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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-04-30 Daily Xml
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EASLING, MR T.

The Hon. I.F. EVANS (Davenport) (15:28): I wish to speak about a corrupt police investigation. Imagine if you were charged with an offence and, when it went to court, you asked for the notes of the police interviews and the police said, 'Well, we didn't actually keep notes of those interviews because the witnesses were saying positive things about the accused and so we didn't think that was important.' Imagine a police investigation where the police officers give sworn testimony that they took notes of certain interviews but then decided to shred them because they were pushed for time, and so they were not available to the prosecution or the defence.

Imagine a police investigation where the police officers did not tape interviews or only taped parts of interviews. While the tape recorder was not on, imagine the police officers advising the people they were interviewing of the name—especially if it was a sex abuse case—of the person they were investigating, naming other people that person allegedly abused, describing the type of abuse that that person was accused of, the places it might have occurred, the pattern of the behaviour of the accused, and then advising the alleged victim or the witness that compensation was available. Imagine a police investigation where the police officers gave the victims cash and brought the victims mobile phones and organised significant gifts and benefits from government and, in the process, that witness went from five times saying someone was not guilty to saying that someone was guilty.

The reason I raise this is that if any of that happened in a police investigation—and let me say to the house that none of that happened in a police investigation—the house would be outraged that police had shredded evidence or given gifts and benefits to alleged witnesses, or named people accused of child abuse, or named people who had been abused, or simply not taken notes. There would be an outrage. The reason I raise this today in the context of the police doing it is that I ask the house to consider this question: what is the difference between that happening (an outrage if the police did it) and the fact that it did happen in a case under the Special Investigations Unit with Tom Easling? It all did happen. What is the difference? The Special Investigations Unit was investigating Easling with a view to prosecution. The police investigate with a view to prosecution. I know, technically, it was not a police investigation but, when you are investigating with a view to prosecuting, particularly sex abuse crimes, surely there has to be a standard.

It has been eight months since Easling's lawyers wrote to the government saying there needs to be a royal commission into his investigation and associated matters. I have raised on a consistent basis issues to do with the investigation, and not once has the government come back and said I am wrong. The government's habit is to come straight back into the house and say, 'The member has raised an issue and he is wrong' (we have seen that this week), but not once on this issue has the government come in and said, 'You are wrong.'

As I have just done in this speech, I have raised a whole range of issues. We know about the media tip-offs; we know about subpoenaed documents not being released by the government; and we know that the Mitcham council has written saying its officers impersonated police. How much more does the government need to hear before it makes a decision that what happened to Tom Easling was simply wrong? How much longer does it need to make a decision?

The Attorney-General has had eight months and he has not said no, which is a good thing, but I implore him to say yes, because I think the evidence is crystal clear to the house that the investigation of Tom Easling was biased and corrupt.

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