Corroborating officers being able to conduct breath tests - by Greg Early
In 1988 or 1989—prior to regionalisation commencing in 1990—the Administration of the Force as it was then called decided to give out to regional superintendents (like I was at Gympie) so many hours of overtime, so many Saturday and Sunday penalty rate units, so much for traveling allowance and so much for telephone usage. Usually these figures were based on the previous year’s usage.
Thendistrict officer at Gympie, Graeme Hollands, (then Inspector and who retired as a Superintendent on the Gold Coast) indicated that half of his district’s allocation for overtime was spent on calling out breath operators to conduct breath tests and that, if the Traffic Act could be amended to allow corroborating officers to conduct tests, he would be able to use more of his budget on more genuine overtime. (No offence is meant to former breath operators but at one stage every test on overtime resulted in a three-hour minimum claim, regardless of whether it was done ten minutes after another one.)
I raised this at a Regional Superintendents’ Conference and many times thereafter before anything was done. From memory this took between eight and nine years to achieve.
This was yet another example of the Transport Minister administering the Traffic Act and the QPS enforcing the breath testing part of it. I recall being told once that when the digital breathalyzers came into being generally (these did not require a manual reading like the original ones) there would be every chance that the amendment would be made but that took about three more years of deliberations.
One thing I always had in mind and put across repeatedly to anyone who would listen, was that Deputy Commissioner Bill Aldrich often told me that in Victoria the corroborating and arresting officers had been able to conduct tests for many years. This was like the witnessing of statements which could be done by police officers in Victoria but not in Queensland until an amendment was made.
Had the overtime allocations remained largely Brisbane-based, it is probable that the amendment, which eventually materialised, would not have been sought by me at the request of a very effective district officer.
I make a final point: When breathalyzers were first introduced into Queensland they had to be operated by Government Medical Officers throughout the state.