Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants. It was absolutely shambles, to
Speaker 1: tell you the truth, just absolutely really coming. Blood on
Speaker 1: his clothing the day after the alleged a top on.
Speaker 2: A shallow mud bank and it fits through a river. Basically,
Speaker 2: I think most of the people are used to me
Speaker 2: are good people. I think a really important question we
Speaker 2: need to ask is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia
Speaker 2: are innocent.
Speaker 1: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the
Speaker 1: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 1: our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm
Speaker 1: Amy maguire and.
Speaker 2: I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner
Speaker 2: Support Service. And a warning. This series contains the names
Speaker 2: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset
Speaker 2: some listeners.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Curtin the podcast an Invasion Day Special. In
Speaker 3: a moment, you'll hear from my colleague Amy McGuire and
Speaker 3: then I have a challenge for you that i'd like
Speaker 3: you to undertake after you've listened to this podcast. It
Speaker 3: helps explain why one date the twenty sixth of January
Speaker 3: is not all that explains the history of this country.
Speaker 3: Invasion Day didn't begin an end on the one single day.
Speaker 3: It's ongoing and continues. But first, my colleague Amy McGuire.
Speaker 3: She's been traveling Australia for the last few months looking
Speaker 3: at the impact on Aboriginal people of the past, present,
Speaker 3: and the future for BuzzFeed. She's created an excellent video
Speaker 3: series about this, and she's also written an article about
Speaker 3: why changing the date is so important. We'll post the
Speaker 3: links to both the video series and the article on
Speaker 3: our website. Stay with me after you've heard from Amy
Speaker 3: for the challenge, But for now, he's my co host,
Speaker 3: Amy maguire reflecting on what Invasion Day.
Speaker 1: Means to her, Today's Australia Day. It's a day where
Speaker 1: the rest of the nation comes together and celebrates. They
Speaker 1: use this public holiday to drink to excess, to party
Speaker 1: on beaches, to basically comfort themselves from any idea of
Speaker 1: what this day, January twenty six actually represents. For Aboriginal people.
Speaker 1: We view this date very differently. For years decades, it
Speaker 1: has symbolized the attempted genocide of our people. It marks
Speaker 1: the day that the first fleet sailed into Sydney Cove
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty eight. For US, it's the beginning of
Speaker 1: the invasion, not just into Gategol lands around what is
Speaker 1: now called Sydney, but the beginning of the waves of
Speaker 1: invasions that began into Aboriginal nations all across this country
Speaker 1: at different times and under different circumstances. But one thing
Speaker 1: is similar is that they left Aboriginal communities decimated, and
Speaker 1: Aboriginal people had power and control ripped away from them
Speaker 1: in the pursuit of white interests. Last year I went
Speaker 1: over to Rottnest Island, which lies nineteen kilometers off the
Speaker 1: coast of Fremantle near Perth and Rottenesst Island is now
Speaker 1: one of Western Australia's most profitable tourism resorts. Thousands of
Speaker 1: visitors go to Rottenest every year, including people from Western Australia.
Speaker 1: But for Bodagna people it has a very different history.
Speaker 1: It used to be and still is a place of
Speaker 1: extreme cultural significance, a place where they're dead would go
Speaker 1: to pass over. But when the invasion happened in Wa,
Speaker 1: which began at the Swan River colony around where now
Speaker 1: where perf now sits. It was a prison camp where
Speaker 1: up to four thousand Aboriginal men, many of them more men,
Speaker 1: many of them resistance fighters in their own lands, not
Speaker 1: just in normal country, but all across Western Australia, were
Speaker 1: sent in chains. They were marched through Fremantle, put in
Speaker 1: the roundhouse that still sits there, and put in chains,
Speaker 1: made to row over choppy seas to Rotnest Island, where
Speaker 1: many of them died. The conditions that they lived in
Speaker 1: were horrendous. They would sit seven people in a very small, cramped,
Speaker 1: dark cell, and they had to build that island's infrastructure,
Speaker 1: infrastructure that is still there, with no food or with
Speaker 1: very little food. Diseases were rampant, conditions were harsh. Many
Speaker 1: of them died. Now in the nineteen seventies, workers who
Speaker 1: were digging up part of that area discovered a mass
Speaker 1: grave and the WA government attempted to cover it up.
Speaker 1: They would have succeeded if not for a whistleblower who
Speaker 1: actually came out and made news. And after that Aboriginal
Speaker 1: people campaigned for that grave site to be respected, but
Speaker 1: it took four decades. For a very long time, tourists
Speaker 1: were still camping on that grave site, there's an estimated
Speaker 1: three hundred and seventy Aboriginal monk who lied buried under
Speaker 1: soil not six feet in some cases three to four feet.
Speaker 1: People who went to Rotanness Island had no knowledge that
Speaker 1: they were actually camping on top of the graves of
Speaker 1: Aboriginal people. It was literally called tent land where people
Speaker 1: would drink, sleep, party on the graves of law men,
Speaker 1: on the graves of resistance fighters. Now it's only been
Speaker 1: very recently that that area has been cordoned off. It's
Speaker 1: only been very recently that the quad where many Aboriginal
Speaker 1: people died, in fact, where five were hung in the
Speaker 1: center of is going to be closed. But right now
Speaker 1: it's still a tourist resort. That concentration camp on Rottnest Island,
Speaker 1: where three hundred and seventy maybe even more Aboriginal men died,
Speaker 1: is currently a hotel where you pay three hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a night to stay in. Can you imagine anywhere in
Speaker 1: the world where a concentration camp, a place of such
Speaker 1: extreme grief and trauma, could be converted into a tourist
Speaker 1: hotel and the people who stay inside those walls and
Speaker 1: pay hundreds of dollars are not told, but they're staying
Speaker 1: in rooms where many men, many people died. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine any place in the world. I visited that quad
Speaker 1: and you could just feel the energy there. You could
Speaker 1: feel the pain and you could feel the grief, and
Speaker 1: I just wondered, how can anyone stay in these walls.
Speaker 1: I walked a short walk down and saw the mass grave,
Speaker 1: which is the largest death in custody site in Australia,
Speaker 1: and I saw that there's barely any memorial to those people.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's taken four decades to get a small
Speaker 1: sign erected. Australia will celebrate on the graves of Aboriginal
Speaker 1: people today. That's what's happened over in Rottenests, what's happening
Speaker 1: right now, And it's a perfect metaphor for what Australia
Speaker 1: does every year in January twenty six, which continues this
Speaker 1: horrendous display of amnesia, which continues to comfort Australians in
Speaker 1: the knowledge that they can somehow barricade themselves from the past,
Speaker 1: even though Aboriginal people deal with the past in their
Speaker 1: present days every single day. And we see that in
Speaker 1: the case of what we're talking about with Kurdin, we
Speaker 1: see that outrages are still happening Australians refusing to own
Speaker 1: up to their own complicity and Aboriginal disadvantage and dispossession
Speaker 1: is exactly the issues that we continue to face when
Speaker 1: we talk about Kevin Henry, in the massive miscarriage of
Speaker 1: justice that has happened. When Kevin Henry entered those walls
Speaker 1: for Campton's Prison Capricornia Correctional Center, he was effectively rendered voiceless,
Speaker 1: and for two long Aboriginal people have also been rendered voiceless.
Speaker 1: Now we're using our voices, we're standing up on the
Speaker 1: streets as we've done, and we're finally getting some sort
Speaker 1: of coverage. And so if you believe in changing the date,
Speaker 1: or if you believe like I do, in abolishing the day,
Speaker 1: you should also believe in the wider issues as well,
Speaker 1: helping Aboriginal people like Kevin Henry in ways that we've
Speaker 1: told you, you can help supporting our fight because if
Speaker 1: you have finally woken up to the fact that Australians
Speaker 1: shouldn't be celebrating on a day of such deep pain
Speaker 1: to Aboriginal people, if you believe that we should start
Speaker 1: addressing the unfinished business at the heart of this nation.
Speaker 1: You should also be supporting fights like those for curtain,
Speaker 1: fights like for so many other Aboriginal people who've been
Speaker 1: denied their rights. You should be supporting the fight to
Speaker 1: slow the rates of incarceration of Aboriginal people all across
Speaker 1: the country. The issues are linked because what happened on
Speaker 1: twenty sixth January seventeen eighty eight continues everything that we
Speaker 1: talk about in this podcast, Everything that's happened to Kevin
Speaker 1: Henry is a continuation of those boats that first sailed
Speaker 1: into Sydney Cove. It's all connected. We don't have the
Speaker 1: luxury of ign ignoring this. So today I just want
Speaker 1: to push all our Aboriginal Islander listeners a safe day.
Speaker 1: I hope that you take care of yourselves in the
Speaker 1: face of so much horrendous disrespects that we see every
Speaker 1: year in January twenty six and I also hope to
Speaker 1: our listeners listening in Capricornia Correctional Center and all across
Speaker 1: the country, and especially Kevin Henry, I hope that today
Speaker 1: you have a good day and remember that we're all
Speaker 1: thinking of you on the outside, and that we're going
Speaker 1: to continue this flight just as Aboriginal people all across
Speaker 1: the country protest on the streets.
Speaker 3: Now I want to conduct with you in experiment. It's
Speaker 3: an Invasion Day experiment to help you further understand exactly
Speaker 3: what that means. Many in the non Indigenous community have
Speaker 3: a simple argument when it comes to Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 3: Straight Island to people calling for this date to be
Speaker 3: chainedged Australia Day shifted to another time, a more appropriate
Speaker 3: day and time, perhaps even when a treaty has been established,
Speaker 3: when truth, justice and reconciliation have really been achieved, because,
Speaker 3: as Amy pointed out, invasion didn't just begin on one
Speaker 3: day and end the next. It was a continual process.
Speaker 3: Australia as it's known today is a continent of nearly
Speaker 3: eight million square kilometers. Sydney is roughly twelve thousand square kilometers.
Speaker 3: To help you understand just how bad this invasion was,
Speaker 3: I'm going to talk only about twenty square kilometers that
Speaker 3: surround where I sit right now, and I want you
Speaker 3: to do this. After you've listened to this, I want
Speaker 3: you to research the twenty square kilometers that surround you
Speaker 3: and what happened and is happening to the Aboriginal introstraight
Speaker 3: island of people, whose land that belongs to and continues
Speaker 3: to happen to them to this day. Within the twenty
Speaker 3: square kilometers from where I sit right now recording for you,
Speaker 3: these events took place. A man named Boyd, one of
Speaker 3: the earlier settlers, as he was described, came to the
Speaker 3: Beaga Valley on the far south coast of New South Wales.
Speaker 3: Make no mistake, mister Boyd was a slave trader. How
Speaker 3: do we know this? It was by his own admission.
Speaker 3: In the eighteen hundreds, Boyd himself was being investigated for
Speaker 3: conducting a slave trade. He was trafficking in Aboriginal and
Speaker 3: Torrestrate Islander people as well as South Sea Islanders. He
Speaker 3: did so with assistance of not just the British, but
Speaker 3: with people from many nations around the world who were
Speaker 3: also involved in the slave trade. He was a well
Speaker 3: established landowner and merchant around the world. In the Legislative
Speaker 3: Council in New South Wales, Boyd, in defending himself, referenced
Speaker 3: the African slave trade and made the discussion about introducing
Speaker 3: such practice to the colony that would become Australia. He
Speaker 3: used these slaves to enrich himself. They were brought to
Speaker 3: a small place that to this day is still named
Speaker 3: Boyd Town after this man, this self confessed slave trader.
Speaker 3: The clerk sitting at the local bench of the magistrate's
Speaker 3: court there took notes, and this is what he said.
Speaker 3: None of the natives could speak English, and all were naked.
Speaker 3: They all crowded around us, looking at us with the
Speaker 3: utmost surprise and feeling at the texture of our clothes.
Speaker 3: They seemed wild and restless. Here it's clear that a
Speaker 3: no humanity was shown whatsoever, b that the state, through
Speaker 3: a magistrate's court, was involved in assigning ownership to mister
Speaker 3: Boyd of the Aboriginal people that they called natives. It
Speaker 3: should also be noted that they were surprised at what
Speaker 3: was happening to them. They were feeling the texture of
Speaker 3: the clothes of these Europeans. They made no attempt at
Speaker 3: this point to resist. They were not acting in any
Speaker 3: way violently, and yet over the coming years they would
Speaker 3: be used as slaves, many of whom would be slaughtered
Speaker 3: and killed. Others were never paid the supposed wage that
Speaker 3: was guaranteed to them by the court, and many managed
Speaker 3: to escape despite their goodwill despite the fact that it
Speaker 3: was with surprise that they acted that they were being
Speaker 3: treated this way. It took a number of years before
Speaker 3: they acted in any way violently, and when they did,
Speaker 3: what they did was simply to resist their own imprisonment,
Speaker 3: to free themselves of the shackles of the slave trade
Speaker 3: that operated in Australia, that was conducted not just by
Speaker 3: the British, but by a global group of people who
Speaker 3: had conducted the slave trade for centuries. When you think
Speaker 3: about slavery, you should not just think about the African
Speaker 3: slave trade, the slave trade that took place across the
Speaker 3: Arab world, and slave trades that have operated up and
Speaker 3: to this day. The slave trade was alive and well
Speaker 3: in Australia. There was blackbirding from the South Sea Islands,
Speaker 3: including what is now Vanuatu. A horrific history of people
Speaker 3: being stolen away from places like Tanner Island and brought
Speaker 3: to Queensland to work as slaves, never to see their
Speaker 3: homes again, and it extends right around Australia. And that
Speaker 3: slave trade took place within twenty square kilometers of where
Speaker 3: I sit now. Another word, we hear a lot about
Speaker 3: on Australia Day invasion day is massacre. If you look
Speaker 3: even at the maps that many of the universities off
Speaker 3: for up, they show massacres right around the country. They
Speaker 3: do not document them all. There was a massacre that
Speaker 3: took place less than ten square kilometers from where I
Speaker 3: sit right now, that isn't documented in the history books,
Speaker 3: but is documented in diaries. Those diaries are those of
Speaker 3: the men who carried out that massacre. This is from
Speaker 3: an officer who observed what was going on. He wrote
Speaker 3: in his diary, Lieutenant H. W. Breton, that the invaders
Speaker 3: invented all sorts of ridiculous tales concerning Aboriginal people in
Speaker 3: order that they may be furnished with an excuse for
Speaker 3: taking away their lives. When it came to this particular massacre,
Speaker 3: first the men were shot. Every single man of this
Speaker 3: tribe was shot and killed. This left the women and children.
Speaker 3: So were the women and children allowed to escape or
Speaker 3: allowed to go free. No, after they had witnessed their
Speaker 3: men being slaughtered shot in cold blood for no reason
Speaker 3: by settlers. The women and children were chased through the forest,
Speaker 3: and they ran, and they fled. They fled for their lives.
Speaker 3: One hundred and seventy three women and children took through
Speaker 3: the bush and managed to evade men on horseback and
Speaker 3: their dogs for days until they reached a cliff top.
Speaker 3: There they were driven over the edge, some were shot,
Speaker 3: some simply fell to their death. Women and children one
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy three killed for absolutely no reason, and
Speaker 3: no one was ever held accountable. That massacre is not
Speaker 3: documented in the history books of Australia, but thankfully the
Speaker 3: oral history, the diaries of both non indigenous and later
Speaker 3: indigenous people who were told the stories by their relatives,
Speaker 3: all match up. So much so we know the exact number,
Speaker 3: we know the exact location Jinger of Rock, and we
Speaker 3: know what happened. Men who had come to kill seals
Speaker 3: in the Port of Eden to take Wales had decided
Speaker 3: they would declare war on the most peaceful people on
Speaker 3: the planet and kill every last one of them, including babies.
Speaker 3: They were not the only children to die. Many in
Speaker 3: the area died in forced burials, that is, children buried
Speaker 3: alive from a range of diseases deliberately introduced from random
Speaker 3: attacks by settlers and new locals, and often in silence,
Speaker 3: often at night, killed in ways that are almost too
Speaker 3: horrible to imagine. Even in the context of what you've
Speaker 3: already heard. These black massacres, as they were known at
Speaker 3: the time, were often justified by misreporting. As one paper
Speaker 3: said at the time, there was aboriginal cannibalism. Of course
Speaker 3: it was totally made up. There were other stories of
Speaker 3: black on black violence being far more frequent than white
Speaker 3: on black violence. Again, the diaries of another lieutenant describe
Speaker 3: how these pioneer recollections were but fables. They were not true.
Speaker 3: But one crime documented by the courts of New South
Speaker 3: Wales again took place right near where I sit. A
Speaker 3: white woman had been involved in a relationship with an
Speaker 3: Aboriginal man working on the local farm. To him, she
Speaker 3: fell pregnant. When it was discovered by her father, also
Speaker 3: a local Catholic man of high standing, that she was pregnant,
Speaker 3: she was given two choices by her own father, be
Speaker 3: killed or killed the baby. The night the baby was born,
Speaker 3: she took the child with assistance from her sisters, and
Speaker 3: buried it, still alive, wrapped in cloth, in the backyard
Speaker 3: of the family home. That baby would later be recovered
Speaker 3: an Aboriginal child murdered purely because they were an Aboriginal child.
Speaker 3: This was more than one hundred years after the initial
Speaker 3: invasion of Australia. To believe that it is only one
Speaker 3: date that is problematic is the problem to begin with.
Speaker 3: But these crimes would continue. Less than sixty years ago,
Speaker 3: journalists from Canberra traveled to the Beaga Valley and were
Speaker 3: horrified to note that not only were no Aboriginal people
Speaker 3: in the town, they were pointed to a settlement at
Speaker 3: Stony Creek where the Aboriginal people lived there. The journalists
Speaker 3: in the nineteen sixties described the conditions as disgusting, as
Speaker 3: squalid and primitive, and were shocked to believe that the
Speaker 3: place this site where the people were forced to live,
Speaker 3: was the local rubbish tip. As Arnie Glenda Dixon describes,
Speaker 3: we were treated like animals at that time. They didn't
Speaker 3: want the Blacks too close to town. Auntie Glenda was
Speaker 3: part of the first family allowed and I say that
Speaker 3: in inverted commas to move into the township of Beager.
Speaker 3: As she said, we had a stove, we had a shower,
Speaker 3: which was a big deal to us. We had a
Speaker 3: toilet that we flushed all the time. But as she recalls,
Speaker 3: the locals called it Coon Avenue. This was two hundred
Speaker 3: years after the invasion of Australia first commenced, and only
Speaker 3: then was the first family of Aboriginal people allowed by
Speaker 3: the new locals to live in that town with access
Speaker 3: to the facilities of the twentieth century instead of the
Speaker 3: rubbish tip they'd been sent so long ago, two hundred
Speaker 3: years later, and the invasion was still going. Because this
Speaker 3: was just the first family that was allowed to move
Speaker 3: into town. So how was this family treated when they
Speaker 3: moved into town? The first editorial in the local paper
Speaker 3: called it a betrayal and a shock. The editor claim
Speaker 3: there was not a large enough space to accept the
Speaker 3: new people and that the people of the town had
Speaker 3: grave concern. He said Aboriginal people would be moving into
Speaker 3: begas prime domestic area, ghettos would be formed, and property
Speaker 3: values would be affected. In the sixty seven referendum, the
Speaker 3: town had voted overwhelmingly no. Unlike ninety odd percent of
Speaker 3: the population in the same area where Aboriginal people had
Speaker 3: been massacred, where an Aboriginal child had been buried alive,
Speaker 3: where Aboriginal people had been held shackled, sold and killed
Speaker 3: as slaves, a single Aboriginal family brought such fear to
Speaker 3: a community that scenes not unlike those we've come to
Speaker 3: know from the South of America where the ku Klux
Speaker 3: Klan operated, were present in the very area where I
Speaker 3: sit now. This took place in the lifetimes of people
Speaker 3: who are still alive. Would you ask someone who was
Speaker 3: forced to grow up at the tip and only allowed
Speaker 3: to move into their town once it had been exposed
Speaker 3: by the Canberra Times, the squalid conditions they were forced
Speaker 3: to live in. Would you ask that person to get
Speaker 3: over it? Would you ask the families of all those
Speaker 3: who were massacred, the women and children shot and thrown
Speaker 3: off a cliff, driven off a cliff by dogs chewing
Speaker 3: at their body until they jumped, to get over it?
Speaker 3: Would you ask the families of those who were bought
Speaker 3: and sold, shackled and killed to get over it. We're
Speaker 3: not talking about one single day. We're talking about more
Speaker 3: than two hundred years. But as many people would say
Speaker 3: the slavery is over, many might even argue the killings
Speaker 3: are over. But what about the four hundred deaths in
Speaker 3: custody in the last twenty five years. Four hundred deaths
Speaker 3: of Aboriginal people in just twenty five years who were
Speaker 3: in the care of the state and of those four
Speaker 3: hundred deaths, not a single police officer or single corrections
Speaker 3: officer has ever been found guilty of murder. How did
Speaker 3: all these people die?
Speaker 1: Then?
Speaker 3: Is this not another massacre just by a different name.
Speaker 3: Once the Canberra Times had focused their attention on this area,
Speaker 3: things had to change, even if it was begrudgingly, Just
Speaker 3: as it has been begrudgingly right around the country. It's
Speaker 3: been a slow move from the massacred, the enslaved, forced
Speaker 3: to work, driven off their land. And what about those
Speaker 3: who wouldn't cooperate? Where once they were killed, now they're imprisoned.
Speaker 3: The stats when it relates to Aboriginal and torrestrate Islander
Speaker 3: people who are in prison are alarming and known to
Speaker 3: all two percent of the population and in many jurisdictions
Speaker 3: more than fifty percent of the prison population. For what
Speaker 3: reasons are Aboriginal people in prison? The same stats that
Speaker 3: show us these appalling numbers that must surely be built
Speaker 3: on racism, also tell us some alarming facts when it
Speaker 3: comes to the crime of homicide. Aboriginal entirostrate Islander people
Speaker 3: are underrepresented and per capita commit homicide, that is, murder
Speaker 3: at a much lower rate than non Indigenous people. What
Speaker 3: about sexual assault and the crimes we always hear about
Speaker 3: that were used to justify the Northern Territory intervention another
Speaker 3: invasion by an armed force into Aboriginal community. Here again,
Speaker 3: Aboriginal Entrostraate Islander people are underrepresented compared to the broader
Speaker 3: Nonindigenous community. This is from the Australian Bureau of Statistics,
Speaker 3: Commonwealth of Australia, twenty fifteen. That doesn't say that there
Speaker 3: is no problem with either homicide or sexual assault in
Speaker 3: the Aboriginal and tore Straight Islander community. Any single one
Speaker 3: of these events is one horrific event too many. But
Speaker 3: the picture painted by the media and believed by the
Speaker 3: population that these crimes are committed far and away by
Speaker 3: Aboriginal people in numbers that means their imprisonment can be justified,
Speaker 3: are not backed up by the facts. But what about
Speaker 3: offenses against justice? That is things like not paying fines?
Speaker 3: Here we find Aboriginal and tore Straight Islander people are
Speaker 3: far greater represented than non Indigenous people. What about the
Speaker 3: crime of unlawful entry? Can you really break into your
Speaker 3: own country or break into your own land? Once again,
Speaker 3: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are far over rep presented.
Speaker 3: When it came time to invade Australia, young Aboriginal men
Speaker 3: were the first targets. They were seen as the biggest threat.
Speaker 3: They were killed first, as evident by the massacre that
Speaker 3: took place near to where I sit. The women and
Speaker 3: children were also killed. Nobody was spared, and to this day,
Speaker 3: young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men are targeted in
Speaker 3: the same way. From seventeen eighty eight up until the
Speaker 3: world's attention was drawn in the late twentieth century, Aboriginal
Speaker 3: and Torres Strait Islanders people were simply killed, killed by
Speaker 3: the gun in their thousands right across this country. In
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, those same Aboriginal people are imprisoned, where in
Speaker 3: the last twenty five years four hundred of them have
Speaker 3: been killed. As we've shown in this series, Kevin Henry
Speaker 3: is innocent of the crime he is alleged to have committed.
Speaker 3: In his early twenties, he was imprisoned for the crime
Speaker 3: of murder, a crime he did not commit. One more
Speaker 3: Aboriginal man, seen by the state as a threat, was
Speaker 3: taken out of action and was removed from the lands
Speaker 3: that are his own for life. The purpose of this
Speaker 3: podcast is to free Kevin Henry, but it is also
Speaker 3: to free your mind of the idea that Aboriginal and
Speaker 3: Torres Strait Islander people deserve thereover representation in the prison system.
Speaker 3: It is to explain to you these four hundred deaths
Speaker 3: of Aboriginal in Torres Strait Island people in prison in
Speaker 3: the last twenty five years. It's to understand that the enslavement,
Speaker 3: the massacre, the murdering of Aboriginal children took place over
Speaker 3: a much broader period than one day, the twenty sixth
Speaker 3: of January. It continued for two hundred years and continues
Speaker 3: to this day. You can't get over something that is
Speaker 3: still happening. You can't get over the murder of your
Speaker 3: loved ones. You can't get over the injustices that are
Speaker 3: inflicted upon you. You cannot get over a life sentence
Speaker 3: placed on you for a crime you did not commit.
Speaker 3: So take the challenge. Look into the twenty square kilometers
Speaker 3: that surround you. There might be eight million square kilometers
Speaker 3: that make up the continent of Australia. But wherever you walk,
Speaker 3: wherever you put your feet in the sand the dirt,
Speaker 3: wherever you drive your car or call your home. There
Speaker 3: has been crimes committed against Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island
Speaker 3: to people. This is why changing the date matters. But
Speaker 3: what really matters is ending the two hundred plus years
Speaker 3: of a horror island for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island
Speaker 3: to people until a treaty is signed, until there is truth,
Speaker 3: justice and reconciliation, then we can start to think about
Speaker 3: Australia Day for All. That was episode forty seven of Curtain,
Speaker 3: the podcast