Coffee catch-up decides top cop after shock retirement
Laine Clark |
A chat over a coffee was all that was needed to decide a state’s next top cop after a bombshell retirement announcement.
Brett Pointing will replace Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski, 66, who will hang up the uniform on Friday after a cancer battle.
Mr Pointing – a former Queensland Police deputy commissioner – will be appointed on a 12-month interim basis after being hand-picked for the role.
Police Minister Dan Purdie did not speak to any other candidate after Mr Pointing emerged as the ideal choice during an eventful coffee catch-up with Mr Gollschewski, who announced his shock retirement on Wednesday.
“I’ve exercised a power that’s available to me in circumstances like this,” Mr Purdie said on Monday.
Mr Gollschewski broke the news of his exit to the police minister over a coffee, advising him he would be fast-tracking the end of his term, originally set for 2029.
By the time they had finished their cuppa, the men had agreed Mr Pointing should take over the reins.
“Over that coffee it was quickly identified that the best person placed to continue … the work that Golly has done was Brett Pointing,” Mr Purdie said.
“In circumstances where a commissioner wants to leave before the end of his term and there’s work to be done, I can appoint an interim commissioner and that’s what I’ve done.”
Mr Pointing will be officially sworn in on Friday by Mr Gollschewski, who described his successor as “one of the best policing minds in Australia”.
“This gives me that opportunity to hand the baton to someone that I know will probably do a better job than me,” Mr Gollschewski said.
An independent hiring panel would be established at a later date to find Mr Gollschewski’s full-time replacement, the police minister said.
Mr Pointing indicated he would apply for the full-time role.
He becomes top cop after previously enjoying more than four decades with Queensland Police including a five-year stint as deputy commissioner.
He later spent five years as Australian Federal Police deputy commissioner of operations and was recently on the Queensland Police 100-day review’s independent advisory board.
Hailing from a police family, Mr Pointing said his new appointment felt like “coming home”.
Mr Gollschewski will retire almost a year after a devastating diagnosis of stage four cancer.
He returned to service in September after treatment for the cancer, which spread from his lungs to his bones, liver and brain.
It has been a major factor in his decision to hang up the uniform after 46 years as part of the thin blue line.
He took over as commissioner in 2024 amid a youth crime crisis, tasked with repairing the damage from a scathing commission of inquiry that revealed a “failure of leadership” over a culture of racism and sexism.
“I’m very blessed that I’m not starting from scratch,” Mr Pointing said.
AAP