19 years and the Heiner Affair is Still making news
The Brisbane Times
Sex admissions in alleged pack rape
TONY MOORE July 13, 2010 - 5:28AM
A boy from the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre admitted having sex with an underage girl from the centre allegedly pack raped in 1988, documents obtained by brisbanetimes.com.au reveal.
The ward of the state named another boy who also had sex with the 14-year-old girl when they went on a bushwalk to Mt Barney in May 1988, with five staff from the centre. The girl, now 36, was paid $120,000 in compensation last month, but last week told brisbanetimes.com.au she wanted her case heard in a criminal court.
The written admissions are contained in a report from youth worker Mark Freemantle after he spoke with the boy at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre late in May 1988. The rape allegations triggered a scandal after court documents assembled for the 1989 Heiner Inquiry into alleged abuse at the detention centre were shredded in 1990.
Read the complete report here->>>
The Brisbane Times
State pays $120,000 'hush money' to alleged rape victim
TONY MOORE July 9, 2010 - 5:53AM
Two decades after an inquiry into abuse at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre was shut down, the state government has paid $120,000 to a former detainee allegedly pack raped in 1988 at the age of 14. The woman, now 36, yesterday described the payment made three weeks ago as "yucky dirty money" and said she still wanted the case tried in a criminal court. However, police have said there was insufficient evidence to pursue a criminal case.
Read the complete article here->>>
ABC Brisbane
Evenings with Steve Austin
Whistleblowers Report 11 December 2009 Over the past two decades the treatment - or maybe that should be - mistreatment of whistleblowers has become a very public matter.
Researchers at Griffith University have been studying the whole whistleblower issue and have subsequently released a report on whistleblowers. But it was a report that wasn't all that well received by some people and one organisation in particular. The Secretary of the Whistleblowers Action Group in Queensland is Greg Mcmahon. Listen to the interview here->>> The Heiner Affair features heavily in this report.
“Ute gate” and other affairs
2GB's Alan Jones
24th June 2009
What happened at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre has never been properly investigated
But this has raised in the minds of many the infamous Heiner affair in Queensland. This was about covering up child abuse, the pack rape of a 14 year old indigenous girl 20 years ago in 1989. She was gang-raped by inmates at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre while she was in the care of the Queensland Government. Some of the rapists confessed, but no charges were pressed. When Russell Cooper ran the National Party Government he directed a former magistrate, Noel Heiner, to inquire into the rape. That was shut down when the Goss Government came to power. The documents collected by Heiner in relation to the matter were destroyed on the orders of the Goss Cabinet on March 5, 1990. Kevin Rudd was Wayne Goss's chief of staff and subsequently became Director General of his Cabinet office. The infamous Heiner affair is about the destruction of evidence relating to a police investigation into the rape. Kevin Rudd and Peter Beattie both claimed that the shredding of the documents needed no further investigations. But the shredding of the documents has never been investigated.
View video >>> Read complete article >>> Original Source >>>>
The Brisbane Times
Who's watching corruption at anti-corruption watchdogs?
CHRIS BARRETT April 28, 2009
A serious flaw has been exposed in the Crime and Misconduct Act that allows the Queensland government to sweep corruption charges under the carpet by voting along party lines.
The dangerous loophole in legislation was exposed by the decision of the state's peak anti-corruption body, the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Commission (PCMC), to dismiss a complaint concerning the long-running Heiner affair, which revolves around the Goss cabinet's shredding of documents relating to child abuse nearly 20 years ago. Read our archived article here or visit The Brisbane Times the original source.
The Brisbane Times
Queensland loophole 'totally and utterly wrong': WA watchdog chair
CHRIS BARRETT April 28, 2009
The chairman of Western Australia's version of the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee (PCMC) has described as "totally and utterly wrong" the Queensland system that allows party politics to throw out complaints concerning official misconduct.
Ray Halligan, the chair of Joint Standing Committee on the Corruption and Crime Commission in WA, said the bicameral state's legislation of 2003 had been based on the Queensland model.
However, unlike in Queensland, the government does not hold a majority on WA's four-member committee Read our archived article here or visit The Brisbane Times the original source
The Brisbane Times.
What is the Heiner affair?
CHRIS BARRETT April 28, 2009
The complaint to the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee (PCMC) was lodged by former union official Kevin Lindeberg in February 2008 and concerned the handling of the Heiner affair by the main corruption watchdog, the Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) and its predecessor body, the Criminal Justice Commission (CJC).
Attached to the application for review was a nine-volume audit produced by Sydney QC David Rofe that contains details of 68 alleged prima facie charges that he believes could be brought against public officials past and present.
They include Prime Minister Kevin Rudd - Mr Goss's former chief-of-staff - the Governor-General Quentin Bryce, who took no action after requesting and receiving a report on the affair from then Premier Peter Beattie in 2003, and six serving Queensland judicial officers Read our archived article here or visit The Brisbane Times the original source
The Daily Telegraph
Bligh follows Labor’s lost ladies
Piers Akerman
Saturday, February 28, 2009 at 05:59pmSuspending Parliament for the election has also blocked the tabling of the long-overdue report by the Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee into allegations about the ongoing Heiner document-shredding scandal contained in nine volumes presented by Sydney QC David Rofe.
It appears, however, that the committee was deadlocked and the Labor chairman, Paul Hoolihan, may have voted twice - as a member and as chairman using his casting vote - to establish a majority and block any action on the long-running disgrace.
Needless to say, it was this “majority’’ that also found in the Heiner case it was not necessarily illegal to shred material known to be needed as evidence, although such shredding was held to be illegal in the case of Pastor Douglas Ensbey who was convicted of an offence of destroying evidence.
Without the full release of the Rofe material, it’s difficult to escape the conclusion that the Hoolihan majority decision was made on political grounds, which would be in keeping with the pattern of behaviour established by the successive Goss, Beattie and Bligh administrations. Archived article here.
Read the complete article here
From The Canadian Government's authorised booklet "How Canadians Govern Themselves".
This is a relevant passage from the former great Canadian constitutional expert the Honourable Eugene A Forsey in the Canadian Government's authorised booklet "How Canadians Govern Themselves". It gives addition force to the Audit in which he is cited.
"Responsible government and federalism are two cornerstones of our system of government. There is a third, without which neither of the first two would be safe:
the rule of law.
What does the rule of law mean?
It means that everyone is subject to the law; that no one, no matter how important or powerful, is above the law — not the government; not the Prime Minister, or any other Minister; not the Queen or the Governor General or any Lieutenant-Governor; not the most powerful bureaucrat; not the armed forces; not Parliament itself, or any provincial legislature. None of these has any powers except those given to it by law: by the Constitution Act, 1867, or its amendments; by a law passed by Parliament or a provincial legislature; or by the common law of England, which we inherited, and which, though enormously modified by our own Parliament or provincial legislatures, remains the basis of our constitutional law and our criminal law, and the civil law (property and civil rights) of the whole country except Quebec (which has its own civil code).
If anyone were above the law, none of our liberties would be safe.
What keeps the various authorities from getting above the law, doing things the law forbids, exercising powers the law has not given them? The courts. If they try anything of the sort, they will be brought up short by the courts."
Source : see page 32 of the booklet
The daily Telegraph
PM shreds his own credibility
Piers Akerman
Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 05:40pm
IN an unprecedented breach of protocol, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd refused a request from the former Governor-General to investigate the ongoing Heiner corruption scandal and explore the implications of his appointment of current Governor-General, Quentin Bryce.
Revelations of Rudd’s alleged gross breach of protocol came through Freedom of Information requests as his leaking of a private telephone conversation with US President George W. Bush was unfavourably reported internationally.
Rudd blocked the request, made on June 10 by former Governor-General Major General Michael Jeffery, a copy of which was sent to the Queen.
Whistleblower Kevin Lindeberg had been informed by Malcolm Hazell, then the Official Secretary to the Governor-General, that the matter “is being investigated’’.
But in her first act as Governor-General designate, Bryce sacked Hazell with no explanation.
The former Governor-General’s request was sent to David Epstein, then Chief of Staff and Principal Adviser to Rudd. Source and complete article:
The Daily Telegraph
Heiner affair shadows Bryce
Piers Akerman
Saturday, August 09, 2008 at 07:03pm
SERIOUS allegations concerning the integrity of Governor-General designate Quentin Bryce and her role in the unresolved Heiner affair are being investigated by staff of Governor-General Major-General Michael Jeffery.
The investigation threatens plans to swear in Ms Bryce as the nation’s 25th Governor-General, and the first woman to occupy the post, on September 5.
The allegations about Ms Bryce’s fitness to hold the position as the Queen’s representative were sent to Buckingham Palace, with a copy to Major-General Jeffery, on May 30 by Kevin Lindeberg, the whistle blower in the long-running Heiner affair.
On June 10, the deputy official secretary to the Governor-General, Brian Hallett, wrote to Mr Lindeberg, assuring him that “the issues raised in your letter are being investigated’’.
One of Australia’s most senior judicial figures, with a record of service at a vice-regal level, says that he has examined much of the Heiner affair material and “there is certainly a case to answer’’.
The Heiner affair concerns the illegal shredding by the Goss Cabinet of documents relating to investigations into child abuse at a Brisbane detention centre that were wanted for evidence, and the cover-up of that action.
In his letter to Buckingham Palace, Mr Lindeberg mentioned the audit prepared by Sydney QC David Rofe, and The Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Telegraph’s coverage of the Heiner affair. Archived article here
Read the complete article here.
The Sunday Telegraph
Taint sticks to Bryce
Piers Akerman
Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 03:04pm
AN unprecedented legal challenge may prevent the appointment of Australia’s first nominated female Governor-General, Queensland Governor Quentin Bryce.
Documents lodged with the Queensland Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee on February 14, two months before Ms Bryce was nominated as Australia’s next Governor-General by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, have created a Constitutional nightmare for the Queensland Government and the Prime Minister.
The papers are contained in the nine-volume Rofe Audit, by leading Sydney barrister David Rofe, QC, into the long-running and unresolved Heiner Affair involving approval by the Goss Cabinet in 1990 of the illegal shredding of documents relating to investigations into allegations of child abuse at a Brisbane detention centre.
Ominously for Ms Bryce, the PCMC has already conducted what it terms a “preliminary examination’’ and has sought further advice on aspects of the material which contains a list of 68 alleged prima facie criminal charges and specific evidence and arguments in support of those allegations.
In response to that request, lawyers representing Mr Kevin Lindeberg, a former public servant who sought the involvement of the PCMC, last week told the committee that “recent events’’ had made the need for action “more urgent’’.
They reminded the committee that since their complaint was lodged in February, Mr Rudd had announced his appointment of Ms Bryce as Governor-General designate to take up her duty on or about September 5, 2008.
“The PCMC would be well aware that Mr Rudd is named in (alleged) prima facie criminal charges 1 and 2 of Volume 1, and the Hon. Quentin Bryce AC in the (alleged) prima facie criminal charge 67 of Volume IX of the Audit respectively,’’ the lawyers wrote. Read the complete article here.
The Daily Telegraph
Politics is contact sport
Piers Akerman
Monday, March 17, 2008 at 05:53pm
THE Australian newspaper has taken some members of the Canberra Press Gallery to task for attempting to be “insiders” rather than “outsiders” when scrutinising the performance of the Rudd Government.
This accusation, made in an editorial at the weekend, may seem more than a little hypocritical in light of that newspaper’s own vigorous attempts late last year to stymie an inquiry into Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s role as chief of staff to former Queensland Premier Wayne Goss in the notorious shredding 1990 of documents generated by the Heiner enquiry when they were known to be wanted as evidence, but it is a start.
The Queensland Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Commission received a reference to the matter last week.
Leading Sydney barrister David Rofe, QC, author of a nine-volume audit of the affair, said it was his view that the documents were shredded “illegally and secretly and subsequently lies were told about the shredding”. He said it needed to be determined whether prima facie cases existed against more than 60 former MPs, current MPs, members of the judiciary and leading public servants and that Rudd needed to be quizzed on the matter. Read the complete article here.
The Courier Mail
Shredding Affair Under CMC Scrutiny
Margaret Wenham
12th March 2008. Page 16
The Queensland Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee will today consider a 10 volume audit of the 18 year old Heiner controversy together with a 55 page request the matter again be reviewed. David Rofe QC, the Sydney based author of the voluminous audit said yesterday it's contents, dealing with what became notorious as the Shreddergate affair were "dynamite".
He said it was his view the Heiner documents were shredded "illegally and secretly and subsequently lies were told about the shredding".
"There are nine or ten volumes of material that are required to be properly considered to determine whether a prima facie case exists against 65 or so still living members of the former Parliaments and the current Parliament, some judicial officers and leading public servants and no doubt some questions need to be asked of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd," he said.
Mr Rudd was the chief of staff for Wayne Goss who was premier at the time of the Heiner Inquiry which was formed to look into allegations of abuse at the John Oxley Youth Detention Centre.
Former premier Peter Beattie last year dismissed a call to reinvestigate the matter.
The Daily Telegraph
It’s nearly Heiner noon
Piers Akerman
Monday, March 10, 2008 at 06:02pm
LIKE the ticking crocodile that relentlessly pursued Captain Hook, the unresolved Heiner affair continues to tick along behind Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Tomorrow, the Queensland Parliamentary Crime and Misconduct Committee (PCMC) will consider a review of the Criminal Justice Commission’s (CJC) and the Crime and Misconduct Commission’s (CMC) handling of the matter.
On Valentine’s Day last month, the committee was served with legal documents relating to the illegal shredding in 1990 of documents generated by the enquiry into events, including child abuse, which allegedly took place at Queensland’s John Oxley Youth Detention Centre. Material received by the committee included a six-page letter from a leading Australian criminal law firm, Ryan and Bosscher, and a 55-page application, together with 10 volumes of the thorough audit of the matter prepared by David Rofe QC, one of Australia’s foremost barristers.
While it is scandalous that one of the child victims of gang rape committed while she was in the care of the Queensland Government has still not had her day in court - despite an agreement begrudgingly forced upon the Queensland police last year to examine the file, which includes confessions from some of those involved - it remains that an equally heinous crime was probably committed by those members of the Goss government and their support staff of bureaucrats who ensured the Heiner documents were destroyed. Read the complete article here.
The Daily Telegraph
Suffer the little children
Piers Akerman
Sunday, January 06, 2008 at 10:21am
A child is dead because one department failed to alert another department that she was at increased risk, and all the acting Premier can come up with is the usual mealy-mouthed assurance that a bureaucrat will conduct an investigation and make recommendations which might change the outcome if a similar set of circumstances were to occur in the future.
This pathetic blame-shifting paper-shuffling exercise is symptomatic of State governments but nowhere has it reached a finer art than in Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s home state, for, as the former chief of staff to former Labor Premier Wayne Goss, and subsequently head of Goss Cabinet office, Rudd is the buck-passer par excellence.
That those who now serve in the Queensland government are following the pattern set during the Goss years should come as no surprise. Read the complete article here.
The Daily Telegraph
Time to act on injustices
Piers Akerman
Saturday, December 15, 2007 at 04:29pm
THE cover-up of hundreds of cases of suspected child abuse by Queensland Child Safety workers on the orders of Queensland government ministers has shocked millions of Australians, but one young Aboriginal woman isn’t surprised.
Annette, who is still waiting for police to act on her 19-year-old complaint of rape and carnal knowledge, compares the response of Queensland authorities to horrific cases occurring in Third World nations, highlighted by Amnesty International.
She believes Queensland police are “protecting’’ not only those who committed the crimes against her, but those who took part in the ongoing cover-up.
In a letter from her lawyer, Gordon Harris, last week to Task Force Argos detectives investigating her gang rape, Annette outlined her reservations about them being able to carry out their inquiry because of the cover-up. Read the complete article here.
The Daily Telegraph
Let's clear up the Heiner Affair
Piers Akerman
Monday, December 10, 2007 at 04:59pm
THE news that nine young males who gang-raped a 10-year-old girl in Queensland escaped prison sentences will come as no surprise to regular readers of this column.
There are eerie overtones in this case to the culture exposed by the disgraceful Heiner affair.
Since August, I have argued for the appointment of an independent inquiry or an independent special prosecutor to examine the injustices at the heart of the Heiner matter, which revolves around the shredding of documents from an inquiry into a Queensland youth detention centre.
One of the matters raised during that inquiry, according to several witnesses, was the rape of an Aboriginal girl who was an inmate of the John Oxley Youth Centre.
Retired magistrate Noel Heiner, who ran the inquiry before it was closed down by the Goss government, told a House of Representatives inquiry he could not recall whether the matter was raised during his investigation.
However, as he could also not recall interviewing the director of the John Oxley Youth Centre, Peter Coyne, when he had in fact quizzed him for a full day, his memory of events is at best unreliable.
Read the complete article here.
The Daily Telegraph
Will Rudd end with name in shreds
Piers Akerman
Monday, November 19, 2007 at 06:09pmA WRIT seeking judicial review is expected to soon be served against the state of Queensland that will rip apart the cover-up of the notorious Heiner Affair.
Whether it drops before or after the weekend’s election, it will begin a process leading to the High Court - which will have to determine whether the nation is governed by the rule of law or whether the law in Queensland, at least, is subservient to the party in government.
The writ will pull together all threads emanating from this unresolved act of alleged criminality involving the shredding of documents by the Goss government when those documents were known to be wanted in court proceedings.
A Cabinet submission for the March 5, 1990, meeting reads: “URGENCY. Speedy resolution of the matter will benefit all concerned and avert possible industrial action. Representations have been received from solicitors representing certain staff members at the John Oxley Youth Centre. These representations have sought production of the material referred to in this submission.”
That resolution saw the material sent to the shredder.
According to another memo, a solicitor for a trade union had earlier notified the Queensland Department of Families Services and Aboriginal and Islander Affairs “seeking assurances . . . that the documents relating to the Heiner Inquiry will not be destroyed” and “made it quite clear that there (is) still an intention to proceed to attempt to gain access to the Heiner documents and any departmental documents relating to the allegations against the (youth centre director) Mr Coyne and that they have every intention to pursue the matter through the courts”.
The writ will finally place in the public domain serious allegations of obstruction of justice relating to the destruction of these documents, which were made in both the Tasmanian and NSW state Parliaments against Federal Opposition leader Kevin Rudd and others.
Rudd was chief of staff to Queensland premier Wayne Goss in March, 1990, when Cabinet ordered the shredding of documents generated by retired magistrate Noel Heiner’s inquiry into the youth detention centre.
Further, it will expose the absolute humbug of the claims made by Rudd, former Queensland premier Peter Beattie and his successor Anna Bligh (both of whom have refused to release critical documents), that the Heiner Affair has been exhaustively investigated.
Contained in the shredded documents were records of interviews with Heiner in which youth centre workers discussed the rape of an Aboriginal girl, according to a report in The Courier-Mail of November 8, 2001.
The youth worker quoted by the newspaper said Heiner had asked him about the matter and that (Heiner) “knew about it already”.
The rape of the girl, who was 14 at the time, is only now being investigated by the Queensland police Task Force Argos, even though several boys admitted to raping the victim at the time.
Any charges against them now would of course result in inquiries being made about why the youth workers who knew about the rape were not investigated at the time and why the relevant Heiner documents were shredded.
It must be noted Rudd now vows to defend the union movement from industrial relations reforms introduced by the Coalition but that those who sought to have the Heiner documents protected so they could be used in their court actions were all trade union members.
The shredding of the documents denied them their legal rights.
Whatever Rudd and his pusillanimous defenders may say, alleged criminality does not diminish with time.
The crime of rape has no half-life, nor does the crime of obstruction of justice.
Over the past 20 years there have been many attempts to reveal the truth of the Heiner Affair, but most of those who have strived to bring this matter to justice have been worn down by the obduracy of successive Queensland governments and the determination of their friends in Queensland’s Lilliputian legal world to ensure the truth remains hidden.
Fortunately, some in the media are still guided by the view of newspaper legend Keith Murdoch delivered more than half a century ago that “the press must be more than merely free, it must be fact-finding, truth-telling, truth-seeking to the limit of human capacity and enterprise”.
Rudd has breezed through this election with little scrutiny of his role in the Goss government.
On Sunday, he avoided hard questions from the ABC Insider host Barry Cassidy in favour of a soft appearance with talk show host Rove.
He may find it more difficult to be evasive when standing before an independent judge - not a malleable media circus.
The Daily Telegraph
Kev and his cronies abusing the truth
Piers Akerman
Wednesday, November 07, 2007 at 05:57pmRudd was chief of the Goss government’s Cabinet office at the time of the initial casino application.
Kirk may also be unaware - as Fairfax newspapers have avoided the issue - that Rudd refuses to discuss his alleged role in a criminal act of suppression of information through the destruction of evidence ordered by the Goss Cabinet. So much for Rudd’s embrace of transparency.
It is a matter of record that the former director of Queensland’s John Oxley Youth Detention Centre, Peter Coyne, told The Australian newspaper that union figures questioned Rudd’s involvement in the illegal shredding of documents generated by former magistrate Noel Heiner’s inquiry into the detention centre.
It is a matter of record that Rudd was at the time chief-of-staff to then premier Wayne Goss and, according to former ministers, nothing went to Cabinet without his say-so.
Indeed, a mainstay of Rudd’s claim to possess the experience necessary to be prime minister rests on his activities during this period.
It is also a matter of record that Rudd claims the matter has been exhaustively investigated - which is patently untrue - and it is a matter of record that the current Queensland Premier Anna Bligh continues to hide behind this falsehood, thus stalling bids to examine the case.
If it is proved a person deliberately destroyed known evidence for any Queensland judicial proceeding, civil or criminal, and there is a “realistic possibility” of it being used in future proceedings, it is a serious crime under Section 129 of the Criminal Code.
The case the Queensland Government brought against Pastor Douglas Ensbey for this crime proves the law.
Read the complete article here
The Daily Telegraph
Ready or not, it's time for anwsers
Piers Akerman
Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 05:39pm
OVER the past two months, Opposition leader Kevin Rudd complained that the Coalition was afraid of calling an election.
Labor, he bragged, was ready to roll.
On Sunday, Prime Minister John Howard called that election.
On Monday, Rudd said he wasn’t ready to discuss the ALP’s tax policy.
Now Rudd is dancing around the question of a debate.
He’s ready for three, he says, but not the one the Coalition wants this Sunday.
How long does it take for Rudd to prepare for anything?
It has now been revealed that Queensland trade union representatives discussed Rudd in connection with the long-running Heiner Affair child sex abuse cover-up and document shredding scandal in the early 90s.
The Courier Mail
Judy Spence accused of interference
Robyn Ironside October 12, 2007 12:00am
THE lawyer for an alleged rape victim linked to one of the state's longest-running controversies has lashed out at "political interference" as police move towards a potential arrest.
Lawyer Gordon Harris claims police are gathering evidence for charges to be laid over an alleged 1988 rape on a then 14-year-old girl at the John Oxley Youth Centre.
Allegations of abuse at the youth centre were the focus of the Heiner inquiry, which was established by the National Party government in 1989 before being shut down, and documents controversially shredded, by the Goss Labor government in 1990.
Read the complete article.
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
More calls for Heiner inquiry
Piers Akerman Saturday, October 06, 2007 at 05:53pm
A GROWING chorus of influential voices are demanding a sweeping inquiry into the notorious Heiner affair in Queensland.
FORMER Queensland police commissioner Noel Newnham, former State opposition leader Lawrence Springborg, and the founder of the Bravehearts, anti-paedophile crusader Hetty Johnson, yesterday demanded a sweeping inquiry into the notorious Heiner affair, Queensland’s outrageous evidence shredding and child sex abuse scandal.
Their support follows a specious claim by The Australian newspaper that the driving force behind moves for a thorough investigation had been identified as a “coalition of right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists’’.
National unease was sparked in August by an extraordinary letter written by several of Australia’s most respected judicial figures to then Queensland Labor premier Peter Beattie in which they expressed their deep distress that the former Goss Labor Cabinet and senior civil servants destroyed material in 1990 knowing it would be needed as evidence.
The leading legal figures, who it would be impossible to describe as extremists or conspiracy theorists, said the right to a fair trial without interference by government, the right to impartial law enforcement and respect for the rule of law itself were at the core of their grave concerns.
“We believe that the issues at stake are too compelling to ignore,’’ they said.
Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, who was chief of staff to former premier Wayne Goss at the time, has since been named in the Tasmanian Parliament as one of those against whom a prima facie criminal case is alleged by leading Sydney silk David Rofe, QC.
Read the complete article.
LETTER TO THE THE EDITOR
The SMH Editor
SYDNEY
Sir
Re: Ramsey's article "Political crusade now tired election fodder" and "Muckraking tosh has a bizarre antecedent" [a.k.a the Heiner affair] of 29 September 2007.
As the whistleblower who has been constantly fighting for justice for 17 years irrespective of any electoral cycle or party-political considerations, the following points must be made in light of Mr Ramsey's inaccurate article in which he recites what former CJC Director of the Official Misconduct Division, Mr Le Grand told the Senate in 2004.
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Sir Max Bingham QC was not CJC Chairman when the CJC issued its "clearance" of 20 January 1993;
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that CJC "clearance" is wrong at law. It misinterprets section 129 of the Criminal Code; misquotes and misinterprets a key access "to an any departmental record or file held on the officer" statute; misrepresents the Libraries and Archives Act 1988, and incorrectly declares lawful the payment of thousands of dollars of public monies to a certain person;
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the so-called "recent invention" of child abuse associated with the shredding is not an "invention" on my part. It is a factual response to the "new" dimension of child abuse which emerged around 1998 [illegal handcuffing of children to fences and grates throughout the night] and later in 2001 [the unresolved 1988 pack-rape incident which a JOYC Youth Worker told The Courier-Mail on 8 November 2001 Mr Heiner asked him questions about during his inquiry]. Unlike the Queensland Government, these matters were unknown to me when I first took by disclosure to the CJC in 1990. My public interest disclosure centred on a government deliberately destroying known evidence for foreshadowed judicial proceedings to prevent its use as evidence in those proceedings. I suggested to the CJC that such shredding-of-evidence conduct was potentially a breach of section 129 of the Criminal Code;
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this "new" evidence of child abuse could not be ignored. It was addressed by [the late] Bob Greenwood QC in his May 2001 submission to the Senate which became the foundation of the 2004 Senate Select Committee on the Lindeberg Grievance. Mr Greenwood QC declared that to knowingly destroy evidence of child abuse and/or any document or thing known to be required as evidence in judicial proceedings was illegal. He also said that the CJC's interpretation of section 129 of the Criminal Code was untenable.
These facts are readily available to anyone who wants to seek them out, including Mr Ramsey.
For the record, mine has been a constant quest for justice and upholding the rule of law. I have a fundamental belief that government ought not be above the law. It is a quest which shall continue irrespective of any Federal or State elections.
Kevin Lindeberg
11 Riley Drive
CAPALABA QLD 4157
29 September 2007
The Daily Telegraph
Open debate is needed
Piers Akerman
Saturday, September 29, 2007 at 04:38pm
THE ALP is attempting to silence debate of federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd’s alleged attempts to pervert and obstruct the course of justice when he was a Queensland public servant.
Queensland National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce was gagged in Federal Parliament, Tasmanian shadow Attorney-General Michael Hodgman, QC, has been gagged in Hobart’s House of Assembly and NSW shadow Attorney-General Greg Smith, SC, has been gagged in Sydney’s Legislative Assembly.
Though Rudd says he is open to an inquiry into the Heiner affair, the scandal of abuse of children in the care of the Queensland Government (including gang rape) and the shredding of documents when Rudd was chief of staff to Premier Wayne Goss, the ALP is attempting to suppress public comment nationally.
Rudd perverted Justice, MP claims
Piers Akerman
Thursday, September 27, 2007 at 03:30am
Mr Rudd was Chief of Staff to Mr Goss in March, 1990, when the Queensland Cabinet ordered the shredding of documents held by the Heiner inquiry into the rape of an Aboriginal girl, knowing that they would be required as evidence.
Mr Hodgman said Mr Rofe had identified 66 prima facie criminal counts during his two-year examination of material relating to the case.
He was only given time to refer to two of those counts, the destruction of evidence (S129 of the Criminal Code) and conspiracy to obstruct justice (S132 of the Criminal Code).
Mr Rudd was named in both.
Labor Senators twice blocked attempts by Queensland National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce to table the full 3000-page nine-volume Rofe report in federal parliament last week.
Read the complete article .
Heiner Affair inaction appalling
Piers Akerman
Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 05:01pm
That former DPP, Royce Miller QC, was also interviewed. His advice on the shredding in 1995 and in 1997 was that no crime took place because there was no legal proceeding “on foot’’ when the shredder started to whirr.
But that view was discredited by the Queensland Supreme Court in a case involving Baptist pastor Douglas Ensbey in 2004, and was similarly rejected by the former Chief Justice of the High Court (the late Sir Harry Gibbs) in 2005, and more recently by a collection of legal luminaries and a slew of other former Chief Judges and now-retired Supreme Court Justices in a letter to Premier Beattie last month.
So clear was the particular law (Section 129 of the Criminal Code dating from 1899) that they told Beattie it may have been knowingly misinterpreted to advantage the Queensland Executive and certain civil servants involved in the 1990 shredding.
As former Queensland Attorney-General Denver Beanland told me: “There’s been no thorough investigation of the Heiner Affair that I’m aware of.
“Morris and Howard looked at some papers, they didn’t have all the documents. They recommended a full inquiry but it has never been held.’’
That Rudd won’t address the issue and that The Australian has chosen to ignore, and to argue against, any review without reading a word of the 3000-page, nine-volume audit of the case, prepared over the past two years by respected Sydney barrister David Rofe QC, is nothing short of bizarre.
Five months ago, the big three Australian media organisations - News Limited, the ABC and Fairfax - united to fight for free speech. The Australian’s campaign to prevent the first full investigation of the Heiner case has undermined the struggle.
The views of Morris, Borbidge and Miller, who haven’t seen the new evidence, are as handy as a blind man’s drawing.
Labor’s refusal to permit the tabling of the evidence in the Senate last week would have rung alarm bells with everyone who believes in transparency of government and justice.
That the ALP, some in the media and even the Coalition collaborated in this suppression of information bodes ill for the health of our democracy.
Read the complete article.
Rudd haunted by an affair of the heartless
Piers Akerman
Wednesday, September 19, 2007 at 05:42pm
Gang rape, shredded documents, smear campaigns. Is the Heiner Affair the skeleton in Kevin Rudd’s closet?
TWO years ago senior NSW silk David Rofe and the now Federal Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd independently chose courses that ensured their lives would inevitably clash.
In Sydney, Rofe began the arduous task of examining the long-running but still-festering Heiner Affair which began with the (still unresolved) rape of a 14-year-old Queensland Aboriginal girl.
This would enmesh numerous politicians and senior public servants when the Goss cabinet ordered the shredding of critical evidentiary documents.
Unbeknown to him, but almost exactly as he began examining a mountain of invaluable new evidence painstakingly gathered by whistleblower and former trade union organiser Kevin Lindeberg and journalist and media academic Bruce Grundy, Rudd, in Canberra, was beginning to claw his way to the top of the political pile.
As Rofe recently completed his 3600-page, nine-volume work, and Rudd was preparing to lead the ALP into its first election under his leadership, their trajectories collided.
Rudd was chief of staff to premier Wayne Goss when the decision was taken to shred the documents Rofe was examining. He went on to become director-general of the Goss cabinet.
The Labor leader was forewarned on August 16 when Queensland’s then-premier Peter Beattie was presented with an unprecedented letter of concern from a number of the most senior legal luminaries in the nation.
They presented a sound and well-reasoned argument for the appointment of an independent special prosecutor into the Heiner Affair.
Read the complete article.
Senators to table report over Rudd shredding
Posted Tue Sep 18, 2007 7:06am AEST
Government Senators will today move to table a report in Parliament about the shredding of a document by the Queensland Cabinet when Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd was chief of staff to then-Premier Wayne Goss.
The nine-volume report, by Sydney QC David Rofe, examines the 1990 destruction of documents which related to allegations of child sex abuse in a Queensland detention centre.
There have been five previous Senate inquiries into the matter.
Last night Nationals Senate leader Ron Boswell told the upper house that the latest 3,600-page report should be on the public record.
Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce told the Parliament that the report identifies at least 67 alleged breaches of the criminal code.
"Breaches of the criminal code and other statutes by members of the Goss cabinet, other ministerial staff, senior public servants and other persons all of whom have been complicit in the destruction of the Heiner documents, and the apparent suppression and cover-up of these activities," he said.
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