Enforcing Health: Police and Public Health, Queensland 1850-1920

Gerald Hugo Rée

Published January 2026

ISBN: 978-1-7635728-6-7

During the Covid-19 crisis (2020-2022), a number of people were troubled by police enforcement of regulations that dealt with isolation and ‘distancing’ orders. In this short volume, the author describes how Queensland police became involved in public health work from the earliest days of colonisation, a role for which they had no specific training. The practice was not confined to Queensland, but occurred in most Australian colonies and many nations around the world.

‘Hugo Rée presents the first study of public health and police in Queensland. … Historians of policing and public health have largely ignored the ‘complicated nexus’ between health and law enforcement. This book remedies that omission.’

(Dr Jonathan Richards, author of The Secret War: A True History of Queensland’s Native Police, UQP)

Purchase a copy here.