Speaker 1: You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker
Speaker 1: every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play
Speaker 1: the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's
Speaker 1: on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, September twenty four.
Speaker 1: A new mandatory grocery Code of conduct. That's Anthony Albanesi's
Speaker 1: new fight. The PM says Coals and Woolworths may have
Speaker 1: exacerbated inflation at the height of the cost of living crisis,
Speaker 1: and he's accused them of treating customers like fools with
Speaker 1: fake discounts. The supermarkets say they do whatever they can
Speaker 1: to make groceries cheaper. Allegations of police racism from serving cops,
Speaker 1: disgusting racial slurs, physical violence, and moves to clear the
Speaker 1: streets of black people. They're all claims contained in a
Speaker 1: human rights case brought by more than twenty Northern Territory
Speaker 1: Aboriginal community police officers. That's today's story.
Speaker 2: Run and see how fire you get before I shoot you.
Speaker 2: You don't deserve to get paid used through all one
Speaker 2: of you is we'll shoot yourselves in the foot.
Speaker 1: This according to a group of Indigenous police officers from
Speaker 1: the Northern Territory is how some white officers speak to
Speaker 1: their Aboriginal colleagues. And this, according to a complaint lodged
Speaker 1: with the Australian Human Rights Commission, is how the Aboriginal
Speaker 1: community police officers say they heard white colleagues talking about
Speaker 1: Indigenous civilians the.
Speaker 2: Hall like animals.
Speaker 1: If you need any black blocked up, let me know
Speaker 1: and I'll sort them out.
Speaker 3: Black camp dogs.
Speaker 2: We used to shoot these black Where we come from.
Speaker 1: The Northern Territory is home to nearly eight percent of
Speaker 1: Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. An estimator seventy
Speaker 1: six thousand people. That's about thirty percent of the territory's
Speaker 1: overall population. Stephen Rice is a senior journalist with the
Speaker 1: Australian Russie. You've reported all over the world from what
Speaker 1: zones to remote communities here in Australia. What's your impression
Speaker 1: of the way these communities in the Northern Territory are
Speaker 1: Alice Springs, Darwin remote communities. How would you compare it
Speaker 1: to other places where you've reported.
Speaker 2: Look, living conditions as we know of, especially in the
Speaker 2: town camps, are pretty appalling. What we haven't seen before.
Speaker 2: Is this evidence of a really continuing problem where white
Speaker 2: police in cities like Alice Springs and Darwin really have
Speaker 2: no regard for Indigenous people and even no regard for
Speaker 2: their colleagues who are Indigenous. And that's pretty shocking.
Speaker 3: How good is it to be Territory and tonight?
Speaker 1: The New Country Liberal Party Chief Minister Lea Finocchio was
Speaker 1: elected in August on a promise to get tough on crime.
Speaker 3: The heartbreak of watching families, friends and colleagues pack up
Speaker 3: and leave the territory because they cannot see.
Speaker 1: A future here end today. We will do whatever it
Speaker 1: takes to restore community safety. In twenty twenty three, the
Speaker 1: age of criminal responsibility was raised from ten to twelve
Speaker 1: by the Labor government, but Finocchiaio has pledged to take
Speaker 1: it back down. That means ten year olds will be
Speaker 1: able to be charged with criminal offenses rather than being
Speaker 1: handled by the territory's Families department. Finocchio will also restore
Speaker 1: controversial restraint chairs and spit hoods on young people removed
Speaker 1: by Labor in twenty twenty two. Human rights advocates say
Speaker 1: those techniques are dehumanizing and unnecessary. The Territories Police Association
Speaker 1: says they're essential to keep officers safe from violent offenders
Speaker 1: and communicable diseases. Ricey, There's been a lot of rumors
Speaker 1: over the years about what goes on in the Northern
Speaker 1: Territory when dignitaries come to visit, the idea that the streets,
Speaker 1: which normally would have groups of people congregating like in
Speaker 1: any city, are cleaned up for dignitaries or for big moments.
Speaker 1: What have you learned about whether or not that's true.
Speaker 2: Well, as you say, those claims have been around for
Speaker 2: a long time and the Northern Territory Police have always
Speaker 2: written them off as rumors, urban legend or conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2: What's happened now is that as a result of more
Speaker 2: than twenty Aboriginal police making a complaint of racial vilification
Speaker 2: to the Human Rights Commission against the Northern Territory Government
Speaker 2: and against the Northern Territory Police Commissioner, these allegations turn
Speaker 2: out to be true.
Speaker 1: A voice actors reading the words from the complaint to
Speaker 1: the Australian Human Rights Commission from Aboriginal community police officers,
Speaker 1: led by Sean Lufatt, a former footballer with Essendon who's
Speaker 1: been an ACPO for twenty six years, and Lisa Burkenhagen
Speaker 1: who's a senior ACPO and has been with the force
Speaker 1: for nine years.
Speaker 3: Whenever significant events are held within the Darwin area that
Speaker 3: have political interest and guaranteed media attention or presence, mister
Speaker 3: Lufat and other acpos, together with other officers, are routinely
Speaker 3: directed to clean up the streets around the area of
Speaker 3: interest by moving on homeless Indigenous persons that sleep or
Speaker 3: congregate in the area to give public perception that homelessness
Speaker 3: and anti social behavior is not an issue.
Speaker 2: For years now, the police have denied that they actually
Speaker 2: move people on. In these documents that I've obtained, the
Speaker 2: cops that the Aboriginal cops who are being asked to
Speaker 2: move people along, have made it clear that the people
Speaker 2: being target at a sober they're not committing any crimes. Basically,
Speaker 2: their own clime is that they're black. This is about
Speaker 2: ordinary Aboriginal people going about their normal, everyday business who
Speaker 2: are being moved on taken out of town because the
Speaker 2: city has decided that they don't like having that sort
Speaker 2: of image presented to the rest of the world. And
Speaker 2: it happens on occasions when politicians are visiting precisely to
Speaker 2: allegedly deal with those kind of issues.
Speaker 1: Coming up. The white cop who started the avalanche of
Speaker 1: claims RISEI. The Northern Territory police have come in for
Speaker 1: some serious scrutiny over the past few years, probably starting
Speaker 1: in this round when police have Zachari Rolf fatally shot
Speaker 1: an Indigenous man, Kumenjai Walker in the remote community of Yundermu.
Speaker 1: At his trial and at the coronial inquest into that death,
Speaker 1: zak Roff, who was acquitative murder, claimed that there's endemic
Speaker 1: racism in the Northern Territory Police force. That's something that
Speaker 1: the top brass denied. What are we now learning from
Speaker 1: Aboriginal police officers themselves who have brought this claim to
Speaker 1: the Human Rights Commission.
Speaker 2: We're learning that from the point of view of the
Speaker 2: Aboriginal police themselves that these claims are completely true and
Speaker 2: have been for years. So here we have at least
Speaker 2: twenty serving Aboriginal officers who have lodged this racial vilification
Speaker 2: claim in the Human Rights Commission, alleging this racist culture
Speaker 2: in which they're constantly being called lazing and useless.
Speaker 3: In or around twenty ten, and Akpo regularly witnessed officers
Speaker 3: in Alice Springs making comments to the effect that akpos
Speaker 3: were not doing their jobs because they were not picking
Speaker 3: up drunks in Alice Springs effectively, and that slack pos
Speaker 3: do nothing and that was why there was so much work.
Speaker 2: These cops who they perform all the normal functions of police.
Speaker 2: They allowed to arrest people, they're allowed to investigate, they're
Speaker 2: allowed to carry guns, but they're treated as second class police.
Speaker 2: They're paid less. If you're an Aboriginal police officer in
Speaker 2: the Northern Territory, you get six thousand dollars less a
Speaker 2: year than a white constable. It's pretty outrageous.
Speaker 3: Towards the end of her training to become an auxiliary,
Speaker 3: a sergeant delivering a lecture referred to a service helping
Speaker 3: to return Indigenous people stuck in Darwin to their home
Speaker 3: country and commented that he would like to return them
Speaker 3: to their country in a box. Miss Birkenhagen made a
Speaker 3: complaint against the sergeant, which resulted in conciliation. Miss Bergenhagen
Speaker 3: was advised that she would have to have thicker skin
Speaker 3: as she might hear much worse as a police officer.
Speaker 2: I mean, some of this stuff is just extraordinary rissie.
Speaker 1: When you went to the police into the newly elected
Speaker 1: Northern Territory government, what are they say. Are they denying
Speaker 1: that there's this disparity in pay, for example.
Speaker 2: They're not specifically denying the disparity in pay. The Chief
Speaker 2: Minister is saying this is all in the past. We
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about it now. Of course it's
Speaker 2: not in the past. The police themselves are saying that
Speaker 2: the Police Commissioner said that he welcomed the fact that
Speaker 2: officers felt free to talk about this finally, which was
Speaker 2: a bit bizarre because on Monday or when I've gone
Speaker 2: to them to ask about these allegations of moving on
Speaker 2: our virginities, cleaning up the streets, they've totally shut down
Speaker 2: and said, nope, we're not going to say anything now
Speaker 2: because it's all before the courts.
Speaker 1: Obviously, rise of these officers want pay parity. What else
Speaker 1: are they asking for.
Speaker 2: We're asking for as well as that for compensation, but
Speaker 2: most of all for an apology for the way that
Speaker 2: they've been treated in the past and for the fact
Speaker 2: that they continue to be treated as second class police
Speaker 2: when it seems very clear to anybody who has spent
Speaker 2: time in the Northern Territory that these particular cops are
Speaker 2: precisely the ones who can fix some of these problems.
Speaker 1: Stephen Rice is a senior journalist with The Australian. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us on the front, don't forget. Subscribers to
Speaker 1: The Australian get Australia's best journalism every day for much
Speaker 1: less than the price of a cup of coffee. Join
Speaker 1: us at the Australian dot com dot a U