Jacks and Jokers (46 page)

‘And when this came out, but no one knew the detail, Manfred said, “I think they’re trying to blame me as going with Murphy.” He said, “It’s just not true. I know nothing about it.” ’

Hayden says: ‘But that was the depth of animosity between the coalition parties … [Bjelke-Petersen] wanted to get rid of the … he would rather have a Labor man in Ipswich than Llew Edwards.

‘So he was … Joh Bjelke-Petersen was fighting on two fronts. Basically within his coalition he was fighting the Liberals and he was fighting the Labor Party on the other front.

‘I honestly don’t think he took Labor too seriously. I think he thought he’d get away with it. There was arrogance there. Been running around for a long time doing all of these Machiavellian deals. You know, they were pretty ruthless bastards …’

Legendary ALP figure Manfred Cross confirms the cash transaction: ‘It was a secret deal. We were offered money. I have no doubt it happened. It was not out of character for Denis – he was very pragmatic. He might have gone to pick up the money on his own. I don’t think the Administrative Committee knew about it.’

Hayden’s story would later be supported by another anecdote from farmer and grazier and the member for Callide, Lindsay Hartwig.

‘It was an August evening just prior to my overseas trip to Zambia [in 1980, three months before the state election],’ he recalled. ‘I was sitting in the [parliamentary] dining-room – I can show honourable members the table – when the member for Archerfield [Kevin Hooper] walked in.

‘I was the only member in the dining-room at that time and the honourable member made to go to the area in which the Labor Party usually sits.

‘I said, “Kevin, come over here and sit with me. There are two of us here; let’s talk, even though we are on opposite sides of the fence.”

‘Within a few minutes we were joined by the Premier. I am prepared to go on any lie-detecting machine that anybody can bring forward and I am prepared to swear an oath on the Bible that in the ensuing minutes the Premier and the member for Archerfield discussed ways and means of defeating Liberal Party members at the coming election.’

Hartwig said independent Labor members were mentioned. ‘I heard the Premier say, “Kevin, we have to seek ways and means of defeating these Liberals.” I don’t tell lies, but I kept that a secret. As a matter of fact, I went outside and had a good vomit.’

Commissioner Lewis was fully au fait with who the Premier liked and disliked in the Liberal Party. Bjelke-Petersen had a particular enmity for Treasurer Llew Edwards, according to Lewis.

‘You couldn’t trust Llew in any shape or form,’ Lewis says. ‘Even old Joh, he was a condescending fellow if you like … [he said] when Llew’s around you sleep with one eye open.

‘Joh tolerated him because he had the brains if you like to be Treasurer, plus the fact that in those days the National Party had to live with the Liberal Party … what he [Edwards] put up they had to accept. I’m sure he [Joh] didn’t like him.’

There were possible reasons, too, for Lewis disliking the Treasurer and Deputy Premier. Around this time Edwards had been told by a member of the Liberal Party Executive that Commissioner Lewis was ‘unhappy about my leadership of the Liberal Party’ and that it needed a change of leadership.

Edwards got on the phone to Commissioner Lewis. ‘He denied that he had ever told anybody this and that I had his full support,’ Edwards would recall later. ‘I indicated to him at this time that it was none of his business to be involved in politics. He assured me that he was not involved in any way.’

A mutual distrust was developing.

Edwards called the Commissioner again not long after, saying he had heard that Lewis, while attending a Police Union meeting, had told those present that the department’s diminished funding rates and subsequent low staff numbers were the fault of Treasurer Llew Edwards.

‘He categorically denied that he had said this and he informed me that he thought I was doing my best to get money for the police force and that my story was totally inaccurate,’ Edwards remembered.

Llew told Lewis he thought morale was low in the force because some specific commissioned officers had been given rapid promotions. ‘I particularly mentioned Mr. [Tony] Murphy, Mr. [Ron] Redmond and Mr. [Syd] Atkinson as having received rapid promotion whilst Mr. [Basil] Hicks, Mr. [Noel] Creevey and Mr. Tom Pointing had indicated to me their fairly stationary position,’ Edwards said. ‘He assured me he would investigate those matters and report back to me and he also indicated to me that I should not advise the Premier of our conversation on that date and I told him I had already advised the Premier of my intended conversation [with Lewis] …’

It didn’t end there. As Edwards was also the Racing Minister, he was concerned about illegal SP bookmaking.

To counter this thriving trade, Edwards thought of establishing a special squad of police, ‘hand-picked and trusted’, who would work with Racing Department officials to knock SP gambling on the head.

‘… I raised this matter with the Premier who indicated that it would be a good idea but before he did anything about it he would speak to the Commissioner of Police,’ said Edwards.

‘Within 24 hours of my raising this issue with the Premier I received a telephone call from the Premier indicating that he had discussed the matter with Terry Lewis and he said that both he and the Commissioner would not support any moves in this direction because they wanted the police force to remain as one unit.

‘I never had any direct conversation with … Lewis about this proposal.’

Justice Williams Reports

After Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had implored Justice Williams to explore allegations that some Queensland police and politicians were involved in the illicit drug trade following an explosive parliamentary debate in late November 1979, the good Justice’s special 30-page Report to the Queensland Government on Matters of Particular Relevance to the State of Queensland was completed in April and tabled in the House.

Justice Williams dismissed many allegations raised by Opposition leader Ed Casey during that debate as being based on hearsay. He said North Queensland most certainly had ‘attractions in terms of geography, climate and population distribution to those who illegally import, produce and traffic in drugs’ for the supply of larger southern markets, as in Sydney and Melbourne.

‘An example of activities so organised and controlled – in this case from Sydney – is provided by the activities of John Edward Milligan and his associates … which so excited the interest of Mr. E.D. Casey, Leader of the Opposition.’

More importantly, he reported that the public in North Queensland had a ‘loss of confidence’ in the enforcement of the criminal law dealing with drugs.

‘There is no question of recrimination in respect of this loss of confidence,’ Williams concluded. ‘Its causes can be identified and steps can and should be taken to regain it. Reasons for it include the circulation of the stories of police involvement and corruption earlier referred to. Pressure of demand on police resources and on policemen are another reason.’

Justice Williams recommended that ‘a number of police officers of drug squad experience’ be stationed in North Queensland. ‘These officers would also be available to assist other police in the area in their efforts against criminals engaged in illegal drug trafficking and be free to concentrate a proportion of their activities on identifying and dealing with, either alone or in conjunction with other police forces, large scale activities in the area.’

It was a recommendation that the government and police took seriously. By the end of the year, Commissioner Lewis’s chief fixer – Tony Murphy – would be deployed to Cairns to try and take control of a rampant drug problem. He would be followed shortly after by crack undercover operative Jim Slade.

One-Armed Bandits

One of the vexing problems for the pious Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen into 1980 was whether or not to introduce poker machines into the state’s pubs and clubs.

The issue had been debated in the media, and the Registered and Licensed Clubs Association in Queensland was lobbying hard for pokies, given New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory already had them. But the government had yet to take the bull by the horns.

It did, to a degree, on 26 May.

In what was to be Cabinet Decision No. 32985, it was determined: ‘That a Departmental Committee be established comprising representatives of the Departments of Police, Justice, Welfare Services and Culture, National Parks and Recreation to examine the detrimental effects on the community of poker machines and that a report be submitted to Cabinet as soon as possible.’

A week later Lewis wrote to the various departments asking for the names of their representatives on the poker machine committee. He also penned a memo to Assistant Commissioner Brian Hayes, nominating him as chairman of the committee and asking him to ultimately ‘furnish a report to me for submission to the Minister in terms of the Cabinet Decision.’

Commissioner Lewis made no mention in his diary of the decision to form a committee on pokies for more than a week, despite direct contact with his Minister, though common sense would dictate that poker machines were discussed, however informally.

It wasn’t until Friday 6 June, in a meeting with the Premier that the ‘cabinet minute of poker machines’ was discussed, along with a report on the activities of ‘International Socialists’, Australian Federal Police ‘intrusions’ and ‘our next minister’.

The following day – a Saturday and Lewis’s day off – he read the 147-page ‘Report by Justice Moffitt, Royal Commissioner on “allegations of crime (organized) in clubs”.’

The committee on pokies consisted of chairman Hayes, one of Lewis’s trusted right-hand men; Colin Pearson, Under Secretary for the Department of Justice; Cedric Johnson, Under Secretary for the Department of Welfare Services; and Stan Wilcox, Bjelke-Petersen’s former private secretary and the Director of Sport for the Department of Culture, National Parks and Recreation.

The committee met through June and into July on the tenth floor of police headquarters. Its 18-page report was completed and signed off at the end of the first week of July.

It summarised the detrimental impacts and possible consequences of the legislated introduction of poker machines as: implications for criminal activity (including organised crime); addictiveness associated with the peculiar nature of poker machines; weakened domestic relationships; impaired work effectiveness; and increased alcohol consumption.

It quoted from the report of the Moffitt Royal Commission report, tabled in the New South Wales parliament in 1974, and in particular focused on the Bally Corporation, run in Australia by Jack Rooklyn, the cigar-smoking Sydney businessman who had met Lewis for food and drinks in the Mayfair Crest in Brisbane in 1979.

The Moffitt report said that some club officials in New South Wales were receiving large cash incentives to take Bally poker machines in their establishments. It included other references: ‘Our information indicates that large amounts of American currency are being brought into the country illegally and it is this money, when converted, that is used in the payment of secret commissions.

‘Rooklyn has stated he believes poker machines will be legalised in Queensland and Victoria within the next two years and he wants to take over the lot.’

The committee was mindful of the welfare of decent, upstanding Queensland families and the possible impact of pokies and their addictive qualities. ‘It is the experience of a number of government departments that gambling can be harmful to parents, children and family life and that it can be the catalyst which leads to criminal activity and imprisonment,’ their report said. ‘If the poker machines receive the cloak of legal respectability, it is possible that the remaning barrier to many social problems may be seriously diminished.’

The committee complained that it did not have enough time to prepare a detailed response to the issue as ‘there is very little currently available in published form’ on the detriments of one-armed bandits.

‘Police enquiries reveal that the various police forces throughout Australia do not have substantive material which may assist in this regard,’ the report went on.

‘However, it is felt that the contents of this report may assist Cabinet to appreciate the detrimental effects which have been highlighted in papers and articles.’

According to Jack ‘The Bagman’ Herbert, Lewis gave him a copy of the committee’s report.

‘I took it down to Sydney to show Jack Rooklyn and I went to his house in Vaucluse,’ Herbert wrote in his memoir
The Bagman
. ‘I remember he had a swimming pool with a mosaic floor. He read the report while I was there.’

There was a reference to the way Rooklyn did business that Rooklyn didn’t appreciate. Herbert said: ‘Maybe that had something to do with him trying to renege on the $25,000. He said he only wanted to pay $15,000 and someone else could make up the rest.

‘It took a while to bring him around but in the end Jack Rooklyn agreed to pay the whole lot himself. What he didn’t know was that Terry was only keeping $15,000. The rest was a kickback for me, which I shared with two of Rooklyn’s associates, John Henry Garde and Barry MacNamara.’

Herbert alleged the money was handed over to Lewis during a meeting again at the Crest, and Hebert was later given his share of the money. Lewis supposedly said: ‘That should do you.’