 Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen thank you very very much for coming to this conference. The 1st of July this year we'll see a number of major changes for the Queensland Police Service. One of those changes relates to the restructure of the organisation and the creation of a specialist command, the Road Policing Command and today I have the new commander of that command, Assistant Commissioner Steve Golcheski, who many of you will know. He will take the operational head of that command as of that date. I think that's a demonstration of the seriousness which we place on the safety of road users in this state, that we are committed to creating a command specifically responsible for those areas. Two other major changes will occur. As you know the current government has a strong leaning towards open data and as a result of that on the 1st of July we will make available all of the locations of our speed, our approved speed camera sites throughout Queensland. There's almost 4,000 of those currently and they will be available to the general public. We hope by doing that that people will look those sites up and will take notice of them and will recognise that throughout the state at any time anywhere they may be observed by police and we hope that their driving behaviour will reflect certainly commitment to obeying the road rules. In that way taking accountability for themselves and making the roads a safer place for all. The second thing that will occur on the 1st of July which we've announced today is that the tolerance levels at which we will book people particularly for speeding will be reduced. That will be across the board and we are advising the public of that now so that they can see that we're taking responsible stands and another innovative way of trying to reduce unlawful activity on our roads. We hope that we will not issue one extra ticket as a result of reducing the tolerance level and the tolerance levels that Queenslanders have enjoyed for a number of years have actually been probably the most liberal in Australia. Our intent in reducing those tolerance levels is to make it very very clear to people that if they drive to the speed limits they one will not incur any breach but the second one is that they will provide for a much safer road system in the state. Our job is to reduce road trauma and at the moment we are today 14 more fatalities on our roads than we were at this time last year. Yesterday it was 16 and that's because of the variations on the day-to-day across the different year dates. That's unacceptable to us. 19 of the deaths on our road this year have been directly attributed to speeding. We need as a community to do something about that and reducing the tolerance levels is one way that we believe that we can assist the public to better respect the road rules and in a moment when we get the mobile phone for on silent we'll carry on. Again thank you for being here and I'm happy to take any questions that you may have in relation to those matters. I don't intend to identify the specific tolerances either now or into the future. The difficulty that we have that identifying those tolerances actually creates a default speed limit. The speed limits are the sign speed limits on the roads in Queensland and we expect people to drive to those limits. As I said I don't intend to identify the specific tolerances but as you all know because of the equipment we use there has to be a level of tolerance which is provided by the manufacturers. We've always been above those tolerance levels and certainly we want to move towards reducing the fairly liberal tolerances that we've provided in the past. No what we'd ask the members of the public to do is to take notice of that information and drive at 54 kilometers an hour so that they stay absolutely within the speed limit of 60 kilometers an hour. That's a matter for them. No we're going to simply be saying where those 4000 sites are we won't be in real time saying where the cameras are on a day-to-day basis. We believe that that's a very very good outcome for the motoring public because as people pass those sites hopefully they may find that there is a speed camera there they may not or they may not even notice the speed camera because obviously we have a proportion of our fleet which are absolutely covert and we know from evidence from research it's been done that having that covert capability really does assist in lowering speed across the state. We have consulted with the government on on the release of this data yes. My proposal is that we are going to release the 4,000 sites and that's going to happen in two weeks time. The sites are actually the approved sites so throughout the states when we use our mobile speed cameras the camera vans they all use those speed sites whether they're covert, unsigned or totally overt. The tolerances will actually reflect across the board both for all of the speed cameras but also for our mobile radar and for officers simply on patrol. I know that there's a lot of speculation about what those tolerances are and I'm sure that there'll be further speculation about the ongoing tolerance debate. What I'm saying to you is that I don't intend to identify it what I do and I am saying very very clearly that we have had quite a liberal tolerance in this state for many years that's about to cease. I'd say that no person in Queensland needs to get a ticket on our roads all they need to do is to obey the posted speed signs and that way they will avoid a ticket. I think because we haven't changed them for such a long time we haven't actually adjusted the tolerances I think the last time we did it was about two years ago possibly a little bit further back than that but before that I can't remember a time when we did actually make an adjustment so that's how far back it goes and I think that originally that tolerance was discussed somewhere in the early 2000s and it just hasn't moved. My concern is that we again are seeing a climb in the trauma on our roads particularly fatalities and I think it behoves us to do everything we can to try and stop fatal traffic caches but also any trauma that's occurring on our roads through traffic crashes caused by speed. You see a toddler in the Zero Tolerance Commissioner? As I said earlier one of our challenges is that all of the equipment that we use it actually has a level of tolerance built into it just as you said before speedometers in motor vehicles but also the cameras the radar devices that we do have a tolerance and for officers who are using a follow mode for gauging speed there has to be a level of tolerance with that too so I probably don't ever see a time where there'll be zero tolerance but I would simply ask the public not to not to worry about what the tolerance is please accept that the speed limit is the sign speed limit drive to that limit or underneath it if they feel concerned about the tolerance level in their own vehicle. Are you going to be able to monitor pretty quickly how many people are getting extra tickets to get issued if there is a significant reduction? Absolutely we intend to evaluate every stage of the plan reduction we intend to do it incrementally and we will look at it at each stage so it's not like we're going to have a major jump in tolerance but certainly over time we may reduce that tolerance quite a significant amount at certain speed levels. The government has certainly looked at the concept of contracting out or in fact civilianizing the camera program that is certainly something that's moving forward and I think that it won't be too in the too distant future we may see a tender process start in relation to that. Look I believe it will happen in the second half of this year there has been a significant reduction in speeding there's no doubt about that in Victoria I don't have their fatality figures in front of me I'm sorry but certainly we know that speed and it is one of the fatal five is directly linked to fatal traffic crashes and trauma crash crashes as I said not only this year have we seen that again with 19 of the of the traffic fatal traffic crashes this year specifically linked to speeding last year it was 21% of all fatal traffic crashes had at least one of the causal factors of speed. Certainly I am sure that properly trained and properly equipped individuals who who are trained in the way of speed camera operations can do just as good a job as as anyone it comes down to training and certainly the operation of the camera the cameras as a device very accountable in the way that they take the photos and the photos are actually marked with a whole range of data on them it's very difficult to do anything to that camera which would void void the film or void a particular shot look that would be a matter of the tender process I mean yes we have a range of equipment currently that belongs to the government ultimately but whatever the final decision is on on that tender process would be is a long way off at this stage well there is no there is no tolerance in our drink driving I mean they're very very specific because the because the machines that we use in those cases are very very accurate they're there to a very scientific level so there is very very little leeway in relation to that not at this stage I haven't I haven't spoken to the government about that but certainly there is evidence in other places that changing levels for instance of the consul you know the alcohol content that people have after drinking and then driving that can also make a difference but that would be another discussion with government the the enforcement is done by us the the camera program is owned by Queensland Transport as you're probably aware now I think that that sort of data has been previously released I'm fairly sure that we've released data on specific speed camera sites particularly the fixed sites but the evaluation will look across the board and we'll look at the different modes of both camera operations mobile operations and officer operation it wasn't our intention no what we're simply releasing information about where those sites are it's a very disturbing revelation for us and very very disappointing from the organisational point of view however this obviously has to go through the court processes it normally would and but at the same time we'll be looking at from the disciplinary process I can't think of them of a recent case but I'm not discounting that it hasn't happened in the last few years if I could just say that I believe that we have one of the best justice systems in the world in this country including in Queensland from time to time so police will disagree with the sentence that are hand down and where we believe that they are in it inappropriate inadequate we will appeal those those sentences or those sanctions that was one of the cases that we we certainly appeal the outcome of that is a matter for the court and in fact a matter for the whole community in real terms I would not comment on the outcome simply to say that I'm very glad that we have such a wonderful system in this state and in this country we're probably getting into territory that I don't want to discuss I mean these these issues these facts I do I have had a briefing on that but at the end of the day these quite properly matters for the court to determine and I'm sure that they will be in due course very concerning my understanding about that particular incident is that the victim and the offenders are known to each other and but I can say that there will be a news conference held on the Gold Coast today in relation to that with far more information becoming available and I I believe also a call for extra information from the public extra assistance and support from the public to try and locate the alleged subs suspect certainly it is disturbing from from the Commissioner of Police's perspective it's very disturbing but I have great confidence in the officers who are who work that that area I think the nature of the Gold Coast also as the playground of Queensland in many respects it's a holiday destination we have people on holidays there all the time in great volume and perhaps that does have an impact on the behaviour of people even during the daytime but certainly we are we are committed to making service paradise and the Gold Coast as safe as every other part of Queensland and we will do everything we can to support the officers down there look certainly I believe we do have it comes down to the fact that you'll never have enough police to have one on every corner in every town and every city in the state it's it's a it's a fact of life our task is to identify the hotspots to put extra resources into those areas and we do that regularly I don't I can't help you at the moment but we can certainly find out and get back to you with it with an update if that would help the yes you're right there are not that many fixed cameras throughout the state but we are going to release them the fixed camera sites and all of the mobile camera sites the approved camera sites throughout the state and as I said there's almost 4,000 of them the covert use those sites that's exactly right anywhere any time they can be 500 meters down the road from an approved site they can be a hundred meters down the road from a free site and the public need to be aware of that