Latest news with #DanPurdie
ABC News
10-05-2025
- ABC News
Queensland Police to review pursuit policy amid spate of car thefts
Queensland police are reviewing a no-pursuit policy the union says gives a green light to car thieves. Despite the introduction of tougher "adult crime, adult time" penalties, the rate of car thefts remains stubbornly high in cities including Townsville in North Queensland, where a stolen car recently disrupted an Anzac Day service. Police cannot pursue a driver unless there is an imminent threat to life, a driver has made threats to kill or has committed an indictable offence. Police union president Shane Prior said the policy was clear but restrictive. "Frontline police are frustrated with the current policy and the community finds it absurd," he said. "It has effectively become a green light for criminals in Queensland to drive almost without consequence." A Queensland police spokesperson said yesterday a review was underway. Police Minister Dan Purdie said he had supported the policy until recently. The former police officer's view changed with the introduction of tougher sentencing options. "Now police are armed with tougher laws, we do want to give our police back the balance of power on the street, to hold those offenders to account, stop them in their tracks and put them before the court," he said. He stressed policy matters were ultimately a matter for the police commissioner. "When it is worth taking that urgent duty driving action, we want to make sure police have the backing of government," he said. The current pursuit policy does not ban the pursuit of stolen vehicles, but says alternative options must be considered, including tyre-deflating devices and roadblocks. Tighter rules were introduced in 2011 when coroner Michael Barnes made a series of recommendations after the death of 10 people involved in police pursuits between 2005 and 2008. A police spokesperson said the QPS Safe Driving Policy was being reviewed. "The QPS Safe Driving Policy is being reviewed to identify opportunities to enhance the safety of officers and the community, while still allowing pursuits in permissible circumstances," he said. "QPS will work to apprehend those who evade interception, but pursuits will often not be the principal means of apprehension." In Townsville, more than 400 car theft offences have been recorded since January 1, which is about 9 per cent higher than in the same period in 2024. Local athlete Jake Doran is assessing the damage to his high-performance Kia Stinger, which was stolen on Thursday morning and spotted being driven erratically around the city. It was found crashed later that night, with an extra 800 kilometres on the odometer. "Obviously they've had their fun with it, both the inside and outside have been ruined ... they've obviously crashed it and ditched it," he said. "Stop the cars before they actually clock hundreds of kilometres on Townsville roads at high speeds."
The Guardian
04-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Queensland police to have power to issue on-the-spot domestic violence protection orders
The Queensland government says it will allow police officers to issue instant year-long domestic violence protection orders – a proposal that experts say could put vulnerable women at greater risk of harm. The state's police minister, Dan Purdie, says the plan would save 'hundreds of thousands of hours' of police time. But domestic and family violence experts and victims' advocates say handing police the power to issue on-the-spot orders – avoiding the need for a time-consuming court process – risks compounding problems caused by the widespread police misidentification of victims in DFV matters. Heather Douglas, a law professor at the University of Melbourne and an expert on protection orders, said the plan was 'really problematic' and risked negative consequences for people wrongly labelled perpetrators by police, particularly First Nations women. 'Orders shouldn't be given out like parking fines,' Douglas said. The 2022 inquiry into police responses to domestic and family violence heard evidence that officers disbelieved female victims and actively avoided attending DFV calls. Research shows that almost half of the women murdered in Queensland had previously been labelled the perpetrator of domestic violence by police. Guardian Australia first revealed last year that the former Labor government had begun consultation on a police-led 'efficiency' proposal – pushed by the former police commissioner Katarina Carroll – that would allow for officers to issue on-the-spot, year-long orders. Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter Confidential briefing documents were leaked to Guardian Australia at the time amid serious concern among women's advocates about the impact of the idea. The former government had planned to introduce its laws in March last year, but shelved the proposal after the details leaked, and after taking onboard the concern about its potential impact on victims. The new government now appears to have taken up the same proposal. Under existing laws, police can issue a temporary 'protection notice' that lasts until a magistrate can hear an application for a domestic violence order. The new proposal would enable a 'police protection direction' that lasted a year. 'It's really important that there's careful consideration for a protection order,' Douglas said. 'I think the risk is [that police] end up [issuing orders] that aren't appropriate just to save themselves time and that's really problematic.' Angela Lynch, the executive officer of the Queensland Sexual Assault Network, said Tasmania used a similar system of police protection directions. She said DFV services and victims agencies there were now 'advocating for their removal as they have increased misidentification of victims as perpetrators, which has had devastating consequences for the safety and justice of many vulnerable women and children'. Lynch said the network was also concerned about the 12-month timeframe for police notices, when court-issued orders typically lasted for five years. 'A key recommendation from the Not Now, Not Ever inquiry was to increase the time of protection orders from two years (at that time) to five years to reduce victim-survivor's trauma in having to retell their experience at multiple court events.' 'We hope that the government has fully engaged with the DFV sector to fully understand all the consequences and impacts on victim survivors of these changes.' Purdie said the laws would reduce paperwork at a time when the police domestic violence workload had increased dramatically. 'We want to give police tools that they can rapidly put in place protection toward vulnerable victims of domestic violence. We want to hold perpetrators to account and protect all victims of crime,' Purdie told reporters on Friday. 'What this does is allows police, once they've identified the person most in need of protection, they can rapidly put an order in place to protect that person. They can do that on the spot. 'We know we need to give the police those resources and those laws to be able to identify the person most in need of protection and to take decisive action to protect that person.'
