Speaker 1: On the twenty six a Gen twenty twenty six, I
Speaker 1: was a mum standing in a crowd when a bomb
Speaker 1: was thrown at the people around me. So I vividly
Speaker 1: recall that day and it's haunted me pretty much ever since.
Speaker 2: It's the other racism inquiry running at the same time
Speaker 2: as the Royal Commission into Anti Semitism and Social Cohesion.
Speaker 1: As we were watching the ceremony or the rally begin,
Speaker 1: I saw what appeared to be a child's toy out
Speaker 1: in front of me. It kind of wafted down and
Speaker 1: I didn't know at the time that it actually had
Speaker 1: hit the leg of one of my daughter's friends. So
Speaker 1: I didn't know obviously that it was a soft field
Speaker 1: explosive device built for carnage. I didn't really know what
Speaker 1: I was seeing.
Speaker 2: But while the Royal Commission has attracted rolling media coverage
Speaker 2: and government attention, the inquiry into racism, hate and violence
Speaker 2: directed at O Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people has
Speaker 2: been largely ignored. As witnesses shine a light on the
Speaker 2: repeated inaction before, during, and after the alleged attempted bombing
Speaker 2: of an invasion day that triggered this inquiry.
Speaker 1: But I'm here because of what happened next. Silence, nothing, nothing.
Speaker 2: I'm Ruby Jones and you're listening to seven AM today.
Speaker 2: National Indigenous Affairs Editor for NATV and SBS, John Paul
Speaker 2: Jenk on how Australia treats different kinds of racism differently.
Speaker 2: It's Tuesday, July twenty one, JP. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Great to be on. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Look, I was hoping that we could just start with
Speaker 2: the basics why this inquiry was established and what it
Speaker 2: is that it's actually looking at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, this is the Senate Inquiry into racism and
Speaker 3: hate directed towards Abergeltasta on to people. It really arises
Speaker 3: out of two incidents, and the main one being, of course,
Speaker 3: the January twenty sixth Invasion Day rally in Balldoo, Perth
Speaker 3: and the alleged attempted terrorist attack, so the throwing of
Speaker 3: a bomb into a crowd.
Speaker 2: Police were alleging a thirty one year old man threw
Speaker 2: a homemade bomb into the crowd of thousands which had
Speaker 2: gathered in the heart of Perth, CBD for the Invasion
Speaker 2: Day rally.
Speaker 3: And then going back a couple of months before that,
Speaker 3: the attacks on Camp Sovereignty.
Speaker 2: In Melbourne, Demonstrators including suspected Neo Nazis, stormed Camp Sovereignty
Speaker 2: of First Nations gathering site in the Botanic Guard.
Speaker 3: So those two incidents sparked the Minister for Indigenous Australian's
Speaker 3: Melanderry McCarthy to announce this Senate inquiry into racism and
Speaker 3: hate directed at First Nation's people.
Speaker 2: And so the very first hearings began in Perth, which
Speaker 2: is where as you say, this alleged bombing attempt happened
Speaker 2: on January twenty six. So what has the inquiry heard
Speaker 2: about the events of that day.
Speaker 3: I think some really powerful testimony came from the National
Speaker 3: Indigenous Times and one of their reporters who was actually
Speaker 3: on the ground on the day and saw the incidents unfolded.
Speaker 3: And I think she actually says in her testimony that
Speaker 3: the attempt at explosive device bounced directly in front of her.
Speaker 1: And I understand no one died, I get that, but
Speaker 1: they were boil intents. I shouldn't be sitting here and
Speaker 1: talking to you today. I am my girls, a mum.
Speaker 2: And my sister.
Speaker 1: We should be dead because it landed right in front
Speaker 1: of us. That was the intent.
Speaker 3: Protesters and those who had gathered for the Invasion Day
Speaker 3: rally had seen it as a terrorist attack, and so
Speaker 3: the evidence was really spelling out that the racism that
Speaker 3: was directed at First Nations people, particularly on the online platforms,
Speaker 3: has now moved into real life harm. They understood that
Speaker 3: the police had been warned that there would be an attack,
Speaker 3: and I think they were scratching their head saying, look
Speaker 3: where the governments and various authorities actually paying an attention
Speaker 3: before these attacks to what the Indigenous community of Perth
Speaker 3: was saying that this had been escalating towards First Nations
Speaker 3: people for some time.
Speaker 2: Tell me more about what we understand about warnings before
Speaker 2: the attack and how they were handled, as well as
Speaker 2: the response to what happened.
Speaker 3: We heard from one of the organizers, Fabian Yarron, who
Speaker 3: said that organizers had received a warning that the rally
Speaker 3: would be the target of those in far right groups.
Speaker 4: I was organizing this thing and we had tip off
Speaker 4: from the community members that the Nazi Party was going
Speaker 4: to come and haunts us on that day. So we
Speaker 4: were aware that the Nazis is going to be coming,
Speaker 4: and the Nazis was at Wellingson Square, which is about
Speaker 4: four hundred meters the other row.
Speaker 3: He said that the police were informed but chose not
Speaker 3: to meet with organizers beforehand.
Speaker 4: We told the police, we told our sentences and told
Speaker 4: people that ess is going to happen. But this time
Speaker 4: the policing I didn't understand why they did't meet us.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure why they even meet us.
Speaker 3: He also said that organizers were not told about maybe
Speaker 3: a suspected bomb while they were in the square, while
Speaker 3: the square was being evacuated, and the National Indigenous Times
Speaker 3: journo Renee Isaac Guthridge, she said, look, the community felt
Speaker 3: ignored and they believed that the incident overall was not
Speaker 3: treated as seriously as it should be because the targets
Speaker 3: were aboriginal tyrestonhon to people. So she spoke about that
Speaker 3: the WA police didn't really declare an incident or a
Speaker 3: suspected terrorism attack till nine days after the incident, and
Speaker 3: I think that was from political pressure. They also felt
Speaker 3: that mainstream media didn't emphasize the attack as a suspected
Speaker 3: terrorist attack and just chose it as an attack on
Speaker 3: an invasion day rally.
Speaker 1: Given the Bondi attack only had happened so close to it.
Speaker 1: It was just such a stark comparison between how the
Speaker 1: response between the media and you know, the naming of
Speaker 1: the the individuals or the accused. You know, it was
Speaker 1: just it came out straight away, whereas you looked at
Speaker 1: what happened on that day, it was absolutely revolting the comparison.
Speaker 2: And so as the hearings continued, the evidence, the scope
Speaker 2: of it widened from this attempted attack in Perth to
Speaker 2: as you've sort of said, the racism that people experience
Speaker 2: every day and the more kind of institutionalized racism that
Speaker 2: exists as well. So tell me more about what the
Speaker 2: inquiry has heard as it's continued on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the inquiry moved from Perth to Darwin. It's
Speaker 3: at two days in Darwen, then moved onto Alice Springs
Speaker 3: on Friday last week and we heard some really substantial
Speaker 3: evidence from the powerful Northern Land Council and their chair
Speaker 3: Matthew Ryan, who said, you know, from his opening statement,
Speaker 3: he said, look, racism that is directed at Aboriginal people
Speaker 3: is every day and it's increasing.
Speaker 5: I wish all are you come and experience what we
Speaker 5: experience every day. People are literally dying crying out loud
Speaker 5: for help, whether it's health, educational or housing. I grew
Speaker 5: up in one of them homelands. It was empowering back
Speaker 5: then because ABTSK when we had the funding availability, it
Speaker 5: was so strong. Now we don't have that anymore.
Speaker 3: And then we heard the CEO of the Northern Land
Speaker 3: Council use of Deane talk about the impact of racism
Speaker 3: on the youth.
Speaker 6: The hostility is constant and it is escalating. What concerns
Speaker 6: and I'll see the most is the impact on our
Speaker 6: young people. When our original children see how their communities
Speaker 6: are talked about online, it damages their sense of identity
Speaker 6: and belonging. That harm is real and it is measurable.
Speaker 3: We had others talk about, you know, failures in the
Speaker 3: anti justice system and they called it, you know, a
Speaker 3: jailing machine. And he compared the prison system to those
Speaker 3: of a ghul Ad.
Speaker 7: Not only do we have the highest imprisonment rac in
Speaker 7: this jurisdiction, up to ninety percent of them, ninety percent
Speaker 7: of them are black. That is astonishing, that is unbelievable,
Speaker 7: that is intolerable. And yet I have watched in twenty
Speaker 7: thirty forty years, I've watched the increase and it's now
Speaker 7: going through the roof.
Speaker 3: Others spoke about the examples of parents being fined Abrisinal
Speaker 3: parents being fined I was school attendance. So they spoke
Speaker 3: about structural racism, racism that exists in both policy and
Speaker 3: in institutions. And this is off the back of what
Speaker 3: Ken Wyatt, who is the former Minister for Indigenous Australians,
Speaker 3: had said in Perth, and he said that you know,
Speaker 3: race is persistent, it's cumulative. It operates in education and
Speaker 3: health care, employment, it operates in our public spaces, it
Speaker 3: operates in our justice system.
Speaker 8: So the greatest challenge is not just the attitude of
Speaker 8: individuals out in the field, it is our institutions across
Speaker 8: this nation. If you looked at the West Australian this morning,
Speaker 8: you would have seen a young Aboriginal man in an
Speaker 8: emergency department was grabbed and held by the throat, which
Speaker 8: I'm sure that they would not have done had it
Speaker 8: been the western suburbs of Perth because he happened to
Speaker 8: be an Aboriginal man in Klgooli. He was treated and
Speaker 8: held by the throat and then eventually dropped to the floor.
Speaker 8: That is not what you'd expect in an institution in
Speaker 8: our nation.
Speaker 3: But one of the things he spoke about is that
Speaker 3: he's fear is that racism is going from those areas
Speaker 3: into in person racism, So racism that has experienced on
Speaker 3: the street, which is what we saw at the En
Speaker 3: Invasion Day rally on January twenty sixth earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Coming up how the Voice referendum became a turning point
Speaker 2: for racism JP, a recurring theme in the evidence to
Speaker 2: this inquiry was that the Voice referendum marked a turning
Speaker 2: point in terms of racism becoming more openly expressed. What
Speaker 2: did people say changed during and after that campaign in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, A lot of the submissions that have been sent
Speaker 3: to the inquiry and posted online, there's some six hundred
Speaker 3: and seventy submissions. A lot of those point to social
Speaker 3: media as the number one platform where that racism is escalating,
Speaker 3: and a lot of them are saying it's from the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three referendum. They say that racism was there
Speaker 3: during the referendum campaign, particularly through misinformation and myths truth
Speaker 3: about First Nations people. They've seen it continue and they
Speaker 3: feel as though the referendum has given people permission to
Speaker 3: continue those levels of racism and continue those levels of
Speaker 3: misinformation all the way through to current times. The Northern
Speaker 3: Land Council spoke about posts that their children put up
Speaker 3: or the youth put up, that are trolled right across
Speaker 3: Australia and in fact internationally through racist comments. We see
Speaker 3: it ourselves at an ITV. We've had a huge escalation
Speaker 3: in the amount of trolling on our sides and that
Speaker 3: comes at a cost to the organization that we have
Speaker 3: to engage external moderators to look after our social media content.
Speaker 2: And this inquiry it's happening at the same time as
Speaker 2: the Royal Commission into Anti Semitism. So what do you
Speaker 2: make of the way that it's been covered in the
Speaker 2: media compared to the Commission.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's been almost a silence from mainstream
Speaker 3: media on this inquiry when you compare it to the
Speaker 3: Royal Commission and the other inquiries into islam phobia going on. Look,
Speaker 3: I think the inquiry is one thing, and the agenda
Speaker 3: of public hearings is another thing. To hear people's evidence
Speaker 3: and stories firsthand. What people are saying is the time
Speaker 3: for action is now. That if you are serious in
Speaker 3: addressing the escalating racism that is directed towards First Nations people.
Speaker 3: The time for action is now. So people are putting
Speaker 3: forward a wide range of recommendations, some that are saying, look,
Speaker 3: we need more legislative clout, we actually need to make
Speaker 3: elements of racism illegal and actually enforce that through law.
Speaker 3: We need to make people accountable, we need to make
Speaker 3: the platforms accountable. We need to have greater education. So
Speaker 3: they're all hoping that this inquiry will lead to substantive change,
Speaker 3: not just another report that makes a series of recommendations
Speaker 3: that is not enacted and we still continue to see
Speaker 3: this escalation of racism.
Speaker 2: So do you think this inquiry will spur action?
Speaker 3: I think going through a lot of the recommendations that
Speaker 3: on the online submissions and hearing those who have given
Speaker 3: evidence in the public'submission so far, a lot of people
Speaker 3: are saying that it's time for action now. So they're
Speaker 3: wanting this inquiry to actually deliver substantive change in addressing
Speaker 3: that racism directed at First Nations people. So they want
Speaker 3: to see some legislative reform. They want social media platforms
Speaker 3: to be held accountable for the racism that is escalating
Speaker 3: on their platforms. They want the ability for those racist
Speaker 3: comments to be taken down, deleted and removed. So they
Speaker 3: want real action and they're hoping that the Senate Inquiry
Speaker 3: doesn't just deliver another report, particularly when it comes to
Speaker 3: First Nation's issue, that is, delivers a range of recommendations
Speaker 3: and those recommendations are not implemented or not enacted over
Speaker 3: the coming years.
Speaker 2: Jffie, thank you so much for speaking with me.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much.
Speaker 6: Great.
Speaker 2: Also in the news, Varnaby Joyce has denied One Nation
Speaker 2: once a return to the White Australia policy. During a
Speaker 2: podcast with far right activist Tommy Robinson, Pauline Hanson blamed
Speaker 2: what she sees as Australia's problems with migration on the
Speaker 2: end of the White Australia policy. Joyce has also backed
Speaker 2: Hanson's calls for mass deportations, suggesting illegal immigrants could be
Speaker 2: targeted when they seek medical treatment. And Darren Hinch has
Speaker 2: been farewelled at a state funeral for the former journalist
Speaker 2: and senator The so called Human Headline died earlier this
Speaker 2: month after a long battle with poor health. He's been
Speaker 2: remembered as a journalist, campaigner and convict who has jailed
Speaker 2: for his convictions after speaking out in breach of court
Speaker 2: orders in multiple cases involving sex crimes and pedophilia. I'm
Speaker 2: Ruby Jones. This is seven am. Thanks pliciting
Speaker 7: H