 Simon Stocks argued in Queensland Review that in addition to exposing and criticising official corruption in Queensland, "The Cane Toad Times" had a softer side, representing "the affable Queensland" in short stories such as "Bobby Skurm" by Denis Peel set in the late 1950s about the first kid to skateboard down Camp Hill, and "Denying the faith" by Errol O'Neill about an exchange between a State School kid and two Catholic boys, and Sean Mee's "Des ne refuse rien" about going to the dump.Stocks suggested these stories were indicative of a sort of "ghettoisation" of the counter-culture who developed their own cultural views about what was valuable in the Queensland experience.In 1987 "The Cane Toad Times" found a hero in Tony Fitzgerald QC, who led the Fitzgerald Inquiry.