WITH THE PASSING of thirty years since Queensland’s Fitzgerald Inquiry and its seminal report, an opportunity arises to sit back and review the era in which it was conducted and to reflect upon any changes or differences that may have flowed from it.

I do so from the vantage point of one who was intricately involved in the Fitzgerald Inquiry as senior counsel, and who for some years thereafter was retained for a similar inquiry into the New South Wales Police Service.