Farewell to ‘Golly’: City stops for former QPS commissioner

Brisbane’s inner-city streets came to a standstill on Monday as the Queensland Police Service farewelled its former leader, Steve Gollschewski, who died of cancer earlier this month, aged 67.

Uniformed police officers lined the streets alongside citizens as funeral processions departed City Hall, the location of the former police commissioner’s final farewell, just months after his retirement from the state’s top policing job.

Gollschewski was remembered as committed, loyal, ethical, determined, selfless and strong.

But while those attributes were well-known throughout the Queensland community, particularly when he was an almost ubiquitous presence on television screens during times of disaster, those who knew him best also knew his limits.

As Gollschewski’s daughter, Amy, revealed to mourners at City Hall, her father did have weaknesses – one of which manifested in 2017 when he visited her in London.

“I took him to the top of the Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe – I thought it would be a great way for him to see London,” she said.

“He didn’t seem that keen, though. He spent the ride up the lift a bit on edge, and at the top, he stood by one of the cement supports in the middle of the room and refused to come close to the windows.

“He tried to play cool and asked me questions about different buildings and asked me to point which direction our house was in, but it was only a short time before he asked if we could go back down.

“I only realised afterwards that he’s extremely scared of heights, and he’d always downplayed it so much when we were kids that I just didn’t realise how big that fear was.

“That was just who he was. If we were there, then he would be too.”

Amy’s sister, Kirsten, said children often saw their parents as invincible. For her it was no different – in her “heart of hearts” she was convinced her father would overcome cancer.

“I speak for all of us when I say that we feel robbed,” she said.

“Dad deserved so many more years to make precious memories with us and his grandchildren, that was his driving force during his fight. It’s why it’s so difficult to comprehend that he’s no longer with us.”

Standing alongside their young daughter Georgie, Gollschewski’s widow, Rebecca, said she was mourning not only her husband but the life they would have had together.

“True to form, Steve had lots of plans for after his retirement,” she said.

“The plan he was most looking forward to post-retirement was spending more time with his children and grandchildren in Brisbane, and basing ourselves in London for an extended period to be with Amy and James and Ivy and Cillian, to see more of the places we’ve loved and the ones still on our wish list.

“Our plan now is to honour that with Steve in our hearts.”

Gollschewski’s selflessness shone through the many tributes that echoed through a City Hall auditorium hosting dignitaries from across the state and nation.

Premier David Crisafulli was there, along with Opposition Leader Steven Miles, former commissioners Bob Atkinson, Ian Stewart and Katarina Carroll, and even Brisbane Broncos coach Michael Maguire.

There were also police commissioners and representatives from every Australian state and territory, including Tasmanian commissioner Donna Adams, who formed a close friendship with “Golly” during leadership training in Sydney.

“Golly possessed an impressive combination of qualities. He was intelligent, he was confident, driven, and results-focused,” she said.

“Equally, he was a strategic thinker who never lost sight of the people behind the organisation and the communities they served.”

Adams said the first hint she had something was wrong was during a police commissioners’ forum in February last year.

“We were sitting together at dinner after the first day when he quietly mentioned that something didn’t feel quite right,” she said.

“In the coming days, he called to tell me of his diagnosis and that he would be taking an extended period of leave to begin his treatment.

“What struck me most was not fear, anger, or self-pity. It was his calmness, his measured acceptance, and his unwavering optimism – he genuinely believed he could beat the disease and return to the work he loved.”

There was also representation from his other great love – hockey.

Valleys hockey club teammate Daniel McCaffrey remembered a player committed to the club, even if he did have an “innate ability to fall over many times a game”.

“When his career started to progress and he became assistant commissioner and then deputy commissioner, he would still turn up to games on a Saturday afternoon, get changed into his playing gear, and would then ask someone on the sideline to mind his phone,” he said.

“It was to be answered depending on who was calling, and if it was someone important [they were told to] answer the phone and then call him off the field.

“If it was someone that he didn’t want to talk to, he would say, ‘leave it, and I’ll answer them at half or full-time’. This always gave us much intrigue as to who became worthy of being answered or not.”

One call he would have likely answered was Governor Jeannette Young, who as chief health officer worked closely with Gollschewski during the COVID pandemic.

A little more than a fortnight ago, Young invested Gollschewski as an officer of the Order of Australia during a small ceremony at the Mater Hospital, where he was in palliative care.

“At the time, I described that gathering as a powerful tribute to a lifetime of service,” she said.

“Instinctively, those of us present knew that the occasion carried a significance beyond the conferral of an honour.

“It was an opportunity for Queensland to say thank you, to acknowledge a man who had devoted 46 years to protecting and serving his fellow Queenslanders. It’s a memory I will always treasure.

“For Steve, he mentioned to me afterwards that was a fitting way to mark what he summed up as a great life.”

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Cameron Atfield is a journalist at Brisbane Times.Connect via Facebook or email.AdvertisementAdvertisement