Transcript

SARAH FERGUSON: Welcome to Four Corners.

It's not often that a TV program changes the country. That was the case 30 years ago when we broadcast "The Moonlight State", an investigation that exposed the corrupt underbelly in 'the deep north" of Joh Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland.

The seminal Chris Masters' report revealed the sordid connections between police and the criminals who ran drug, gambling and prostitution rackets across the state.

The Fitzgerald Inquiry, set up in response to "The Moonlight State", led to the jailing of Queensland Police Commissioner Terry Lewis, along with three National Party Ministers and host of other figures.

Only now, three decades later, can we tell the remarkable story of the police whistle-blowers who risked their lives to provide Chris Masters the evidence he needed ...and of the Federal Police who were sent secretly to protect Masters from corrupt Queensland Police who were out to get him.

Reporter Mark Willacy set out to find this small band of extraordinary citizens and their families who decided to take a stand against a corrupt system that sickened them.

This is their story.

JIM SLADE, FMR DETECTIVE CONSTABLE, QUEENSLAND BUREAU OF CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE (BCI): I had taken an oath to uphold the law and to protect the community ... I was a sworn police officer working undercover then for like probably six, seven years.

PETER VASSALLO, FMR OFFICER - AUSTRALIAN BUREAU OF CRIMINAL INTELLIGENCE (ABCI): My role was as an intelligence analyst.

There were times that I actually feared for my life and for the life of my family.

MARK WILLACY, REPORTER: As police officers, Jim Slade and Peter Vassallo specialised in the dark art of covert operations and intelligence gathering.

PETER VASSALLO: It was clear to me we had institutionalised corruption taking place in Queensland.

It was not something that I could discuss with anyone.

MARK WILLACY: Never in their entire careers would these two men face an adversary so sinister as their own police brotherhood ... a brotherhood whose tentacles reached right to the very top.

PETER VASSALLO: I believe that fate brought Jim and I together and that something had to be done.

We just happened to be the guys that did it.

MARK WILLACY: Brisbane, February 1985, and Detective Jim Slade has come to the end of a long drug investigation...and has headed to the police club for a beer.

After a short time, he is approached by his boss, senior sergeant Alan Barnes.

JIM SLADE: I had worked with Alan for a number of years at this stage of the game, held him in very, very high esteem.

Alan and I were alone and Alan said, 'How would you like a bit of extra money?' and I said, 'Oh yeah, every little bit helps.'

MARK WILLACY: Slade didn't know what to make of the exchange ... a month later, Alan Barnes delivered on his promise.

JIM SLADE: I had finished an operation in Mount Isa and I was coming home and it was late, probably one of the last flights out of Mount Isa.

I was very surprised to see that Alan Barnes had come to collect me to take me home.

MARK WILLACY: As they drove from the airport in an unmarked police car, Barnes pulled out a bundle of twenty dollar notes.

JIM SLADE: Alan was driving and I was in the passenger seat.

Alan took out $100 and gave it to me.

You know, all I could think of was, what the fuck am I going to do with this?

MARK WILLACY: Jim Slade didn't know it at the time, but that was an attempt to recruit him into what was known as 'The Joke' ... 'The Joke' was a shadowy network... a brotherhood of bent cops that stretched back decades in Queensland.

RALPH DEVLIN, JUNIOR COUNSEL - FITZGERALD INQUIRY: You had some jokers who wanted to operate unlawfully, unmolested, and you had some jokers who carried a badge and carried a gun, who were quite happy to take the money.

How funny is that? Suited everybody, it's a perfect crime.

That's 'The Joke'.

MARK WILLACY: In the mid-1980s, Queensland was virtually a one-party state.

Nationals' leader Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was at the peak of his political power.

SIR JOH BJELKE PETERSEN, FMR PREMIER QUEENSLAND: I make only one promise - more good government.

MARK WILLACY: Helping him rule unchallenged, was another knight of the realm - the Police Commissioner, Sir Terence Lewis, despite persistent rumours the top cop was bent.

ANDREW OLLE: It's been suggested that at some stage in your career you've been on the take, that you've been a bagman.

SIR TERENCE LEWIS, POLICE COMMISSIONER, QUEENSLAND: Well it's certainly all foreign to me, the validity of this, one does here of malicious rumours created from time to time by a small group of people perhaps for their own ends, and I don't think this is peculiar just to police officers.

MARK WILLACY: Both Sir Terence and Sir Joh boasted that vice had been stopped at the border...in reality, brothels and illegal gaming houses not only existed, but in places like Brisbane's red-light district of Fortitude Valley they flourished.

MARK WILLACY: But in Joh's Queensland, that didn't fit the official narrative.

RUSS HINZE, POLICE MINISTER, QUEENSLAND: I don't know of any illegal gambling, if there's any going on well then of course I don't know where it is.

My Commissioner informs me, advises me that he doesn't know of any.

CHRIS MASTERS, REPORTER: In Queensland it was old style, Rum-Corp type corruption, where we now know that Terry Lewis and his cohorts had a pyramid system, you know where the money from the streets flowed right up to the top.

MARK WILLACY: So why was Jim Slade being drawn into 'The Joke'?

RALPH DEVLIN: The very fact that Slade was spending most of his time undercover, that to think that he was bribed certainly sent a shiver up my spine.

Why was he given that money? What was it meant to do? Who was it meant to protect?

MARK WILLACY: The answer was simple...the uncover cop had lifted the lid on a drug network...one he didn't realise had links to the brotherhood of corrupt police.

JIM SLADE: Very, very well organised drugs, both marijuana and heroin - importation of heroin and the growing of marijuana.

MARK WILLACY: In an operation codenamed Trek, Jim Slade and his team from the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence spent months in far north Queensland tracking drug networks.

They camped rough in some of Australia's most rugged bushland.

JIM SLADE: We'd had a plane drop some supplies to us and part of the supplies was a bottle of rum, so we'd had a few rums and we started talking about the information that we had and we discussed the federal information, how it was good that we were able to corroborate a bit that they had.

MARK WILLACY: But it was the Queensland connections that had them concerned.

JIM SLADE: Then we started talking about what was relevant to Queensland and I remember saying 'what the fuck are we going to do about this?'

MARK WILLACY: Slade had cultivated a network of informants ... they pointed them in the direction of a name that would become synonymous with vice.

JIM SLADE: The main name that we established with our inquiries in far north Queensland was the Bellino name.

MARK WILLACY: Slade's report named some members of the Bellino family as being involved in drugs in far north Queensland.

MARK WILLACY: Two Brisbane-based Bellino family members - brothers Gerry and Tony - were known to be kingpins in the brothels, massage parlours and illegal gaming dens in Brisbane's red light district of Fortitude Valley ... The Bellino name would send a shiver down Jim Slade's spine many months later...when he was handed that $100 bribe from his boss senior sergeant Alan Barnes.

JIM SLADE: He said, 'this is from Uncle Gerry'.

MARK WILLACY: Who was Uncle Gerry in your mind?

JIM SLADE: In my mind, it was Gerry Bellino.

MARK WILLACY: The Bellino's operations in the Valley would be blown wide open in Chris Master's 'Moonlight State' Program.

CHRIS MASTERS: Some people we've spoken to here in The Valley are quite proud of the way things work in Queensland.

They say that everything runs smoothly because people here have the right attitude.

They understand that you can't stamp out prostitution, you can't stamp out corruption, the very best that you can expect is some form of control.

MARK WILLACY: So, I'm a 15-year old Queensland kid when the Moonlight State goes to air and I remember sitting down to Four Corners, which we did as a family.

My father was there.

Total silence throughout the whole show.

At the end, my old man just turns to me, he says 'I think the shit's gonna hit the fan now'.

Did you know the shit was going to hit the fan?

CHRIS MASTERS: I suspected it and I certainly worried about it.

I knew it was a good strong story, but I was fearful of the reaction, I was fearful of that shit hitting the fan, and I was fearful of the consequences to all those witnesses that I'd encouraged to step up.

CHRIS MASTERS: There was a history of people being sent reeling backwards from Queensland, careers destroyed.

Bjelke-Petersen could be cruel and ruthless if he chose to be, and the system similarly, and that's what bothers you.

SIR TERENCE LEWIS: By your conduct within the community, we will all be judged.

MARK WILLACY: Jim Slade was a rising star in the police force, commended by Police Commissioner Sir Terence Lewis no less than 5 times ... But on return from Far North Queensland, Slade's submitted report with its astounding revelations on the Queensland drug trade was shelved.

JIM SLADE: That report would have gone from my senior sergeant to the inspector and from the inspector to the assistant commissioner of crime.

MARK WILLACY: And who was that at the time?

JIM SLADE: Graeme Parker.

MARK WILLACY: What Jim Slade had no way of knowing was that Assistant Commissioner Graeme Parker was in on 'The Joke'.

MATTHEW CONDON, JOURNALIST: Parker was a very senior corrupt figure in the system, and more importantly, he was um the sort of um sort of gatekeeper if you like.

MARK WILLACY: Graeme Parker answered directly to Police Commissioner Terry Lewis.

Twelve hundred kilometres away in Canberra, the feds were looking into the same drug syndicate as Jim Slade ... Sergeant Peter Vassallo worked at the Australia Bureau of Criminal Intelligence.

PETER VASSALLO: The Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence was a national police organisation that sourced its information from state bureaus of criminal intelligence.

MARK WILLACY: Vassallo was leading Project Alpha, an investigation into links between Italian Crime Families and drugs.

But curiously, Vassallo was getting no information or intelligence from his colleagues in the Queensland police.

PETER VASSALLO: Two documents had been sent to Project Alpha and both of those were a press clipping from The Courier Mail, basically showing a front-page expose on Russ Hinze saying 'There's no drugs and there's no crime and there's no brothels in Queensland'.

MARK WILLACY: Fate would now intervene.

Slade and Vassallo - who were unaware of each other's' existence - were sent on the same inter-agency intelligence course.

JIM SLADE: Most of the people on the course were very high ranking.

The only two sort of shit kickers was Peter Vassallo and Jim Slade.

So, we sort of gravitated together.

PETER VASSALLO: Jim and I did hit it off very well.

I got on very well with him.

He was the sort of bloke that you would say would just melt into a community.

He was a surveillance specialist.

He was an operator in the field.

I, on the other hand, was a boffin in an office.

JIM SLADE: Peter's a very secretive guy and he wasn't telling me what he was working on, and soon as I got an inkling as to what he was working on I couldn't believe it.

I said, 'well look, I've just done a four months' patrol and this is what we found.'

PETER VASSALLO: Jim was passionate about what he saw.

He told me that he wrote a report and that you wouldn't believe what was going on up there and so on and so forth ... that was my first meeting with him.

And bonding with him, I trusted Jim.

MARK WILLACY: So, you guys were essentially working on the same things?

JIM SLADE: Yes, exactly right, only Peter was working at national level and I was working at state level.

MARK WILLACY: Slade would soon start feeding information to Vassallo at the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence in Canberra.

MARK WILLACY: Slade and Vassallo weren't the only honest cops battling the police brotherhood.

NIGEL POWELL, FMR LICENSING BRANCH OFFICER, QUEENSLAND POLICE: Well this is Bubbles' Bathhouse.

This was Gerry Bellino, Vic Conte's place, where basically they organised the payments downstairs...

MARK WILLACY: As a Licensing Branch officer Nigel Powell was responsible for cracking down on illegal gambling and prostitution.

MARK WILLACY: So, this was the centre of the whole empire?

NIGEL POWELL: Absolutely, this is where the money came and they counted it every night.

MARK WILLACY: 'Bubbles' was the heart of Gerry Bellino's operations, upstairs was the casino.

It was said that anyone who lost big would be sent downstairs for a pick-me-up in the massage parlour.

NIGEL POWELL: What some of us didn't know and some did know was that we were actually protecting the very things that we were supposed to be enforcing laws about.

MARK WILLACY: There was a reason the Licensing Branch was not cracking down on vice...it was being paid protection money by Gerry Bellino and another syndicate.

COLIN DILLON, FMR LICENSING BRANCH OFFICER, QUEENSLAND POLICE: It was the centre of corruption in the police force.

MARK WILLACY: Nigel Powell's superior in the licensing branch was another honest cop, Sergeant Col Dillon.

Dillon was a squad leader in the Licensing Branch his boss at the time was the corrupt Graeme Parker, later Assistant Commissioner Parker.

Parker made it clear to Dillon not to mess with certain operators in the Valley.

COLIN DILLON: He said, 'before you make arrests we'd like you to refer them back to the office here'.

So there straight up, I thought, that's not good.

MARK WILLACY: Col Dillon would ignore his orders instead arresting prostitutes and shutting down illegal gaming.

Dillon was even told that the crooks were complaining about him to his bent colleagues.

COLIN DILLON: Who is this guy Dillon?

He's causing a lot of trouble out there.

People are paying us big money for protection but he's derailing our whole system.

I got carpeted three times by Parker, saying that I needed to watch myself, pull my horns in, they were his words, or otherwise I might be looking at a transfer somewhere.

MARK WILLACY: Unable to rein Dillon in, the brotherhood instead tried to buy him...through his superior 'Dirty' Harry Burgess.

COLIN DILLON: It was at the end of the day, end of the work day on a Saturday.

I was walking out of the office and Harry yelled out to me from sitting up in the senior sergeant's office.

He said 'Mate, can I see you a sec?' He said, 'how'd you like to earn yourself some easy money?' And I thought goodness gracious me, and I thought, here we go.

And I said, 'what do you mean?' He said 'Look, it's like this mate.

He said, 'I pass you in the corridor. I just bump you as I go past and you've got $400 in your pocket.'

He said, 'nobody knows but you and me.'

He said, 'it's that simple.'

MARK WILLACY: So, for $400, you turn a blind eye?

COLIN DILLON: Yeah, that was the expectation was that I turn a blind eye.

MARK WILLACY: So, what's your response to this offer of a bribe?

COLIN DILLON: Well look, I can tell you my whole life flashed between my eyes, I just had a matter of seconds to think, what the hell am I going to do?

MARK WILLACY: Col Dillon knocked back the bribe and from that point he was a marked man who could trust no-one not even fellow Licensing Branch Officer Nigel Powell.

One night the two men found themselves out driving the streets of Brisbane and Powell decided to bring up the subject of their bent colleagues.

COLIN DILLON: He said, 'You know, it's corrupt'.

I said 'Oh, yeah'.

I said, well I said, 'I've got my suspicions'.

NIGEL POWELL: He didn't know if he could trust me, and I'm taking an almighty leap wondering if I can trust him.

COLIN DILLON: I did not trust him, no way.

I thought he was trying to set me up.

NIGEL POWELL: He was a bit non-committal, and I didn't know how far I could go with this without dropping myself right in it.

MATTHEW CONDON: The beauty of the system known as 'The Joke' was that honest officers couldn't tell who was in or out of the corrupt system.

And I've interviewed many licensing branch officers who quite literally had a desk buddy who they didn't know was in fact in on the game.

MARK WILLACY: The brotherhood tried once again to lure Col Dillon into 'The Joke'... using a very expensive bottle of scotch.

COLIN DILLON: I come to work, sat down at my desk and I went to my locker just to get some of my files that I had there to go through them and here's this green velvet bag there with this gold cord around it sitting right in front of me.

MARK WILLACY: The mysterious appearance of the bottle of scotch was solved a few days later, when Col Dillon was approached once again by his boss, Dirty Harry Burgess.

COLIN DILLON: Curiosity must have got the better of Harry and Harry said, in the very words 'Did you get your Christmas pressie?'.

'Only the sergeants got it'.

He said 'the other boys, he said, have got, you know, cheaper bottles and so forth.

MARK WILLACY: For 'The Joke' to operate, there needed to be bagman, a conduit between the crooks and the cops... his name was Jack Herbert.

Jack's no longer with us but like any good bookkeeper, the former Licensing Branch police officer kept meticulous records.

Four Corners has been given access to the Bagman's books including the codes he used for the corrupt cops he was paying.

Herbert used the numbers to refer in code to the bent police he had on the take....number four on the list was Dirty Harry Burgess - the generous provider of expensive scotch... number six was Graeme Parker - that's assistant Commissioner Parker...and number 10 was simply Terry...Police Commissioner Terry Lewis.

The Bagman also had an ingenious technique for washing some of his dirty money...He would buy winning tickets from legitimate bookmakers, and then cash them through the TAB.

Four Corners has obtained copies of cheques each made out for thousands of dollars to 'J Herbert'.

ALAN MACSPORRAN, CHAIRMAN, QUEENSLAND CRIME AND CORRUPTION COMMISSION (CCC): People like Jack Herbert were not only corrupt, but they were very clever.

Very clever at anticipating the challenges they faced, very clever at concealing the evidence.

Very clever at staying a step removed from the direct corrupt conduct.

MARK WILLACY: The pressure of resisting corruption took a toll on honest cops - professionally and privately.

That's how it was for undercover detective Jim Slade who had been given that 100-dollars by his boss, senior sergeant Allan Barnes in the front of a police car.

Returning home with the money in his wallet, a worried Slade told his wife Christine about the bribe.

CHRISTINE SLADE: I think he just said, look I've got something to tell you.

And we started having the conversation about the money and we were both just horrified at the situation.

This of course, changed our lives.

We knew that there was no going back from this.

JIM SLADE: What I did was I put it in an exhibit bag and I wrote my notes of the conversation that I'd had with Alan Barnes and I put those notes in with the money in the exhibit bag and put it under our bed.

MARK WILLACY: Was that the only thing that went under the bed?

JIM SLADE: No, I used to keep my gun under there as well.

But from about that night onward there was probably two or three guns around the house.

CHRISTINE SLADE: You know, the scary part of the conversation was when we couldn't work out who we could trust, who we could talk to about this, who we could give the money back to.

MARK WILLACY: Then, a month later, Senior Sergeant Alan Barnes slipped Slade another $100 in a corridor outside their office.

PETER VASSALLO: I got a phone call from Jim, 'Mate, you won't believe what's just happened', and I said, 'What Jim?' He said, 'I've been approached and offered a bribe to stop sending you information.'

I said, 'What information?' He said, 'on the bloody Bellinos.'

MARK WILLACY: The brotherhood had the undercover cop right where they wanted him.

JIM SLADE: I just had to grin and bear it at that stage of the game and pretend that I was part of that same brotherhood.

MARK WILLACY: Damned either way, Slade decided there was only one course of action...to give the money back and to blow the whistle.

JIM SLADE: The money went back through two inspectors that were investigating my complaint.

So, the money was handed back to them.

Nearly from that moment on, my whole life changed.

So, no-one would ride in a lift with me.

People would clear out of a bar if I walked in.

MARK WILLACY: Labelled a dog, Jim Slade was transferred out of undercover work within weeks.

PETER VASSALLO: As far as I was concerned they achieved their objective for $100.

Jim was out of the way.

Jim couldn't send me any more information.

MARK WILLACY: With his friend isolated, Vassallo decided to try to find out just how high the corruption in Queensland reached.

He asked a fellow officer to request a file update on the Bellino investigation from the Queensland police.

PETER VASSALLO: 10 minutes later he came back to my office and he said, 'Pete, mate', I said, 'You got no idea who just rang me.' I said, 'Well, who rang you?' He said, 'Graeme Parker, Assistant Commissioner Graeme Parker.' I said, 'What did he want?' He said, 'He wanted to know who the bloody hell asked that question,' and he said, 'Well, Pete Vassallo from Alpha,' he said, 'I'm telling you if that bastard asks you any more questions about the Bellino's, you ring me direct.

MARK WILLACY: It was at this point that Peter Vassallo set in train events that would lead to the creation of 'The Moonlight State - from his base in Canberra he contacted Chris Masters at Four Corners.

CHRIS MASTERS: I went back to Canberra, I was probably doing something else, and caught up with Pete, 'Hi, yes I've got a good story for you Chris'.

PETER VASSALLO: I said 'Queensland', and his answer to me was 'God', he said, 'Not Queensland mate,' he said, 'it's been done to death'.

MARK WILLACY: Undaunted, Vassallo arranged for Masters to meet Jim Slade.

CHRIS MASTERS: I'd wish I'd known how many friends we had behind the scenes, because it didn't feel like we had any.

JIM SLADE: Peter Vassallo came up from Canberra with Chris Masters and we met at the Loganholme Tavern.

CHRIS MASTERS: He didn't really want to have the meeting and he didn't know me, so he didn't have any reason to trust me.

He doubted any good would come of an encounter with a dreaded journalist.

PETER VASSALLO: Chris has to determine for himself if this is a story that can go somewhere.

I left it to Jim to convince him of that fact.

CHRIS MASTERS: Once Slade told me the story I think I became emotionally, not just intellectually, but emotionally and morally committed to it because the story made me angry.

It made me angry to think that a good honest police officer was in this appalling predicament.

MARK WILLACY: But by meeting with Masters, Slade's predicament was about to get much worse.

JIM SLADE: Very shortly after that meeting the hierarchy of the police department knew about it.

MARK WILLACY: So, they knew you had met with Chris Masters?

JIM SLADE: Yeah.

The only way I can see they found out was that someone was followed.

We then started to have visits to our home.

MARK WILLACY: The visits came at night...and they came violently without warning.

CHRISTINE SLADE: Late one night and yes, something came through the bedroom window, the children's bedroom window.

JIM SLADE: Our car was smashed.

We had a dog poisoned.

I think the thing that really got to me was I came home late one afternoon, evening, and my son had been walking home from school and a car had pulled up beside him and told him that his father was going to be killed that night.

MARK WILLACY: Jim Slade wasn't the only one in the crosshairs.

CHRIS MASTERS: Things got very scary, and a very powerful syndicate of organised criminals and corrupt police realised that they had an illicit empire to protect and they started to play nasty.

NIGHT CLUB BOUNCER: Righto you fellas, you've had enough fun with your camera.

CHRIS MASTERS: Break his mouth and break his camera too, that was the order.

MARK WILLACY: After months of research and interviews, Chris Masters and the Four Corners camera crew were now visible on the streets of the Valley...and their filming was attracting unwanted attention.

Masters needed protection.

DAVE MOORE, UNDERCOVER AFP OFFICER: It became very apparent to us that you were creating a lot of interest, so hence things were happening behind the scenes to keep an eye out and keep a look out for you.

MARK WILLACY: The Australian Federal Police had picked up information that Masters was in possible danger.

Dave Moore was an undercover AFP detective based in Brisbane.

DAVE MOORE: The interesting thing is we, we would have people ourselves at the airport and other places and as soon as you came in, you know, fairly discreetly, we were actually watching the watchers.

MARK WILLACY: Moore was ordered by his assistant commissioner to protect the Four Corners team...to protect them from the Queensland police.

And from their very first meeting at Master's hotel, the AFP officer realise the Four Corners' Reporter was being watched.

DAVE MOORE: It became quite apparent to me that there was someone paying quite a lot of attention to Chris across the road.

We later found out it was a hired vehicle which was being used by officers of the police force.

CHRIS MASTERS: I didn't know that we were being watched as closely as we were and Dave was good enough to point that out to me.

MARK WILLACY: The brotherhood of the Queensland police wasn't just watching Chris Masters...it had devised a plan to destroy him.

MATTHEW CONDON: They took him extremely seriously to the point where they were on the brink of literally setting him up.

The plan was that they would plant an underage boy in Masters' hotel room in the city and ultimately, whether they could prove it or not, the mud would have been thrown against Masters to discredit him.

MARK WILLACY: So, let me get this straight, the police were prepared to set Chris Masters up, to frame him as a paedophile?

MATTHEW CONDON: Absolutely.

Chris was warned, courtesy of a Sydney police officer who had heard that this plan was on the cards, and as a result of that the federal police initiated protection for him in relation to his work in Brisbane.

MARK WILLACY: Masters was edging closer to 'The Joke'.

One of his breakthroughs was an interview with former Brisbane brothel operator John Stopford, who was prepared to spill his guts on the system of graft and protection.

CHRIS MASTERS: How much did you estimate The Syndicate paid to the police, say, every month?

JOHN STOPFORD: A hundred thousand dollars, some months more.

MARK WILLACY: Stopford's information was so explosive, Masters shared it with the National Crime Authority where Victorian cop Ron Iddles was on secondment.

Iddles met the reporter on the Gold Coast.

RON IDDLES: He'd uncovered what he believed to be large scale corruption within the Queensland Police Force that went all the way to the chief commissioner Lewis.

He explained where some of the information came from and arranged that I would go and meet a man by the name of John Stopford.

MARK WILLACY: But when Iddles called Stopford to confirm their meeting, the former brothel owner said he was backing out...because Queensland's corrupt Assistant Commissioner Graeme Parker had found out about it.

RON IDDLES: And he says 'well I've had a visit over the weekend from that man.

The assistant commissioner Parker came personally and saw me and told me I was not to talk about police corruption and if I did there'd be consequences'.

You know I think his life was probably in danger.

Like to be visited by an assistant commissioner, that's a pretty powerful message - you don't talk.

MARK WILLACY: Graeme Parker happened to be Queensland's liaison officer on every federal law enforcement agency - the Australian Federal Police, the National Crime Authority, and Peter Vassallo's Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence.

That meant one of the state's most bent cops knew of every line of investigation into Queensland and the corrupt brotherhood.

MARK WILLACY: Parker may have nobbled the NCA...but he could not neutralise Four Corners.

Chris Masters had made the connection between the brotherhood and its bagman ... Jack Herbert.

CHRIS MASTERS: When we found that crucial evidence of the link between the police community and organised crime, they knew we had to be onto something important.

MARK WILLACY: On the 11th May, 1987, Chris Masters' 'Moonlight State went to air.

CHRIS MASTERS: In the last month, I've spoken to a young policewoman who said that on the walls of the police station they write 'NRMA' - Nothing Really Matters Anymore.

I've spoken to a Detective Constable who insists that 99% of police are totally honest and near to tears tries to explain to me that the problem is that they simply can't rock the boat.

I've spoken to a Detective Sergeant who says that to survive in this place you have to discover neutral territory where you 'see no evil, hear no evil', particularly if it's evil within, and I guess the final word should go to a retired senior policeman who says What's the point, I spent my whole career bashing my head against a brick wall, it made no difference, the public really don't care anyway, and in the end, the crooks win.'

PETER VASSALLO: I'm sitting there with my wife at home, because I knew when it was going to air, and I'm watching it.

And I had this silly grin on my face but it was also teary because we actually made it, we survived.

The story got to air.

RALPH DEVLIN: My first thought was 'Somebody's going to get into a lot of trouble'.

That was my thought and it sticks to me to this day.

COLIN DILLON: I lurched forward in my chair and I thought 'what the hell is this? I don't believe what I'm seeing.'

MATTHEW CONDON: The pivotal thing about the Moonlight State and why it caused an earthquake, if you like, was that for the first-time what Masters achieved was a link between criminal figures, the underworld and corruption - and police.

That's what caused so much drama and why it was an astonishing piece of television journalism.

CHRIS MASTERS: There is no suggestion the Queensland Premier is involved in Queensland's police corruption.

MARK WILLACY: The 'Moonlight State' sent shockwaves throughout Australia.

MARK WILLACY: Moonlight State goes to air, what happens then?

CHRIS MASTERS: Oh well, the phone just goes crazy you know.

I wake up to the sound of my own heartbeat.

These are, you know, really scary moments, sometimes the worst moments because you've done your best, you're pretty much exhausted, but then a whole new battle begins.

MARK WILLACY: But for there to be any real impact, another brave man would need to step into the breach...Bill Gunn was Queensland's police minister, but the day after the Moonlight State he was also the acting premier...because Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen was out of the state.

BILL GUNN, FORMER POLICE MINISTER, QLD: Ladies and Gentlemen as I informed you, I would be seeing the police commissioner, deputy commissioner and other officers this morning following the 4 Corners' programme last night, regarding allegations and other recent claims against the police.

I've decided the government will initiate an independent enquiry.

MATTHEW CONDON: To grab the Masters report by the throat and to announce a Royal Commission was a massive, massive step, perhaps Bill Gunn's finest political moment.

BILL GUNN: It will be an open enquiry.

RALPH DEVLIN: Crazy brave, I think.

To start an inquiry without knowing how it was going to end.

It was very brave and his position was pretty simple.

I'm the police minister and this is not going to happen on my watch.

I am not going to be tarred with the brush that my predecessors have been tarred with and I'm going to do something about it.

CHRIS MASTERS: I was deeply suspicious of the calls for a public inquiry, where there was some significant likelihood that it would be a witch hunt, that they would be chasing down those brave people that I had persuaded to stand by their stories.

And that happened too you know, they went after John Stopford, they went after everybody that dared to speak with us.

SIR JOH BJELKE-PETERSEN: I have complete and utter confidence in our Police Commissioner and Police Force.

PAUL CLAUSON, QUEENSLAND ATTORNEY GENERAL ('86-'89): Joh of course wasn't happy and I can always remember he said that 'you know, if you lift up a piece of tin, you'll find one of two things under it Bill', when he was talking to Gunn and myself out at Roma, 'and that'd be a snake or a dead cat.'

MARK WILLACY: It would be much more than that.

Lifting the tin on Queensland corruption would need an untainted, impartial, and impeccably credentialed investigator.

RALPH DEVLIN: When Fitzgerald's name emerged strongly I think a lot of people in the legal profession said, 'Right, game on.'

MATTHEW CONDON: The thing about these corrupt individuals was that they were comfortable when they knew what they were dealing with.

They had no idea what they were heading for with Tony Fitzgerald.

MARK WILLACY: The Fitzgerald Inquiry would shine a light deeper into corruption and the old crony network than any other inquiry in Queensland's history.

But right from the start the brotherhood would try to skew Tony Fitzgerald's investigation.

Fitzgerald had to resist attempts to stack his investigation team with bent cops and he needed help from Chris Masters.

CHRIS MASTERS: I had my serious doubts about whether I wanted to be handing over witnesses because I didn't trust the system.

RALPH DEVLIN: I can remember sitting down opposite Chris Masters who looked as nervous as a kitten.

CHRIS MASTERS: I remember him grabbing me by the lapels and pushing me up against a wall and telling me how serious this was.

He was basically telling me that he was also serious, and he was as it turned out.

MARK WILLACY: For Sergeant Col Dillon, the Fitzgerald Inquiry was his chance to tell of his own brush with The Joke.

He was the first uniformed member of the police force to volunteer to testify.

COLIN DILLON: I weighed things up and I thought here I was, this opportunity, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity.

ALAN MACSPORRAN: For him to make that decision to come forward was a truly magnificent effort and then to maintain his dignity in the face of the pressures he must have faced, I take my hat off to him.

MARK WILLACY: The inquiry heard from 339 witnesses...including Nigel Powell, and Jim and Christine Slade.

TV NEWS REPORTER: For Tony Fitzgerald QC, the day began with the presentation of his report to Premier Mike Ahern, inside an indictment of Queensland society.

MARK WILLACY: Assistant Commissioner Graeme Parker, one of the Joke's gatekeepers, also appeared...after betraying the brotherhood by rolling over in exchange for an indemnity.

He admitted to receiving 130-thousand dollars in corrupt payments.

RALPH DEVLIN: One of the most dramatic moments of the inquiry.

That was a surprise to people.

He was seen as a very upright man and to think that it got to assistant commissioner level was astounding.

MARK WILLACY: But it went even higher...to the police commissioner Terry Lewis himself.

And the fatal blow was administered by the Bagman Jack Herbert...who after months on the run had been cornered.

RALPH DEVLIN: The pivotal moment for me was when Jack Herbert was found in London.

That was a moment I'll never forget.

ALAN MACSPORRAN: It took something as monumental as having Jack Herbert roll over, as it were, and give evidence about the entire Joke, as it was called in those days, to uncover the corruption.

MARK WILLACY: Herbert's evidence helped send Terry Lewis and other police to jail.

Fortitude Valley kingpin Gerry Bellino went to jail for seven years for paying bribes.

His brother Tony Bellino was never charged.

MARK WILLACY: The honest cops had prevailed over the corrupt brotherhood.

But there was still a price to pay for those who had who resisted 'The Joke'.

MATTHEW CONDON: The ramifications on the lives of those honest officers continues today.

Many of these men and women were denied fine careers, they evaporated.

MARK WILLACY: Years of dealing with Italian organised crime, and helping Jim Slade battle corruption took their toll on Peter Vassallo, and his role in the Moonlight State saw him ostracised by some of his colleagues at the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence.

PETER VASSALLO: I then was off work for three month's stress leave because of what was going on.

When I came back I was treated as persona non-grata.

I was so disgusted with the way I was treated by the system I never went back to the New South Wales police force.

NIGEL POWELL: I just wanted to be an ordinary constable working out on the streets.

That's what I wanted to be, that's what I enjoyed.

MARK WILLACY: For former Licensing Branch officer Nigel Powell, he quit the force disillusioned by the corruption all around him.

MARK WILLACY: Was there a personal cost to you over the years?

NIGEL POWELL: Ah cost ... I'm not a policeman.

MARK WILLACY: After the Fitzgerald Inquiry, Jim Slade ran a series of successful undercover stings and operations.

Before he died, The Bagman Jack Herbert blamed Slade for bringing down the Joke.

He wrote in his memoirs: 'Slade was the basis of the whole thing, the whole bloody thing, that's what bought Four Corners up here because they'd heard the story. That bastard.'

MARK WILLACY: What's your response?

JIM SLADE: Well I'm fucking glad that I caused angst to some of the others.

I really am.

That is great.

PETER VASSALLO: I got no regrets, none whatsoever, do it all again tomorrow.

ALAN MACSPORRAN: This is our prized possession, this is the very bottle of scotch that Col Dillon, all those years ago, took from his locker.

MARK WILLACY: The bottle of scotch left in Col Dillon's locker by his bent sergeant now sits in a cabinet at Queensland's Crime and Corruption Commission...the watchdog set up as a result of the Fitzgerald Inquiry.

ALAN MACSPORRAN: There was an attempt to bribe him with this and he agonised, and came forward, and to his credit he's a hero in my book.

We have retained it ever since; it has pride of place in our trophy cabinet.

MARK WILLACY: It's a reminder of the need for eternal vigilance.

ALAN MACSPORRAN: Corruption is always something that's extremely easy to conceal and very hard to prove.

RALPH DEVLIN: Some police officers will cut corners and will get too close to those who are operating unlawfully.

Somebody will fail to live up to his or her oath and will yield to temptation, and that's just a matter of human experience and human knowledge.

So, we must never be complacent.