Beattie plays down illegal drugs trade
Sean Parnell
February 28, 2007
THE Beattie Government believes the state's booming amphetamines trade is merely a "cottage-based industry" best handled by traditional policing methods, despite Queensland having the largest number of illegal drug labs in Australia and experiencing renewed problems with outlaw motorcycle gangs.
Law enforcement agencies across Australia acknowledge the involvement of organised crime groups in the drug trade but the Beattie Government has downplayed the link as it continues to withhold telephone interception powers from Queensland police and the Crime and Misconduct Commission.
The Government, in its submission to a federal parliamentary inquiry, referred to the drug trade in Queensland as a "cottage-based industry" and said state-based law enforcementagencies were successfully targeting repeat offenders, whileallowing other agencies to take the lead on cross-border investigations.
But CMC chairman Robert Needham warned that the drug market in Queensland had become "diverse and entrenched" as organised crime groups, including bikie gangs, changed their methods and networks to avoid detection.
Mr Needham said the Government's failure to introduce telephone interception powers - used by all other state and federal agencies - "severely impedes the capability of law enforcement to make serious inroads into the organised crime groups involved in the production of and trafficking" of amphetamines and other synthetic drugs.
Premier Peter Beattie yesterday maintained that telephone interception powers would not be introduced in Queensland until the Howard Government amended its communications legislation - on which all other states and territories rely for their interception powers - to allow the additional safeguard of a public interest monitor.
The commonwealth has repeatedly refused to amend its legislation, and Mr Beattie called for additional safeguards only after his Government rejected at least four independent recommendations that telephone interception powers be introduced.
Mr Needham, in the CMC's submission to the federal inquiry, acknowledged the Queensland illegal drug industry was "historically" cottage-based. But he warned outlaw bikie gangs were well involved and, like other organised crime groups, had sought to avoid detection by "compartmentalising their operations" and were "more loosely structured and opportunistic". He said small labs were spread over a larger geographic area in Queensland.
