The 'Moonlight State' Expose and the Fitzgerald Inquiry

The assistant commissioner called me in and asked me to look out for a guy named Chris Masters from Four Corners. This was back in 1987. Honestly, I told him I didn't want the job. Babysitting a journalist wasn't my thing, but it was an order. The higher-ups in the AFP had information that Masters was in danger, not from criminals, but from corrupt Queensland police. It was made clear to me that they were concerned for Chris's safety, so we discreetly used AFP resources to keep an eye on him.

Masters was getting too close to this brotherhood of bent cops and their network of graft and corruption, an arrangement they called "the Joke." This system of protection payments had been going on for decades, flowing from brothel owners, illegal bookies, and gaming operators right into the hands of corrupt police. It was worth millions, and its influence reached the very top of the Queensland force.

Masters had been in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley, the red-light district, for weeks in late 1986 and early 1987, talking to pimps, prostitutes, and disgruntled police. His inquiries were making the brotherhood nervous. He later recalled that he was being watched and shadowed, and I actually pointed out people who were surveilling him. I first met Masters at the Tower Mill Hotel, and it was apparent to me that someone across the road was paying a lot of attention to him. We later found out it was a hired vehicle being used by officers of the Queensland Police Force.

The police brotherhood took Masters seriously, to the point where they planned to set him up. The plan was to plant an underage boy in his hotel room to discredit him, even if they couldn't prove anything. Masters only learned about this plan months later, after his report, "The Moonlight State," had aired. He heard it from former rugby league player Tommy Raudonikis, who heard it from a police mate. But Masters wasn't even in Brisbane when it was supposed to happen; he was back in Sydney. This plan showed how far the corrupt police brotherhood would go to protect "the Joke," which had flourished for years under a man known as "the Bagman," Jack Herbert, a former police Licensing Branch detective who was the conduit between the crooks and the cops, doling out hundreds of thousands in bribes.

Masters traveled the state, speaking to people about "the Joke." Then, on May 11, 1987, "The Moonlight State" aired on Four Corners. It caused an earthquake because, for the first time, it linked criminal figures, the underworld, and police corruption. The day after, Masters said he woke up to the sound of his own heartbeat, realizing a new battle was beginning. That battle became the Fitzgerald Inquiry, which ran for two years, heard from 339 witnesses, and led to the jailing of police commissioner Sir Terence Lewis, who was also stripped of his knighthood. Senior police and Valley kingpin Gerry Bellino were also convicted. Jack "the Bagman" Herbert escaped jail by telling all to the inquiry.