PARLIAMENTARY CRIME AND CORRUPTION COMMITTEE
Members present: Mr JM Krause MP—Chair Mr MJ Crandon MP Mrs MF McMahon MP Mr BL O’Rourke MP Mr JA Sullivan MP Staff present: Ms E Jameson—Committee Secretary Mr G Thomson—Assistant Committee Secretary
MEETING WITH THE PARLIAMENTARY CRIME AND CORRUPTION COMMISSIONER
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
FRIDAY, 12 MARCH 2021 Brisbane
Meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
Brisbane - 1 - 12 Mar 2021
FRIDAY, 12 MARCH 2021 ____________
The committee met at 9.00 am. CHAIR: Good morning. I am Jon Krause, member for Scenic Rim and chair of the
Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee. Joining me on the committee today are: Mr Jimmy Sullivan, member for Stafford and deputy chair; Mr Michael Crandon, member for Coomera; Mrs Melissa McMahon, member for Macalister; and Mr Barry O’Rourke, member for Rockhampton. We have apologies from Mr Duncan Pegg, the member for Stretton, and Dr Mark Robinson, member for Oodgeroo.
The committee’s proceedings are proceedings of the Queensland parliament and are subject to the standing rules and orders of the parliament. As parliamentary proceedings, under the standing orders any person may be excluded from the hearing at the discretion of the chair or by order of the committee. The proceedings are being recorded by Hansard and broadcast live on the parliament’s website. Media may be present and will be subject to my direction at all times. The media rules endorsed by the committee are available from committee staff if required. All those present today should note that it is possible you might be filmed or photographed during the proceedings by media and images may also appear on the parliament’s website or social media pages. I ask everyone present to turn mobiles phones off or to silent mode.
The committee is beginning its meeting in public to deal with a number of matters. It will then commence its public meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner. The committee will then close the public part of the meeting and continue the remainder of its meeting in private session. The public meeting is scheduled to finish at approximately 10 am. The first item of business this morning is apologies and declarations of interest. We have noted the apologies. Are there any declarations of interest?
Mr SULLIVAN: I have a standing declaration, Chair. CHAIR: Is there anyone else? There being none, we will move on to the adoption of agenda.
Members have been provided with a copy of the agenda for today’s meeting. The proposed resolution is that the agenda for 12 March 2021, as circulated, be adopted.
Mr CRANDON: I so move. CHAIR: Those in favour? Those against? That is carried. Item 3 is draft minutes. Members
have been provided with a copy of the draft minutes for the committee meetings held on 23 February, 26 February and 4 March 2021. We have been an extremely busy committee. Those minutes have been circulated. Is there any discussion around that? The proposed resolution is that the committee confirm the minutes of the committee meetings held on 23 February, 26 February and 4 March 2021 as true and accurate records of the meetings.
Mr SULLIVAN: I so move. CHAIR: Those in favour? Those against? That is carried. Members have been provided with
copies of incoming and outgoing correspondence schedules. Is there any discussion arising from the schedules that we can have in this session? The proposed resolution is that the inward correspondence is accepted and the outward correspondence is endorsed.
Mrs McMAHON: I so move. CHAIR: Those in favour? Those against? That is carried. Item 5 is the public meeting with the
Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner. Members have been provided with a secretariat briefing and the parliamentary commissioner’s public report. The proposed resolution is that the committee authorises the publication of the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner’s report titled Report to the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Committee—Public Report, 12 March 2021. Is there any discussion? If not, can someone move that?
Mrs McMAHON: I so move. CHAIR: Those in favour? Those against? That is carried. The committee will now commence
its public meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner.
Meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
Brisbane - 2 - 12 Mar 2021
CARMODY, Ms Karen, Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
KUNDE, Mr Mitchell, Principal Legal Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
CHAIR: I welcome Ms Karen Carmody, Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner. It is nice to meet you. There are a couple of new members on the committee who have not met you before or had a briefing, so we are looking forward to hearing what you have to say. I also welcome Mr Mitchell Kunde, Principal Legal Officer. Ms Carmody, would you like to make a brief opening statement?
Ms Carmody: Good morning. This is my first report with this committee since the election. It is the report covering the period 9 July 2020 to today. The work of the office during that period was impacted only to a slight degree by COVID. There were periods when Parliament House was shut down or there were restrictions on entry to the Crime and Corruption Commission to do inspections. Otherwise, the office has operated fairly regularly without substantial difficulties.
I would like to go through a number of items in the public part of the report and then, when we move to the private report, I will revisit some of those areas. I am going to touch on the highlights from the public report. I will start with item 4—‘Five-year Review of the CCC’—and confirm that I provided a report to the committee with respect to the review of that act on 10 August.
During the course of this meeting, I am occasionally going to elaborate on and repeat matters that the longstanding members of the committee are familiar with for some new members of the committee who may not be aware of the matters I am discussing. Item 5—‘Meeting of Inspectors, Parliamentary Commissioners and Reviewers’—is one of them.
About five years ago—I think it was about five years ago—the initiative was made between my equivalents in a number of other jurisdictions of Australia to meet annually. Over the last couple of years that group has increased slightly. Each of my equivalents either have the same role and title as I do or have a similar title and role but with substantial differences. Nevertheless, when we meet we have a lot of commonality to discuss and on occasion have very significant problems that cross jurisdictions which we discuss informally.
There are about seven of us who meet annually and we usually have one member of staff with us. I have explained on other occasions that the meetings are conducted on the Chatham House Rule. We do not take any minutes. We do not keep any records. We speak very frankly about personalities, friction, difficulties with concepts, deficiencies that we perceive in the legislation— anything that we feel jeopardises the surveillance or monitoring role of this equivalent entity. There are parliamentary inspectors. There are reviewers. They have their various titles.
The last meeting with this committee was held last year by Zoom. It was moderately effective but it obviously was not as effective as face-to-face meetings. The meeting this year will be in Canberra. Each state or territory hosts the meeting. The meeting this year in Canberra will be in May. I will be seeking approval from the committee to attend that meeting. Mr Kunde normally comes with me as well. In the private part of the meeting I intend to raise a couple of issues which are examples of the importance of the exchange between the various states and territories as to mutual problems and ways to resolve issues which are sometimes even politically delicate.
I will not discuss the Connolly-Ryan commission of inquiry archives. I do not think that is something that members need me to address today. I turn now to what for me is paragraph 10, which is the key outputs achieved during the period 10 July 2020 to 3 March 2021. This table is provided in all of my reports. It sets out matters that have been finalised or are in the midst of finalisation. I would like to address two matters.
The first is ‘Notifications of improper conduct assessed’, which is item 3 on that table. You will see there have been 26 of those during this period. That is a more than usually large number simply because normally there would have been a report between July and this meeting. That does not reflect the normal number that you would see there, but it does indicate the level of work because each of those notifications, depending on the circumstances, can involve a fair amount of work.
The last item I would like you to look at in that table is under the heading of ‘Timeliness’, the last two items—the average time taken to finalise complaints and the average time taken to finalise statutory functions. The statutory functions are mainly the inspections and audits at the CCC, and QPS on occasion, and providing those reports. Those inspections, which I will discuss later in the meeting, can take a number of days. They require looking at a lot of documents and files and then doing a report.
Meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
Brisbane - 3 - 12 Mar 2021
The issue of the finalising complaints taking 22 weeks I have discussed with Mr Kunde. Over the years that time has not varied greatly. During my time as parliamentary commissioner and with previous parliamentary commissioners it has always been roughly that amount of time. That is due to the fact that it takes a fair amount of time to obtain all of the relevant documents. Mr Kunde will write to whomever he needs to. They may then come back with documents. On reviewing those documents it may become apparent that there are other documents that are required. That requires further communication. We go backwards and forwards. In the past we have had to look at videos. We have had to obtain records from the Cairns Magistrates Court. That can take some time. Unfortunately, they are never as timely as I would like, but that is due to the pressures of getting all of those documents together.
The 5.5 weeks for finalising statutory functions is fairly standard as well. That is mainly a case of being able to liaise with the CCC as to when we go down, accessing those records and then putting the reports together after that. My availability is sometimes a little limited, so I might be only able to do two days one week and then have to wait another week or two before I get down, so that always throws it out as well. When the legislation permits it Mr Kunde will continue with those inspections in my absence, but there are some inspections that I really must be there for throughout the totality of those inspections.
I turn now to item 11—‘Inspection of the CCC’s Controlled Operations Records’—and item 12—‘Report on Controlled Operations Activities’. I want to clarify for members of the committee what a controlled operation is. Is everyone clear on that meaning? I know Mrs McMahon will of course know, as will the older members. For new members, a controlled operation is something that is approved at the highest level—sometimes in conjunction with other entities, possibly federal entities. The principal defining factor is that there will be an authorisation of law enforcement officers to take on assumed identities. They will enter into a gang or whatever it is that is being investigated and conduct themselves as a member of that gang, for obvious reasons. For similarly obvious reasons, it is very important that those operations are very carefully monitored. Part of the role of the parliamentary commissioner is to audit those records to ensure that is happening.
I turn now to item 22—‘Intelligence Data Review’. It taps into all of the data that the CCC maintains. You may be aware that the CCC can access Queensland police records, which are QPRIME records. They can access Australian Criminal Intelligence Database records, or ACID. They have their own database record, which is IRAS. The importance of that audit is to ensure they are not retaining on records material that should not be retained. For example, if for whatever reason they chose to investigate someone who they were suspicious were part of some crime connection, if at the end of that investigation no links were established there should be no reason to keep those records. That person’s name and their details should no longer be retained, unless they can establish some potential link in the future. That is the type of thing we are looking for.
For the interests of the public and this committee, one can understand that it is important that members of the community are not subjected to having their personal details being retained in records and their personal matters investigated if there is no link in any way to any crime. We certainly accept in this office that initially there might be some concerns, but once that is clarified those records should be removed. For the purposes of the public meeting, that is the substance of the report, unless there is anything further that Mr Kunde thinks we should discuss. Are there any questions about that part of the report?
CHAIR: Thank you, Ms Carmody. I invite members of the committee to ask questions. Deputy Chair, would you like to proceed?
Mr SULLIVAN: Thanks. I note at paragraph 23 that we will be expecting a report in the next couple of weeks so we can talk about that in the future. In relation to the inspection of the CCC’s telecommunications interception records, which is paragraphs 29 to 31, is that the usual time frame? I understand there is still ongoing work from you and your team.
Ms Carmody: Yes, that is the usual time frame. It is mandated within the act. The act sets out the time frames by which those inspections should be done. There is a requirement for it to be done every six months. As you see, it is at least twice during each financial year. I go down and look at all of the records, including the TI warrants and the supporting affidavits. For those of you who are unaware, when the CCC, the police or any entity wants to do a telephone intercept, they have to provide an affidavit to whoever the judge is, or the AAT member, explaining the justification for the need for the intercept. They need to identify what evidence they have that that is the phone number that needs to be intercepted. In some cases, criminals dispose constantly of phone numbers, so on occasion they will seek a telephone intercept with respect to what is called a named person. When people buy mobile phones at the supermarket, use them once and then dispose of them and
Meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
Brisbane - 4 - 12 Mar 2021
immediately take up another phone, they cannot do the telephone intercepts because that phone has just been used once, so they also have named person warrants where every time that person seeks out a phone their number, whatever it is, can be intercepted.
I have fairly comprehensive knowledge of this area simply because prior to my position as parliamentary commissioner I was both Deputy Public Interest Monitor and then Public Interest Monitor. For those unfamiliar with that role, that is a role which is there to protect the privacy of the community and is in relation to any applications to, for instance, install a surveillance device in one of your homes—in a lamp, in the ceiling or in your bedroom—and to monitor either visually or by sound your activities. That is not your sexual activities; there are usually conditions expressly on the warrants that bedrooms are not to have intercepts placed in them unless there is evidence that the criminal activity is going on in there.
Generally, the intercept would be by way of either a physical device or a telephone intercept. Those affidavits telling the court why they are needed are provided to the Public Interest Monitor in advance of the application. The Public Interest Monitor appears in court, which is a closed court, along with the applicant, the police or a CCC officer. The Public Interest Monitor will make submissions to the judge, the AAT member or the magistrate, if it is a tracking device, as to why the application is not opposed or why there are some objections by the Public Interest Monitor.
The Public Interest Monitor’s role is not to endorse the application; it is simply to say, ‘These are the concerns I have,’ or ‘There are no concerns.’ On occasion—and I will discuss this in the private part of the meeting—there have been contraventions of those warrants but only a very small number and in most cases for an understandable reason. I will discuss that further.
Mr SULLIVAN: I am happy if you want to discuss it further in the private session. I guess my question was whether there has there been a difficulty in accessing the electronic versions of the files.
Ms Carmody: No. Mr SULLIVAN: I understand you gave notice to the CCC and then commenced your review on
22 February. I am just wondering if there is a challenge in accessing the electronic files. Ms Carmody: No, there is no difficulty whatsoever. We entered into a protocol some time ago.
The CCC asked me, and I do not know if they asked the previous commissioner—I might have been the first one—whether my interpretation of the act allowed them to keep some records electronically rather than in paper form because of the huge amount of documentation they would otherwise have. We have a protocol that I can view some documents electronically and that I view some in hard copy.
Something I would always want to view in hard copy is the warrant, because that is the document on which the judge, whoever is the issuing authority, will write any extra conditions. If the CCC say that they want to put a surveillance device in someone’s home and they want to put it in nine locations throughout the home, the presiding officer might say, ‘Well, that’s excessive. Three of those locations are the children’s bedrooms and we don’t accept that that is necessary.’ The judge might then cross out ‘nine’ on the warrant and say ‘six’ or whatever and initial that. The warrant itself is critical because that is a chance for the judge to express through writing some concerns by adding another condition or restricting the number of devices that are placed in the premises. In terms of access, there has never been a problem with access.
Mr SULLIVAN: Do I take from that that you think the electronic files are of lesser importance? Ms Carmody: I do not view them as significantly different. It is only a space-saving exercise.
If I observed on electronic record some kind of notation that I was concerned about and I felt that this was raising a new issue, I might discuss with the CCC about changing the protocol and from now on some document we had agreed on could be retained electronically. I might say, ‘Could I also have it in hard copy?’
Mr SULLIVAN: Thank you. CHAIR: Are there any other questions from the government? Mrs McMAHON: No. CHAIR: Mr Crandon? Mr CRANDON: No. Not at this stage. CHAIR: I might ask a couple about the warrant issue. I do not know if it is in your submission
to the five-year review or another person’s submission, but there is some talk about reform of that process to change the way that amendments are made to the warrant in particular. Is that in your submission?
Meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
Brisbane - 5 - 12 Mar 2021
Ms Carmody: Yes. CHAIR: We are not talking about that today strictly speaking, I suppose. We will be back here
in two weeks for those hearings. If you would like to elaborate about that at the moment, that would be fine but I think you just spoke about it in some respects.
Ms Carmody: It is an important issue. One issue that has been happening is that sometimes a warrant needs to be extended. On occasion, there has been a practice of going back to the court and a manual notation on the warrant to say it is extended. The position of the parliamentary commissioner is that that should be a new warrant; when you go back for an extension, you cannot rely on your old material. When the CCC go back, they have to say, ‘That was our material up to the date of the issue of this warrant. This warrant is about to expire. We have obtained this under this warrant and we would now like to extend the warrant because there’s further information that causes a need for a lengthier period.’ Remember that warrants are not supposed to sit endlessly. There are often time limitations. They may only be allowed to intercept a phone for 30 days or 90 days, or in relation to a listening device. They cannot sit there endlessly. When they come back, they have to explain what they have obtained or what they have learned that has justified extending it.
If notations are written by a judge or something to that effect, it is a question of legibility, it is a question of interpretation et cetera. As a general rule, this office would prefer that a new warrant was issued, and in conjunction with discussions with the Public Interest Monitor any of those issues that might perhaps require a judge to write a notation could already be typed on it in advance to minimise the potential for errors. In general, I think the CCC has been getting new warrants with respect to most of them rather than extending.
Mr Kunde: There have been occasions. It is still the policy and they are still entitled to extend it by having the judge write the extra conditions or the extended date on there. It is just an issue we thought could leave itself open to difficulties but it is still permitted under legislation. The best practice, we would have thought, would be to get a new warrant. In telecommunications interception warrants, a new warrant must be obtained. For surveillance device warrants, they can extend it by just writing the new date on there. We just think it has potential for sloppiness.
CHAIR: And errors perhaps. Mr Kunde: Yes. Ms Carmody: The distinction there is that the telephone intercept is the Commonwealth act,
while the warrants obtained by the Queensland Police Service are under the state legislation. CHAIR: In the report and in your statement, you mentioned the meeting of various oversight
bodies. Could you tell us about any of the key themes or issues that came up in that? I know that you said it was a very frank exchange, with no notes taken.
Ms Carmody: It is brutally frank. It is delightfully frank, actually. We sometimes have common issues. I will give you an example which always amuses me. Every time a new parliamentary inspector, commissioner or whatever comes into that group—and there have only been a couple— their first meeting with the entity they inspect is always pleasant and agreeable and everything is lovely and they are shown the documents and everyone is happy. So they come to our first meeting and they say, ‘I’ve got a great relationship. Everything’s going really well.’ The old jaded ones of us say, ‘Just wait until there’s an issue and then we need to explore it.’ What happens is over time someone comes back and says, ‘Yes, I’ve got an issue and I’m having some difficulties dealing with the entity,’ and then we discuss how that can perhaps be addressed as a group. Ones who have had previous experience suggest possible ways of dealing with it.
There was a very strong way of dealing with it offered by one of our group, and I will explain that in the private part of the meeting. Clearly, each of us wants to maintain a good relationship with the entity we are inspecting, and we do that to the utmost of our ability and that is reciprocated. It is a joint relationship where we are hopefully working for the mutual benefit of Queensland together. At times there can be little rub-ups, and it is the rubbing against each other that presents the problem for us and that is where we have the most frank discussions and that is where it can be quite lengthy as we explore how an issue can be addressed.
We touched on that with the last committee. Some members would be aware that we discussed it at some length on the last occasion. This committee went to one of the states and met with the equivalents to yourselves and the entity et cetera, and I think it was detected there also that there was something going on.
Mr SULLIVAN: Are you the only Queensland representative on that? I know there are different names.
Meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
Brisbane - 6 - 12 Mar 2021
Ms Carmody: Yes, there is only one of us in each. Mr SULLIVAN: You don’t take the Ombudsman or the PIM? It is just you? Ms Carmody: It is only one of us. There is just one from Queensland, because we are all just
one equivalent. Mr Kunde: New South Wales have two. They have the Inspector of the ICAC and the Inspector
of the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission. Ms Carmody: Canberra is a little bit different because the representative from the ACT is the
Commonwealth Ombudsman as well, so he has two roles. He has a huge number of staff—we consider it huge because some of us have one person and I think one or two have nobody. That dynamic is interesting, and I am going to discuss with you in the private part of the meeting the impact of having the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the advantages and possible difficulties with that role.
Mr SULLIVAN: Can I assume that role must be different considering there is no Commonwealth equivalent to the CCC? What oversight role would the Commonwealth role have?
Mr Kunde: Of the ACT Integrity Commission. Mr SULLIVAN: They have two hats on? Mr Kunde: They have that role too, yes. That is the basis upon which they have been invited. Mr SULLIVAN: They are there with their ACT hat? Mr Kunde: Yes. Mr SULLIVAN: Even though they have a dual role? Mr Kunde: Yes. In fact, the inspector of the New South Wales ICAC is also the inspector of
the ICAC in the Northern Territory, that is, Mr Bruce McClintock. He has two roles too. Mr SULLIVAN: Commissioner, I think you said in a statement in your report that there were not
too many delays for COVID for you and your work, which is good. There were no issues in terms of the physical inspections that you need to do and the physical interactions with the CCC, the police or other bodies?
Ms Carmody: I was saying that they were limited in the sense that on occasion all of their staff would have been directed to work from home. I go on site to inspect. There were only one or two occasions when whoever might have been heading up the division specifically came in to take me through the records with Mr Kunde. They did everything that they could, apart from when there was—
Mr SULLIVAN: When there are legislative requirements in place, surely that work is considered essential?
Ms Carmody: They address that immediately, yes. I think there was maybe only one occasion and he came in. When I go down there, not only do I do the inspection I am conducting but often I touch base with other areas if there are issues that have come up. I might drop in to other areas and have a bit of a talk with them. That just was not possible when they were all working from home. It was really only a limited impact; it was not substantial. Certainly all the statutory requirements were complied with.
Mr SULLIVAN: My colleagues will probably understand what I am saying: in paragraph 22 under ‘Intelligence data review’ it says that the review was finalised by 31 October 2020. Is that a coincidence or was that deliberate? Was there a requirement to have it done?
Mr Kunde: There is a requirement to have it done and it was finished on that day or the 30th. Ms Carmody: That was the last day, so it just made it in time. Mr SULLIVAN: Forgive me: it sticks out in my mind for all sorts of reasons. Ms Carmody: It was just that that was the last date of that period. Normally we try to get the
reports in a bit before but occasionally, for whatever reason, as I said, often I might have a lengthy period in court which means that we have to rush them through and get them in by the date.
Mr SULLIVAN: That just caught my eye. Mr CRANDON: You mentioned not being able to interact with people you would have normally
interacted with because they were working from home. Did you feel there were any issues around security with people working from home and logging in from an area outside of the CCC’s premises? Was there any additional oversight that you undertook in relation to looking at the security aspects of people working in that way?
Meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
Brisbane - 7 - 12 Mar 2021
Ms Carmody: No, because I have no qualifications in that area. They could tell me anything and I would not know at all. I do not have anything that requires a logging-in process from outside when I inspect it, because the records, the hard copy files, were all there for us. There are some inspections where we need to look at a computer program that sets out lengths of phone calls, whose the phone number was et cetera. That is all electronically maintained. We sit and have a big long list of numbers and we go through it and we ask them to show us this one, this one and this one. We ask why that is like that and why that is like that. They just sit and go through that with us. Apart from that, I do not think there is anything that we require them to log on while we are inspecting.
Mr Kunde: No, there would not be. Most of the activity that we look at would have to be done on site. For example, the telecommunications interception mechanism is on site. We would have to go there and so would the CCC staff.
Mr CRANDON: That is where I was going with that, with the CCC staff as well. As part of that role you are viewing documents and what have you. Is there an opportunity for you to also probe, ask questions, dig deeper?
Ms Carmody: That is an example of what I was going to say. Normally if I was down there and I had seen a warrant and I had a few concerns of any kind, I could go up to speak—there is a specific officer who prepares the affidavits and the warrants et cetera. There is usually a CCC applicant, a senior officer. I could go to any of them or I could go to one of the legal officers and say to them, ‘I noticed this particular warrant. What happened there?’ That was the only difference, that there was not someone that I could immediately speak to.
Mr CRANDON: That is what you were getting at? Ms Carmody: Yes. I also have access to the Public Interest Monitor’s written submissions on
the day. The Public Interest Monitor does not normally do written submissions on every occasion. I should tell you before I forget: the new Public Interest Monitor, Mr David Adsett, contacted me and I had a meeting with him earlier this week to discuss a general understanding of our roles. If I felt that there was something that arose from that practice I would also probably engage with him about something. That is something that we will be discussing in the private part of the meeting. Yes, I would ask them what had happened, why that was necessary. I would read the Public Interest Monitor’s submissions where it was an intercept device or a surveillance device—because they do not do it, as I said, for all of them—and I would follow up with the staff immediately involved. I do not need to often do that. I often just go for a wander around to talk to people generally about certain aspects of whatever I am doing.
CHAIR: There was something that you noted in your report, and it might be something Mr Kunde would like to comment on as well, in relation to difficulties with remote access for work in the parliamentary precinct.
Mr Kunde: Yes. Our office is self-contained in its holdings. Our server is not connected to the internet so it is just impossible for me to access it from home. It would have been a security nightmare, I would have thought. It was easier for me to come in and do it anyway, so I was happy enough to do that.
CHAIR: Just in a general sense, is the way that you are set up here appropriate, suitable, satisfactory?
Mr Kunde: I think it is very secure and suitable. We get looked after by our IT people. They have just overhauled our backup procedures. That is another thing: everything is backed up weekly and a copy is stored offsite in a very secure place. I think that is a pretty good arrangement at the moment. We have no concerns about that.
Mr SULLIVAN: To that point, Chair, for obvious reasons—whether it is your role or intelligence roles or others across jurisdictions—there are good examples where things need to be self-contained for security purposes.
Mr Kunde: Yes. It has been that way since I started and I have no issue with it whatsoever. I do not think it is—
Mr SULLIVAN: You didn’t have kids at home during school shutdown, did you? Mr Kunde: No. I was happy to come in regardless. CHAIR: We are nearing the end of the public session, but before we go into the private session
are there any particular matters or findings in relation to recent inspections that you would like to raise or feel that you can raise in this session in general?
Meeting with the Parliamentary Crime and Corruption Commissioner
Brisbane - 8 - 12 Mar 2021
Ms Carmody: I think of all of the inspections there has been nothing significant that I would want to raise in the meeting at the moment, no. As a general rule of thumb the inspections go well. We are given all the documents. We are provided a room. Any assistance we require is offered immediately and for anything we ask for clarification of they immediately get the appropriate officer to explain to us what is happening.
CHAIR: Is there anything else that you would like to add? Ms Carmody: I have nothing further. CHAIR: Thank you very much for making yourself available this morning. I very much
appreciate it. We will be moving into the private session. I note that this is our first meeting for this committee so thank you for making yourself available. I also note for the record that in the last couple of weeks we have commenced the process for recruitment of a new parliamentary crime and corruption commissioner, because you are nearing the end of your term. That process will obviously be getting underway in the next months. You will see that out in the public domain. Having said that, I will close the public part of the meeting and continue the remainder of the meeting in private.
The committee adjourned at 9.39 am.