confirm that through time because they were in a range of items. What is happening? Are they getting you this? I wasn't at the meeting so I can't confirm or otherwise what was said. What I can say to you is that I spoke to the Minister immediately after that meeting. I have a regular eight o'clock meeting with the Minister on Monday mornings and we certainly discussed the issue of covert body armour and I need to make that distinction. Covert body armour, as you know, is of a lesser safety level than the ballistic vest that we provide for our officers and I actually have examples of that here today for you. Should you wish to look at the differences? My understanding is certainly from the Minister that what we are talking about is that anyone who wishes to apply within the organisation for covert body armour, I will certainly provide a rollout of that to the officers who are approved and I will give precedence or priority to people in the South East region because we know that that's where a lot of our activities centring on criminal motorcycle gang members are at the present time. But I think if someone applied from Cairns and the risk was high and we approved, I'd certainly try and get that body armour to them as soon as possible. But you're not talking about new body armour which is what the union is calling for, very slim fitting body armour apparently available to Victorian police? You're talking about pre-existing resources? No, I'm not. What I'm saying very, very clearly is the ballistic body armour that we provide to all of our frontline staff and to police generally, we have been providing that for over 20 years now. We have recently upgraded that particular ballistic vest capability and in fact those particular vests have an armoured plate in them. Recent technology has allowed us to make those plates very much lighter and that's what we've been doing, we've been starting the rollout of that brand new body armour as we speak. Certainly the union is actually talking about covert body armour which is the type of vest which actually fits under the officers' surface clothing and when you watch American TV you'll note most of the police officers in America do wear covert body armour because gun laws are different there, the risk level is quite different and you'll notice they look quite bulky and that's because they're wearing usually covert body armour. That's the style of equipment that the union are talking about and we do have within the Queensland Police Service some units which have covert body armour issued to them for the particular type of work that they do. It is not a normal thing within the organisation but we have had policy for a long time that says should an officer feel the need or believe that the risk is greater in their particular case they can apply to us for approval to wear that. There's nothing new that's been around for a long time. Absolutely. Exactly the same, some officers do take their weapons home at night. In those cases we provide safe storage that meets the legislative standards under the Weapons Act and so there's a significant cost in doing that to the Police Department and therefore to the community. There are other and again there are balancing factors when we make those decisions. In the main it's because of the types of duty that those officers are performing at the time. I don't particularly wish to go into that too far because what I will say is that I don't want police officers' houses to be targeted by people who may be thinking that there's a gun there and in the main there's not. So that's a critical factor in our risk assessment but having that in mind if an officer would be able to raise a specific risk factor we would certainly look at that seriously and make the necessary arrangements. Do you approve or is it a regional basis? No it's done on a regional basis. Any idea how many more? Very few. There are certain types of officers and this is I'm only talking about guns at the moment. There are certain types of duties where being able to take their weapon home is advantageous in terms of how they perform their duties. So that's a usually specifically related to their function in the organisation. Very few officers ever applied based on security risk. Applications for avoiding armour or guns recently? Not to my knowledge, no, not at all. Not that I'm aware of but I'm certainly making inquiries at the moment to see if we've had any recent applications in relation to either of those arrangements. The union said that it has been assured from the minister that there will be a staged rollout of body armour. So where has the wire been crossed here? Is the minister not telling you what's the full truth or is it the other way around? No, just the opposite. Look, in any conversation there'll always been different perspectives about what's said. I'm not going to get into that argument because I wasn't at that meeting. What I do know is that the minister and I spoke immediately after that and we were talking about ensuring that I had sufficient budget that if we get applications that may are approved that we will roll them out. Are you going to worry about the cost factor? Is it a cost factor for you and just giving a blanket rollout? Look, I think we have to be very, very careful that we ensure that in the best interests of our police and the community that we take each case on its merits, that we do a proper risk assessment of the threat that occurs. We've, I think what part of the discussion has to be around is that we've been fighting criminals for 150 years in this organisation. Some of those are pretty tough people over the years. Certainly wherever there is a need, we have taken action to protect our people and if necessary their families. And I know of a situation a couple of years ago where we actually moved a family for a period of time because of an officer's family because of a threat against that officer and his family. That's the links we're prepared to go. But it has to be a balanced and very objective assessment of the threat and risk. No, look, I think the union is passionate, absolutely passionate about officer safety and certainly we're in furious agreement on that point. For more Premier Newman, has there been any discussions with detectives about the investigation into a barrage of threatening phone calls in this video that's been put online? No, thank you. Look, what I can say is that we are following up on a number of fronts to do with messages and phone calls received by the Premier's family and himself. I won't take that issue any further, but be assured that where people are doing something illegal or threatening towards the Premier or any other person, we take that very seriously and we're following up. Certainly the issues around the video of the anonymous presenter that has been online for the last couple of days has also been an issue that we've been following up. And again, that is still in train. It's too early to say that. Not to my knowledge, but obviously, particularly around the threat of any other phone calls or annoying or harassing phone calls or messages. That's yet to be determined. Do you think the selfish commissioner of the U.S.A. has received anything like that? Recently or in my career? I have once in my whole career, and that spans about 40 years, received a phone call to my home. I mean, there's certainly a difference between phone calls coming to my private address or to my private phone as opposed to my work. Over the years, I think there wouldn't be a police officer in the job who hasn't been threatened by someone that they're dealing with, who they're about to arrest or have arrested. That goes with the territory and this is what I'm talking about when we have to assess the actual threat. But in reality, certainly throughout my whole career, there's only one time that I'm aware of that I got a phone call at home. Commission of the Union of Parliament? My door is always open to the union. The union has chosen to write to me recently, not pick up a phone, and that's their right. Certainly, I have tried to answer that in a sensible way and as quickly as possible. But to be asked to respond by close of business today or tomorrow, I've certainly been able to provide advice back and ask for further information as I did on Friday to one particular letter. But again, I think it's because they are concerned and they are passionate about this. I don't take that as a negative. Certainly, I want to do everything I can, but I have that overarching responsibility to make sure that our officers right throughout this state are given the best equipment, the best training, and that we minimise any risk to them. But I can never promise that we can reduce that to zero. That is an impossibility. Do you think the risk has increased at all in the past month to police or not in general reality? I am not currently seeing any evidence of a heightened risk. What I do know and I agree with those people who've raised this issue that there are now higher penalties for a range of people that we deal with and these are the criminal motorcycle gang members or members of criminal gangs. Certainly, the consequences of offending against that legislation is significant. And we've all seen the outcome of that already. The deterrent effect that that has had on certain people is quite honestly, it's just unprecedented. I have not seen evidence at this stage other than intelligence that we're getting, for instance, like the quite well-known information that we got about the Mongols making certain comments. But from time to time those things happen either in relation to individuals or groups and we immediately provide that information to our people so that they're more alert and aware when they do their duty. So in terms of the threat, do I think it's raised? I haven't sat down and done the full risk assessment but I see no evidence of significant threat against individual officers or the service general. No, they haven't. That's something you'll have to ask the union. I'm really not understanding of where that comment came from. I mean, many people have Twitter accounts and certainly I use Twitter not to communicate to my staff. I use Twitter to communicate to the whole community. In fact, I use it as a way of getting many of the very positive things that the organisation does on a daily basis out there. I also communicate to staff regularly. I get out amongst the staff, not necessarily on a daily basis but certainly I am talking to staff very, very regularly. I actually took the action of sending a message out this morning to all of the staff because I wanted them to know of some of the things that have been happening over the weekend and whilst it was we put those on police bog sites not all about people read or go into even our own blog sites. So I sent an email, the first thing I did when I came into work this morning was to draft that and put it out to the whole organisation to give them an understanding of what's going on and to remind them that they have the ability to apply for these types of equipment. Could I just clarify one thing and this is about the COVID body vests. Whilst I said we have someone issue to specific people and units within our organisation and we do. We don't have stacks of them sitting in the back room. What we do have is the ballistic vests and they're out there right across the whole state right now and they're available for access by our people. No, I don't. I'm sorry. Are there if you're inundated with a whole group of applications or the COVID for you invest more than you require or more than you have for you? Well, that was the conversation I've had with the minister. I believe that I have got sufficient funds set aside if that is the case and that's what I confirmed with the minister this morning. How much do they cost? The COVID vests. My understanding is around the $800 mark and I might be off on that because that was an amount that we'd researched a couple of years ago. There is only, to my knowledge, there's only one other law enforcement agency in Australia that currently issues COVID body armour. I don't know what the wearing rate is. In other words, I don't know where they actually wear it or not on duty or how many of them use it on duty. It's in a colder climate than we are and one of the issues around wearing COVID body armour is the heat factor. Many of you would know that I've been very keen in terms of trying to move the uniform in a way that will be more comfortable for our people. I've approved the use of this particular polo that our officers will soon be able to apply for and wear on general duties. It is far more comfortable and easy to wear garment when they're wearing their load-bearing vests. That's the vest that we provide to our officers now to put their equipment on. As you know, we ask our people to carry a range of accoutrements and equipment with them when they go out to work. Many of them choose to wear the load-bearing vest, the blue one. I have determined that we will provide these polos for officers who want to wear for general duties officers in particular will wear that underneath those to make it more comfortable. The challenge that I now have is that for people who want to wear COVID body armour, that will mean three layers of clothing. Quite honestly, it is very hot. There is workplace health and safety issues around that and of course risk assessments have to be done in relation to hydration, fatigue, the ease of them doing all of their jobs if they were to wear that equipment. Victoria, I understand. No, I don't have information about that at the moment. Many years ago, it wasn't seen as such a significant factor, but this was pre-The Weapons Act, which came into being in the mid-90s. Certainly, there are many restrictions in relation to how you store weapons safely and the types of containers that you have them stored in. The other side of that, and I've mentioned this a couple of times, it is very unfortunate that in the past police officers have taken their guns home, tragedies have occurred within those families, utilising those guns. So, there is always a balance in all of these decisions. Who comes first? No. No specific threats to police officers that you know of no serious intelligence if there is a wide-ranging... They can have their body armour if they want to. They can take their guns home if they want to. Is this all a bit alarmist? No, what I'm saying is they can... If they believe that they have a case for either of those arrangements, either to wear a cover body armour and have that supplied to them or to be able to take their guns home, we will do a risk assessment ourselves. So, if they wish to make a submission to us outlining all the reasons why they should be allowed to do that, we will then assess that on a risk-by-risk basis. I don't know if there's... I haven't heard of any cases and that was why I actually invited more information to be provided to me more generally last week about specific threats. I have not received any of that information. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I just haven't received any. And certainly all members of the organisation have access to my email accounts. They can simply email me if they have concerns and I'm happy to receive that information. They can even Twitter me. Do you recently retrain to use a... Can you explain what your motivation is behind that? Absolutely I can. I'm a great believer in leading by example. Certainly, as you would all know, from Constable to Senior Sergeant, every member of the organisation in those ranks have to be what we call OST qualified, which is Operation Skills and Training. As part of each year's compulsory OST training, they get recertified using their service firearm. Now, that is not the case for commissioned officers, so that's inspector up to commissioner. That was always done in a voluntary way or if the officers were operational, it was compulsory. What I've been doing is looking at the need for all service members. So from our most junior Constable to the commissioner, I've been looking at the concept of everyone being compulsory OST qualified every year. The reason is very simple. Whilst the issues around the criminal motorcycle gangs legislation has been a catalyst to my consideration of this, we've got things like G20, we've got the Commonwealth Games, we've got a very large organisation and I truly believe in the leadership, so the managers should be demonstrating and understanding the issues that our people go through on a daily basis and being OST qualified, I think is a good way of doing that. I think it also means that if something untoward is to happen, that that means that in most cases all of our members who are sworn and I am a sworn member, they can take the appropriate action with the knowledge and the confidence that I am up to date with my qualifications that I'm certified in the use of a handgun. You mentioned before that you had seen unprecedented deterrence, the unprecedented deterrence effect of this legislation. Can you give examples of that? Well, it's very clear. We are finding it difficult to see any of these criminal motorcycle gangs associating outside their homes, certainly going to any of the clubhouses, they have really gone underground and they are being very careful with their actions. It's very obvious because they're just not out there in plain view. Now it's not saying they're not offending because we have had numerous arrests of criminal motorcycle gang members or their associates in recent weeks, but the types of behaviour we'd seen prior to the legislation being enacted is just not in evidence now. So the deterrence effect of this legislation is, as I said, is I think quite unprecedented. Is that presented to each other? It's a very, very good question and it just simply means that as we have always done the strategies and tactics that we use to investigate offences involving these people have to be quite rigorous and also utilise other methodologies. Everyone's okay? Now, is there anything I can do? Oh, sorry. Yeah, I'll hold the shout-up again. Can we get your tip from the Melbourne Cup too? There's the Melbourne Cup on. Could I also tell you that a lot of our officers already, you know, there are units within the organisation who have these t-shirts as you'd probably know, or these polos. Forensics were probably one of the early ones to get them. Water police used them, but up until now we haven't... Well, sorry, up until a couple of weeks ago when I made the decision, certainly our general duties officers didn't have access to them, but I think it's a fact of life here in Queensland that we do live in a hot climate and I know that these certainly are more breathable. They'll make their job easier and more comfortable. No, no, just by right. They'll be able to get them straight from the stores. Yep.