 The Jack Dempsey Minister for Police, Fire and Emergency Services, everything's fine? Righto. Okay, so we're here at the official launch of operational cold snap. It's a road safety initiative right across these school holidays to ensure that all Queenslanders are kept safe on our roads. But police are as only as good as the community, and we are imploring the community to please slow down, put your seatbelt on, don't get fatigued. In those moments, those little seconds can mean lives, and we want all Queenslanders to enjoy their holidays and return home safely. So today we're particularly making sure that we reinforce the front line and make sure that part of our strong plan in keeping Queenslanders safe is making sure police have the most modern state-of-the-art equipment. And today we are announcing three new full-time forensic crash units for Townsville, Mackay and Toowoomba. These units will be out there protecting Queenslanders, and I would prefer, as a police minister, that we didn't have to use these forensic crash units. But unfortunately, lives will be lost in the coming months as we head towards the end of this year. So I ask all Queenslanders to please remember to look after themselves, look after their mates and not put other Queenslanders' lives at risk. These three new forensic crash units to be opened will also mean that we'll have three, so we'll now have 12 new robotic base stations right across Queensland. This is state-of-the-art equipment. It reduces the time that police officers take to investigate crash scenes, and they certainly are congestion busters for the people of Queensland. So roads certainly will be opened up far quicker than they are. The roads will be opened up far quicker than they have in the past, but still I ask all Queenslanders to obey the road rules and make sure that they return home safely. These new 12 robotic base stations will be placed right across the length and breadth of Queensland. They'll allow police officers to get on, use the latest technology. This is a Queensland first. It is designed here in Queensland by officers and other businesses in Queensland to make sure we have the most state-of-the-art equipment right across Australia. But doing that, whilst we're revitalising these frontline services, we just really do ask people to remember the fatal five, and please do not speed, wear your seat belt, remember don't drive fatigued, remember inattention and distractions, stay off your mobile phones, put it away because that may mean the difference between your life and the life of another innocent Queenslanders. And most of all remember no drink driving or drunk driving because these are all offences and all acts that quite easily are actually actions by people. People have to make a conscious choice to put a seat belt on to speed or to drive those extra hours with their families in. So it's incumbent on you, the community, to work in with our police to keep all Queenslanders safe. Is that enough guys? Yeah, you alright? Get something out of that? Yeah. Any questions? Yeah, can we ask, Cairns wanted to know whether you have any specific concerns ahead of fire season in final screens? Look, Operation Coolburn is still operating, there still is a great deal of extra fuel on the grounds after obviously the last number of cyclones that have allowed a lot of regrowth in particular areas. So I asked the community to work with local authorities and please burn off as much as you have, sorry, please burn off as much of the underburden while you can before it gets too dry. So again, please work with local authorities, make sure that you can burn off as much as the fuel load that we have on the ground now before we get into our harshest summer months. Have you had any advice that's going to be worse on the years? Look, we get a weekly report, we've currently burned off thousands of hectares right around Queensland but I certainly would like to see more of our growth and fuel loads burnt off as we head into these warmer months and the information that we have from the Weather Bureau is that they are expecting drier heats towards the end of this year but we certainly have plans and as well as operations in place but I asked the community to please burn off while you can to reduce that hazard across your communities. Just a couple of people from Townsville, which will the criminal history check is involved for owners of tattoo parlours coming July 1? Look, at the end of the day legitimate operators have nothing to worry about. This only applies to operators that are connection to criminal gangs and associates. So I say to operators out there who have a legitimate business that are law abiding Queenslanders that you have nothing, no concerns, these new changes will actually be in place to protect the honest hardworking people in the industry and drive out criminal gangs who certainly use these type of operations and we don't want any criminal gang businesses in Queensland. You can go elsewhere and until they've been completely eradicating Queensland we'd make no apologies. What if you're not in a solved conviction? Look, these checks and balances mainly apply to criminal gang members and associates. They are there to protect the legitimate owners and it's only if you're associated with criminal gang elements that you have concerns and we make no apologies for that. Owners say they feel like they've been treated like criminals. What do you say to them? Look, many industries have to have criminal checks whether it be from the security industry to now the tow truck operators to other legitimate businesses around Queensland and we make no apologies for coming down and ensuring that criminal gangs will no longer have a footprint in the tattoo industry. Can we ask Alice there some questions? Yep. There you go. Thanks for that stuff. How do they work? How different are they from what used to happen? For the friendship crash, well in I suppose days gone by the total station was used manually so there was two officers that were required to use it. One holding the staff, the other one taking the siding and the bearings. Now with the prison it allows one officer to do all of that work so and operate more safely by actually not having to be on the roadway itself can go back to the scene later on and I think today the officers have come here today to demonstrate the equipment and are going back to a scene where they have left this morning to finish off their measurements so it's for remote and rural areas and also for here as the minister said it'll definitely see the roads getting open quicker. Do you have any time? I suppose at the moment it's a little bit early to quantify that particular side of the house. What I would say though is accuracy is everything for friends at crash and they do work to that mantra of accuracy. I thought someone had said earlier that it might see that it can be lucky how quickly on an average accident how quickly would this work compared with the old way? I would probably reduce it by a half to at least a third because you've got one officer they set it up, they take their measurements initially and go out but one thing it does do is it gives them flexibility and that's the important thing here in the past what we've had to do is go out and do all the measurements in one attendance. This way we can actually go back a number of times if we need to to re-measure or to actually finish the measurements. So the flexibility and also the scalability of the equipment is the key here. Describe in layman's terms how that happens like how they are able to leave a scene and then come back? The points that they determine are actually recorded in a handheld device which is fastened to the actual instrument itself. So it relays by Bluetooth from the handheld device to the prism and then the prism takes the radio relay and the officers will explain the intricate data to that. But what it does allow it's a bit like working on the computer on a document. You start typing, you have to leave it, you save as you go and then when you do finish you have the finished product so it does allow that flexibility and I think that's the important thing here because it's about prioritising what we do. And how long does an average accident take to investigate? Sorry? Under the previous... That's probably a question of the best answer by the officers who have never been an accident crash investigator. I've aspired but I didn't quite make the correct... In terms of the development, the development for the friends at Crashing, how is Saash in his business? This is an incredible step forward. Obviously with the support of government we've been able to get into a number of robotics as the minister has indicated. We've seen the introduction of the Zebedee which is a cloud based point scanner for crime scene examination. We've seen unmanned aerial systems and we're the first police service in Australasia to fly under an operator certificate in that to regard. We've now got this which is an exciting step forward for friends at Crashing, a state of the art and although they have used similar style of equipment but in a manual space now we're in the robotics space. So what we're seeing is a greater engagement with technology. So would it be safe to say Queensland crash scenes will be cleared faster than anywhere else in the country? I would suggest to you depending on the complexity is highly likely that yes they will be getting cleared a lot quicker than what we've seen in the past. And for those of us who've sat in queues patiently, obviously while crashes have occurred around us, have obviously going to enjoy a more rapid return to the free flying traffic. But that comes to this other point which is what we're asking people to do is drive to the conditions of the road over the school holidays. The signposts of limits are a guide. They're a guide to indicate that's the maximum speed limit on the road. Drive to the conditions of the road and to remember that it starts on this Friday. We have back to school starting on the 11th of July. We have a lot of young coinsunders heading back to school and we want to take care of these young people. And so the service will be out there with obviously speed cameras both over it and covert and we'll be doing random breath testing and random drug testing. And we will rigorously enforce that particular aspect to it. Just to finish off, these new crime, sorry, these new congestion busting technology will save hours on the scene of a major traffic incident on our highways and byways. As previously, obviously I spent many years in crime scene investigation in the forensic units in other parts of Queensland and from a practical sense it'll save many hours of traffic being tied up behind what was previously antiquated ways to investigate crime scene incidents. Now we'll be able to investigate them in a timely manner to collate all that evidence up front in a more digitalised way besides the old paperwork and computer previous that antiquated computer based programs. So it allows many, many more points of evidence to be collected in a timely manner and then allows for those officers to come back and to be able to recheck their evidence before providing it to a court.