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Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart sneaker

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Speaker 1: every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play

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Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's

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Speaker 1: on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, September twenty four.

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Speaker 1: A new mandatory grocery Code of conduct. That's Anthony Albanesi's

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Speaker 1: new fight. The PM says Coals and Woolworths may have

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Speaker 1: exacerbated inflation at the height of the cost of living crisis,

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Speaker 1: and he's accused them of treating customers like fools with

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Speaker 1: fake discounts. The supermarkets say they do whatever they can

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Speaker 1: to make groceries cheaper. Allegations of police racism from serving cops,

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Speaker 1: disgusting racial slurs, physical violence, and moves to clear the

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Speaker 1: streets of black people. They're all claims contained in a

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Speaker 1: human rights case brought by more than twenty Northern Territory

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Speaker 1: Aboriginal community police officers. That's today's story.

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Speaker 2: Run and see how fire you get before I shoot you.

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Speaker 2: You don't deserve to get paid used through all one

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Speaker 2: of you is we'll shoot yourselves in the foot.

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Speaker 1: This according to a group of Indigenous police officers from

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Speaker 1: the Northern Territory is how some white officers speak to

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Speaker 1: their Aboriginal colleagues. And this, according to a complaint lodged

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Speaker 1: with the Australian Human Rights Commission, is how the Aboriginal

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Speaker 1: community police officers say they heard white colleagues talking about

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Speaker 1: Indigenous civilians the.

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Speaker 2: Hall like animals.

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Speaker 1: If you need any black blocked up, let me know

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Speaker 1: and I'll sort them out.

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Speaker 3: Black camp dogs.

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Speaker 2: We used to shoot these black Where we come from.

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Speaker 1: The Northern Territory is home to nearly eight percent of

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Speaker 1: Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. An estimator seventy

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Speaker 1: six thousand people. That's about thirty percent of the territory's

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Speaker 1: overall population. Stephen Rice is a senior journalist with the

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Speaker 1: Australian Russie. You've reported all over the world from what

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Speaker 1: zones to remote communities here in Australia. What's your impression

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Speaker 1: of the way these communities in the Northern Territory are

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Speaker 1: Alice Springs, Darwin remote communities. How would you compare it

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Speaker 1: to other places where you've reported.

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Speaker 2: Look, living conditions as we know of, especially in the

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Speaker 2: town camps, are pretty appalling. What we haven't seen before.

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Speaker 2: Is this evidence of a really continuing problem where white

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Speaker 2: police in cities like Alice Springs and Darwin really have

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Speaker 2: no regard for Indigenous people and even no regard for

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Speaker 2: their colleagues who are Indigenous. And that's pretty shocking.

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Speaker 3: How good is it to be Territory and tonight?

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Speaker 1: The New Country Liberal Party Chief Minister Lea Finocchio was

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Speaker 1: elected in August on a promise to get tough on crime.

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Speaker 3: The heartbreak of watching families, friends and colleagues pack up

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Speaker 3: and leave the territory because they cannot see a.

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Speaker 2: Future here end today.

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Speaker 1: We will do whatever it takes to restore community safety.

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Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three, the age of criminal responsibility was

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Speaker 1: raised from ten to twelve by the Labor government, but

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Speaker 1: Finocchiaio has pledged to take it back down. That means

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Speaker 1: ten year olds will be able to be charged with

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Speaker 1: criminal offenses rather than being handled by the territory's Families department.

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Speaker 1: Finocchio will also restore controversial restraint chairs and spit hoods

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Speaker 1: on young people removed by Labor in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 1: Human rights advocates say those techniques are dehumanizing and unnecessary.

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Speaker 1: The Territories Police Association says they're essential to keep officers

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Speaker 1: safe from violent offenders and communicable diseases. Ricey, There's been

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Speaker 1: a lot of rumors over the years about what goes

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Speaker 1: on in the Northern Territory when dignitaries come to visit,

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Speaker 1: the idea that the streets, which normally would have groups

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Speaker 1: of people congregating like in any city, are cleaned up

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Speaker 1: for dignitaries or for big moments. What have you learned

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Speaker 1: about whether or not that's true.

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Speaker 2: Well, as you say, those claims have been around for

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Speaker 2: a long time and the Northern Territory Police have always

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Speaker 2: written them off as rumors, urban legend or conspiracy theories.

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Speaker 2: What's happened now is that as a result of more

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Speaker 2: than twenty Aboriginal police making a complaint of racial vilification

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Speaker 2: to the Human Rights Commission against the Northern Territory Government

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Speaker 2: and against the Northern Territory Police Commissioner, these allegations turn

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Speaker 2: out to be true.

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Speaker 1: A voice actors reading the words from the complaint to

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Speaker 1: the Australian Human Rights Commission from Aboriginal community police officers,

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Speaker 1: led by Sean Lufatt, a former footballer with Essendon who's

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Speaker 1: been an ACPO for twenty six years, and Lisa Burkenhagen

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Speaker 1: who's a senior ACPO and has been with the force

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Speaker 1: for nine years.

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Speaker 3: Whenever significant events are held within the Darwin area that

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Speaker 3: have political interest and guaranteed media attention or presence, mister

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Speaker 3: Lufat and other acpos, together with other officers, are routinely

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Speaker 3: directed to clean up the streets around the area of

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Speaker 3: interest by moving on homeless Indigenous persons that sleep or

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Speaker 3: congregate in the area to give public perception that homelessness

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Speaker 3: and anti social behavior is not an issue.

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Speaker 2: For years now, the police have denied that they actually

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Speaker 2: move people on. In these documents that I've obtained, the

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Speaker 2: cops that the Aboriginal cops who are being asked to

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Speaker 2: move people along, have made it clear that the people

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Speaker 2: being target at a sober they're not committing any crimes. Basically,

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Speaker 2: their own clime is that they're black. This is about

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Speaker 2: ordinary Aboriginal people going about their normal, everyday business who

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Speaker 2: are being moved on taken out of town because the

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Speaker 2: city has decided that they don't like having that sort

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Speaker 2: of image presented to the rest of the world. And

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Speaker 2: it happens on occasions when politicians are visiting precisely to

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Speaker 2: allegedly deal with those kind of issues.

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Speaker 1: Coming up. The white cop who started the avalanche of

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Speaker 1: claims Riscie. The Northern Territory police have come in for

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Speaker 1: some serious scrutiny over the past few years, probably starting

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Speaker 1: in this round when police have Zachari Rolf fatally shot

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Speaker 1: an Indigenous man, Kumenjai Walker in the remote community of Yundermu.

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Speaker 1: At his trial and at the coronial inquest into that death,

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Speaker 1: zak Roff, who was acquitative murder, claimed that there's endemic

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Speaker 1: racism in the Northern Territory Police force. That's something that

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Speaker 1: the top brass denied. What are we now learning from

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Speaker 1: Aboriginal police officers themselves who have brought this claim to

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Speaker 1: the Human Rights Commission.

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Speaker 2: We're learning that from the point of view of the

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Speaker 2: Aboriginal police themselves that these claims are completely true and

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Speaker 2: have been for years. So here we have at least

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Speaker 2: twenty serving Aboriginal officers who have lodged this racial vilification

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Speaker 2: claim in the Human Rights Commission, alleging this racist culture

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Speaker 2: in which they're constantly being called lazing and useless.

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Speaker 3: In or around twenty ten and AKPO regularly witnessed officers

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Speaker 3: in Alice Springs making comments to the effect that akpos

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Speaker 3: were not doing their jobs because they were not picking

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Speaker 3: up drunks in Alice Springs effectively, and that slack pos

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Speaker 3: do nothing and that was why there was so much work.

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Speaker 2: These cops who they perform all the normal functions of police.

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Speaker 2: They allowed to arrest people, they're allowed to investigate, they're

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Speaker 2: allowed to carry guns, but they're treated as second class police.

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Speaker 2: They're paid less. If you're an Aboriginal police officer in

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Speaker 2: the Northern Territory, you get six thousand dollars less a

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Speaker 2: year than a white constable. It's pretty outrageous.

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Speaker 3: Towards the end of her training to become an auxiliary,

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Speaker 3: a sergeant delivering a lecture referred to a service helping

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Speaker 3: to return Indigenous people stuck in Darwin to their home

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Speaker 3: country and commented that he would like to return them

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Speaker 3: to their country in a box. Miss Birkenhagen made a

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Speaker 3: complaint against the sergeant, which resulted in conciliation. Miss Bergenhagen

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Speaker 3: was advised that she would have to have thicker skin

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Speaker 3: as she might hear much worse as a police officer.

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Speaker 2: I mean some of this stuff is just extraordinary, Rissie.

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Speaker 1: When you went to the police into the newly elected

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Speaker 1: Northern Territory government, what are they say. Are they denying

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Speaker 1: that there's this disparity in pay, for example.

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Speaker 2: They're not specifically denying the disparity in pay. The Chief

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Speaker 2: Minister is saying this is all in the past. We

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Speaker 2: don't have to worry about it now. Of course it's

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Speaker 2: not in the past. The police themselves are saying that

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Speaker 2: the Police Commissioner said that he welcomed the fact that

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Speaker 2: officers felt free to talk about this finally, which was

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Speaker 2: a bit bizarre because on Monday or when I've gone

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Speaker 2: to them to ask about these allegations of moving on

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Speaker 2: our virginities, cleaning up the streets, they've totally shut down

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Speaker 2: and said, nope, we're not going to say anything now

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Speaker 2: because it's all before the courts.

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Speaker 1: Obviously, rise of these officers want pay parity. What else

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Speaker 1: are they asking for.

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Speaker 2: We're asking for as well as that, for compensation, but

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Speaker 2: most of all for an apology for the way that

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Speaker 2: they've been treated in the past and for the fact

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Speaker 2: that they continue to be treated as second class police

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Speaker 2: when it seems very clear to anybody who has spent

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Speaker 2: time in the Northern Territory that these particular cops are

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Speaker 2: precisely the ones who can fix some of these problems.

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Speaker 1: Stephen Rice is a senior journalist with The Australian. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for joining us on the front, don't forget. Subscribers to

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