THE HEINER AFFAIR

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Queensland Child Protection Commission of Inquiry

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Mr Wayne Swan

STANDING COMMITTEE ON LEGAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

INQUIRY INTO CRIME IN THE COMMUNITY:

SUBMISSION IN REPLY TO BRACKET OF EVIDENCE TAKEN IN BRISBANE REGARDING SUBMISSIONS 142 & 142.1

THE HEINER AFFAIR ON 27 OCTOBER 2003 Kevin Lindeberg.

It follows that any suggestion that the (Goss) Queensland Government came to this matter with clean hands and good intentions bears little scrutiny. Transparency in the Goss Government’s handling of this matter was never present from day one, nor does it exist in the Beattie Government in 2003.

1.17 It is now quite clear that while Queensland’s administrative and criminal justice system has collapsed in around the Cabinet’s unlawful decision to destroy the Heiner Inquiry documents, as Dr. MacAdam suggested in his 27 October 2003 bracket of evidence, these corrupt doings, by natural political and logical extension, go back to the ALP’s transition-

12 I was an ALP member in Federal seat of Bowman occupied by the Hon. Con Sciacca; and the State seat of Manly (later changed to Capalaba) which was occupied by Mr. Jim Elder who later resigned in disgrace, when Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development, after being caught up in electoral rorting which came to light during the Shepherdson Inquiry into electoral rorting within the ALP in late 2000. I used to attend branch meetings on a regular basis. I parted company with the ALP over the Heiner Affair in 1992 after meeting with Mr. Elder when he acknowledged that exposing the Heiner cover-up was only a matter of when it would happen, not if. After the 1992 Goss victory, Mr. Elder became a new Minister and leader of the AWU faction, and spoke in a derisory manner about Heiner whenever it came to the floor of Parliament for debate. 13 Mr. Peter Coyne and Mrs. Anne Dutney Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee – Submission in Reply to 27 October 2003 Brisbane Evidence The Heiner Affair

into-government committee because it is not credible for certain of its members not to have had the same knowledge as Ms. Warner declared she had in the 1 October 1989 edition of The Sunday-Sun. It is simply not plausible to suggest otherwise. It is therefore strongly open to suggest that certain plans originated in this forum – or even within a smaller circle - about how the John OxleyYouth Detention Centre problem within the Families Department would be addressed, along with a general cleaning out of other departments after being in the political wilderness for 32 years when the expected December 1989 State election victory was decided. It was, afterall, another “drover’s dog” election to be won by the ALP against a discredited and dysfunctional National Party Government massively weighed down by the Fitzgerald Inquiry revelations.

1.18 The manifestation of a transition-into-government plan to “clean out” certain public officials showed up when certain high ranking persons, mainly former departmental Directors-General, were shunted off to a ”gulag” at the Normanby Fiveways within a matter of days of the Goss Government winning office where they were given no work, and were eventually either terminated or employed elsewhere. The author knows that Queensland Premier the Hon. Wayne Goss’s Principal Private Secretary, Mr. Kevin Rudd, played a highly significant role in this possess of vetting the suitability of new Directors-General for the Goss administration, even as early as the Sunday after election day.

1.19 Mr. Coyne was suddenly moved from his management position at Wacol on 14 February 1990 to another in the Brisbane Central area to carry out a so-called special task the following day. His secondment occurred the day after the Inquiry was closed which immediately triggered his legal action to obtain access to the Heiner Inquiry documents.14

1.20 He was gazetted15 to his new position which opens up other related questions concerning the subsequent (fraudulent) make-up of his Deed of Settlement* payment of $27,190 which included bogus compensation for additional travelling costs and payment for time off in lieu of worked overtime neither of which he was entitled to. Mr. Coyne claimed that his seconded task was, in reality, a “created non-job”16 for the purpose of justifying his sudden removal from the Centre. *(See Heading: The Fresh Significance of the Particular Provisions in the February 1991 Deed of Settlement)

1.21 The identity of those on the ALP transition-into-government committee may become a highly relevant factor in Heiner now for a variety of reasons. Certain LACA Committee members have seen fit to question me on the suspicion that I must have known about the child abuse at the time which, presumably, I should have done something about by preventing the Inquiry’s records from being shredded or reported it to an appropriate authority because it potentially breached ‘the course of justice’ as the records would have been highly relevant to a police investigation and potential related judicial proceedings. As it happened, I was unaware of the abuse.

1.22 Some of these people may have gone on to hold, and may still hold, very influential positions in State or Federal public office, or, indeed, elsewhere enabling them to hinder justice or to still do so in this serious matter. In the interests of justice, their identity and

14 See the Walsh Memorandum dated 14 February 1990 to DFSAIA Acting CEO Ms. Ruth Matchett. 15 See Queensland Government Gazette No. 55 3/3/90 p.1088. 16 Review of Departmental Services to Young Offenders – See Volume 2 Criminal Justice Commission – Senate Select Committee on Unresolved Whistleblower Cases Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee – Submission in Reply to 27 October 2003 Brisbane Evidence The Heiner Affair

public position held at relevant times, may well therefore become a necessary fact-finding ingredient for the Committee which, when known, may add more weight to the alreadyestablished call for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor to investigate Heiner fully. Equally, given the seriousness of the situation, some may well wish to publicly disavow themselves, under oath, of the same state of knowledge which former Goss Families Minister the Hon. Anne Warner and former Environment Minister the Hon. Pat Comben unquestionably had at the time when they, as Ministers of the Crown, permitted vital evidence of abuse of children in State care to be put through the shredder so that it could not be used in court or in evidence against the careers of certain staff at the Centre who were plainly abusing children in State care and were never held to account. Such conduct may go to a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and accessory after the fact.

1.23 It is open to suggest that two such people caught up in this network and sitting in the Federal Parliament should be questioned under oath in the same way I was to ascertain whether or not they held the same state of knowledge as the Hon. Anne Warner and the Hon. Pat Comben did in those critical days. They are the Member for Griffith, Mr. Kevin Rudd MP and the Member for Lilley, Mr. Wayne Swan MP.

Read the complete document

Labor Government destroys evidence into child abuse. Ministers pervert course of justice by illegal shredding of documents. Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan support Goss cabinet decision to shred.

 

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