Margie Maccoll
“Very busy“ was how Inspector Ben Carroll, in his understated way, summed up his five years in Noosa’s top policing role, before leaving this week to take on a more senior role in Rockhampton.
When then Senior Sergeant Carroll left his previous posting, also in Rockhampton, bound for the Noosa tourist area, everyone said to him, “what a nice place“.
Since then he and his team have tackled extreme bush fires, floods, landslides, the Covid pandemic, Noosa’s biggest ever Schoolies event, rising domestic violence and organised drug crime.
“You have no idea the complications of this place,“ he said.
When I first arrived we did a lot of work with Council and a lot of government and non-government organisations to relocate permanent residents from Johns Landing camp grounds (after it had been sold to Council) and find them places to live, he said.
Next came the 2019 bushfires that continued for four to five months across Peregian Beach, Cooroibah and Noosa North Shore. Police joined in a coordinated community effort that included other emergency services and governments, while separately tracking down the culprits behind the fires.
As fires approached, police drove down streets with loud hailers, knocked on doors, secured suburban streets and helped elderly people to leave their homes and head to evacuation centres set up by Noosa Council.
“A number of officers extinguished garden fires using garden hoses – ones that were too big they reported to the fire services,“ he said at the time.
Covid hit the area in February 2020.
“Without a doubt that was the most challenging thing to happen,“ Insp Carroll said.
“In the first week during lockdown, about 900 people in Noosa Heads and Noosa Junction alone lost their jobs. They had nothing. It was lucky the government came up with a funding package.“
Police were tasked with enforcing Covid restrictions.
“We had to tell people they couldn’t sit on a park bench or sit on the beach,“ Insp Carroll said.
“We had staff going everywhere – to the borders and to Indigenous communities. We were worried if it [Covid] got into the Indigenous communities, it would decimate them,“ he said.
“Noosa became the destination of choice for Queenslanders because no-one (nationally or internationally) could come here. It was booming.“
In 2020 the Gold Coast closed its door to Schoolies and Noosa became the favoured place to be.
Police enlisted the help of Red Frogs for the first time as part of a multi-agency response including ambulance, Noosa Council and The Hastings Street Association.
“We put that together in about two weeks. There were about 5000 revellers and about 25 police,“ he said.
“An emergency services staging area was established behind the Hastings Street Police Beat, housing a temporary medical facility and other support.
“Police were seizing alcohol from children as young as 13 years as they tried to enter the precinct.“
The exercise proved a success and they repeated it for New Year’s Eve celebrations in Hastings Street.
Police have seen a massive reduction in burglaries over the past 20 years, dropping about 90 per cent from more than 500 cases in 2001-02 to less than 60, something Insp Carroll attributes to a combination of factors including deterrents such as a strong police presence, security systems and cameras as well as improved security education and neighbourhood watch.
However, the drug trade has flourished.
“It was one of my concerns when I got here. I noticed a prevalence of cocaine,“ he said.
Since October 2020, in an operation codenamed Sierra Stallion, Noosa Heads detectives have been sharing intelligence with Brisbane CIB resulting earlier this year in arrests of more than 25 people involving more than 250 charges including drug supply, trafficking and money laundering.
“The ongoing investigation into this group has revealed a sophisticated network of shopfront style businesses which were utilised to launder funds for drug supply activities,” he said.
Unfortunately, one issue to have worsened since Covid is domestic violence.
In the past two years police have investigated more than 500 domestic violence incidents, an increase of 20 per cent since 2019-20. This year there have been about 150 breaches of DV offences. It’s an issue “we’ve all got to work together on“ to resolve.
“We are working hard to bring the numbers down but we can’t do it on our own,“ he said.
“We will never police ourselves out of domestic violence.“
In his last week in the top job Inspector Carroll said his stay in Noosa had been “very enjoyable and very rewarding“.
“I’ve learnt a lot. I’ve met some nice people and formed wonderful relationships,“ he said.
“I would like to publicly acknowledge and thank the uniformed officers, detectives and support staff at Noosa Heads Police Station and the adjoining stations across the Northern Patrol Group, for whom I have had the great honour of working with over the last few years.
“They are everyday people that joined the police from varying backgrounds, including IT specialists, mechanics, carpenters, engineers, nurses and hotel managers to name a few. They are an extremely dedicated group of people who I think do an extraordinary job often under very challenging circumstances.
“I think our community should rightly be very proud of their police.“
