QLD:Qld premier has faith in staff checks

AAP General News (Australia)
02-16-2011
QLD:Qld premier has faith in staff checks

By Jessica Marszalek

BRISBANE, Feb 16 AAP - Premier Anna Bligh says she hopes, but can't guarantee, current
staff checks would prevent Queensland Health hiring fugitives like convicted murderer
Luke Andrew Hunter.

Hunter was recaptured at Herberton, west of Cairns, on Sunday after 15 years on the run.

It has been revealed the 42-year-old had been working as a groundskeeper at Herberton
Hospital under the false name of Ashban Kadmiel since 1997.

He was employed the year after he escaped from Borallon Correctional Centre, near Ipswich,
where he'd been serving a 21-year sentence for murder.

Ms Bligh said Hunter was employed under a Liberal National coalition government, when
employee checks were less stringent than they are now.

"This person was employed by another government a long time ago, before the criminal
history checking that our government put in place became part of normal employment practice,"

she told reporters on Wednesday.

Hunter was not required to prove his identity at the time he was hired, Ms Bligh said.

She said she hoped, but could not guarantee, that current checks would have caught him out.

"My understanding is that he would have had to have provided proof of identity in relation
to the criminal history checking, and it's my view that would have likely turned up that
he was using a false identity," she said.

"But I can't guarantee that.

"... When people are absolutely determined to be criminals and do the wrong thing,
they will find ways sometimes that no government can close off."

However, Queensland now had "the tightest employment checking" in Australia and that
would have made a very big difference, she said.

Opposition health spokesman Mark McArdle has compared the blunder with Queensland Health's
hiring of Dr Jayant Patel, despite his side of politics being in power at the time.

"If you're going to have people working for Queensland Health and you have a history
of this, you need to put in place a check and balance to make certain people who are employed
are qualified to do so, and are who they say they are," he told ABC Radio.

Asked if he acknowledged that the first mistake was made back in 1997, he said: "No,
I make it quite clear that this issue became crystal clear and critical in 2006 with Patel."

Health Minister Paul Lucas accused Mr McArdle of hypocrisy.

"The health minister at the time, Mike Horan, who is still in the parliament as an
LNP member, would not have been in a position to identify someone who had adopted a false
name who wanted to work as a gardener," he told the broadcaster.

He said QH could not go back to all its staff and recheck their references or fingerprint them.

Meanwhile, Hunter's friend Steve Perks, whom he met at Herberton, has described him
as a "nice guy" who raised funds for children with disabilities, sponsored children in
Third World countries, and dressed as Santa at Christmas.

"I want everyone to know this guy is totally rehabilitated," Mr Perks told The Cairns Post.

"... (He is a) nice fella, you would never think the worst of him.

Hunter, who was part of the secretive North Queensland Jesus Group, is being housed
at the Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre while he awaits a hearing on a charge of escaping
custody.

AAP jmm/crh/dep/de

KEYWORD: HUNTER WRAP

� 2011 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.