First Submissions Released - Special Episode

A Poetay Production Welcome back to Badger Betrayal and this urgent episode that we've rushed released. The first submissions have been made by the public to the government inquiry into Tasmanian Police and Paul Reynolds. Now it's no surprise that the submissions that have been made public today are from Tasmanian Police and the Department of Public Prosecutions. There's nothing to draw from that comment. It's simply a statement of fact. It of course makes complete sense that Tasbowl gets on the front foot before the commission gets underway. We got an email this afternoon that was sent to us and anyone else who made a submission or showed interest from the committee and it said, "Dear stakeholders, we are getting in touch to provide an update on the House of Assembly Standing Committee on Government and Administration B inquiry into Tasmania Police responses to allegations of officer misconduct." The first tranche of submissions has now been published on the inquiry's webpage. Please note that the committee has received a significant number of submissions and they are currently being considered. The publication of submissions will be an iterative process. The submissions that the committee resolves to publish will be uploaded progressively as the committee works through them and you will receive further updates when this occurs. As I've mentioned before, just because you make a submission, the committee then has the chance to ensure submissions are relevant and stay within the terms of reference that have been set out. So right now, as you heard, there have been a lot of submissions and still more coming through. Right now we can see eight submissions that have been accepted, mostly from organisations and academics. This includes the Law Society of Tasmania, the Integrity Commission and a few others. It also includes the Director of Public Prosecutions and a five-page submission that's signed by the current Director of Public Prosecutions. The submission from them gives us some important new context. The DPP says that since 2017, his office has reviewed approximately 130 matters involving allegations of criminal offences committed by Tasmanian police officers. Those matters have included allegations of rape, indecent assault, family violence, manslaughter, fraud, and assaults on children. The submission also explains the order in which these matters are dealt with, where allegations could amount to a criminal offence professional standards conducts the criminal investigation first. Only once that criminal investigations have been resolved does professional standards move into any disciplinary investigation using its compulsory powers. But then perhaps the most significant part of the submission from the DPP is their conclusion. We've used a voice actor to read the following. In conclusion, in my many years of reviewing allegations of misconduct or the potential commission of criminal offences involving police officers, I have never held concerns for the objectivity or standard of the investigation. In cases where we decline to prosecute, this is a reflection on the very high standard of proof rather than an issue with the quality and standard of the investigation. This is a remarkably clear endorsement of the way Tasmanian police investigates allegations against its own officers. And we say that because an important statement to consider along the evidence and the experiences that we've been documenting throughout Badger betrayal. The second submission we'd like to examine is from Tazpal itself. It is a lot longer than the one from the DPP. It's 115 pages long. It's signed by the current Commissioner of Police, Donna Adams. My texts have gone off today, and in fact many have come to me saying they've read the submissions that have been published at so far. One text said, "Just read it," says nothing, admits no failings, clouds serious misconduct by flooding responses with unrelated matters, such as customer service complaints, and low to serious allegations. It omits most of the damaging materials and hides behind policies and procedures they don't apply to themselves. That's one person's view. That view is from a current serving police officer. There is something in the Tasmanian police's submission to this parliamentary inquiry that immediately caught my attention, because it relates to something we've already examined on Badger betrayal, and many others have as well, including the Greens, Jackie Lamby, and others within Parliament. It's the decision to give Paul Reynolds a full police funeral. In its submission, Tasmanian police goes into considerable detail, defending the scope of the independent police review. Police say the review was broad. They say its terms of reference were appropriate, and in their words ought to address all issues. And then they make this statement. This has read exactly from their submission. The decision to provide a police funeral was within the scope of the review, and was substantively considered in the final report. The review they're talking about is the Weiss review. Now that stopped me, because after Regina Weiss released her final report in July 2024, she sat down for an interview with the ABC in Hobart, and she was specifically asked why her report did not explain the decision at the highest levels of the Tasmanian police to give Reynolds a full police funeral. This was her answer. Why doesn't it seem though that there are any quotes from interviews that explain that decision to award a full police funeral? We can't find anything in the report that actually speaks to that decision at the top level. Well, also in my terms of reference, David. That wasn't in my terms of reference. If you read the five objectives, the funeral wasn't one of them. Weiss went on to explain that she believed she had actually gone close to the edge of the terms of reference simply by discussing the impact of the funeral on victim survivors, police officers and their families. I think I've actually probably you know, cheated on the edge of the terms of reference by talking about the impacts of the investigation not being finished and the impacts of the funeral because really this this review was for the people. It was for the victim survivors, the vicarious victims, which are the police officers and families and people that worked with him. It's a review for them. It's a report for them, and of course, it's a report for Tasmania police sporting communities and the general community. So now let's put those two statements next to each other. In July of 2024, the independent reviewer herself says the funeral decision wasn't in her terms of reference. In September 2026, Tasmania police tells the parliamentary inquiry that the decision to provide the funeral was within the scope of the review and was substantively considered. Now, there may be a distinction here. Tasmania police's submission lists the funeral as one of the first of five key contextual issues considered by Weeces. But when the submission reproduces the six actual objectives of the review, none specifically direct Weeces to investigate the decision to grant Reynolds a police funeral. And that's important because discussing the impact of the funeral is not necessarily the same thing as investigating the decision. Hold it. Who made that decision? Who was consulted? And what information did they have? And why knowing what was already known about Reynolds at that point was he still given a full police funeral? Those are very different questions. And we know from the Tasmania police's own submission that just two days before the funeral, a briefing approved by the then commissioner Darenhine stated the professional standards had search Reynolds home over concerns about his relationship with male use and that there may have been an exchange of intimate photographs and electronic devices had been seized. The same briefing recorded that Reynolds family had requested a police funeral. The Weeces review itself later observed that the information already held by Tasmania police at the time indicated at a minimum that Reynolds had groomed teenage boys and exchanged explicit material with them. So this isn't simply a question of semantics. Was Regina Weiss actually empowered to investigate the decision making that led to Paul Reynolds receiving a full police funeral? Or wasn't she? Right now, the words of the independent reviewer in 2024 and the position Tasmanian police is putting the Parliament in 2026, don't appear to say the same thing. And I think that's the question this Parliamentary inquiry now has the opportunity to answer. We're going to watch the website closely and we'll bring you anything we feel relevant when and as we can. In the second half of this episode, we want to talk about our last episode with Tom. He's our current serving police officer that came forward. After that second chat aired last week, the floodgates continued to open up around six hours. stories coming from Inside Tasmanian Police. In Episode 33, we aired a contact that had come forward. We always thought this contact was more than one officer, and now we can confirm it's a group of officers who have come forward to us. They've actually replied to us in recent days. They can't speak to us on the show because they fear retaliation, but they have given us some detail, which we're going to reveal in this episode. When I asked him if they could reveal at least their rank, they allowed us to reveal this. He's an extract from their email read by a voice actor. We make up an inspector, sergeant and two constables. We are still serving and have served all over the state. The morale is at the lowest we have ever seen it, and we have all been in the job for over 30 years. And a note just because we're using a female voice actor does not mean these people are women or men. The allegations they make against some of the most senior people in Taspole at the moment can't be verified by us independently right now. And we make no assumptions about what they tell us are based in fact. And we also don't know if they have sour grapes or across the bear against these senior officers. The issue is that most Tasmanian police officers do a good job and a good people. There are more Tasmanian police officers than ever per head of population and the worst crime rates ever. This is because recruiting has seen a huge increase and we are not an employer of choice. Who would want to work in an organisation where there is no trust or support? Police officers are leaving in droves every week. You currently have two **** off on workers comp. No loss there really. However, keep their personal work vehicle with their unlimited fuel card and $200,000 plus salary. Then add **** to the workers comp which at the moment is four never before had this many commissioned officers been on workers comp. One plays **** several times a week and jokes that they are paid to play golf. Then add the one who earned $206,000 and gets that per year whilst they sit at home telling everyone that they have no intention of returning. These four current serving officers also told us about some allegations about senior officials who are trying to change the current presumptive PTSD and no step down provisions. They say some people inside Tasphold want to get rid of PTSD presumptive and they know step down provisions in the next bargaining agreement. At the same time, they are promising big pay increases and the people who have come forward to us say that the majority of Tasphold are young constables and they will no doubt take it. Now, no step down provision for police means that if an officer is injured at work and has to go on to work as compensation, their weekly payments don't automatically reduce just because they are off work for a long period. Normally, work as compensation payments can step down after a set amount of time. But for eligible police officers, that reduction is removed, meaning their income support can stay at the higher rate for longer while they are unable to work. I also wasn't aware of the word presumptive PTSD, so I spoke to a few experts who were able to explain in the form of Tasmanian police and workers comp what it means. In the Tasmanian police workers compensation context, presumptive PTSD doesn't mean someone is only presumed to have PTSD. It means that once an eligible Tasmanian public sector worker, such as a police officer, has actually been diagnosed with PTSD, the law presumes their employment contributed substantially to causing it, unless of course there is evidence showing otherwise. That makes it easier for them to access workers compensation because they don't have to prove the work connection from scratch. The PTSD diagnosis itself still has to be made through a proper clinical assessment, but the presumption is about what caused the PTSD, not whether the person had it. So in plain English, normal claim, I have PTSD and I need to prove my work substantially caused it. Presumptive PTSD says I have been diagnosed with PTSD and because I'm an eligible worker, the starting assumption is that my work substantially contributed to it unless there's evidence to the contrary. Tasmanian introduced that legislative presumption in 2019, after a policy change in 2018. As purely a matter of timing which we thought was interesting, the Tasmanian government announced presumptive PTSD provisions just 12 days after Paul Reynolds died, but the reform process had actually begun the year before. We found no official record identifying Reynolds or his death as a reason for the change. This group of police whistleblowers also told me they can't or won't give evidence before the commission. We cannot give evidence before the commission of inquiry. We have to provide a name and contact details and we can just not do that. We totally appreciate the issue of anonymous information and the trouble that it caused and everyone has the right to face their accuser. But how can that be possible when the accuser holds all the power? Thanks for listening to this urgent episode of Badge of Betrayal. If you'd like to follow more of the cases that we're currently investigating, you can follow us on our Patreon account. Just search PodshapeTrueCrime.