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 actually really coming.
Speaker 2: Blood on his clothing the day after the alleged.
Speaker 1: A top on a shallow mud bank, and it fits
Speaker 1: Roy River.
Speaker 3: Basically, I think most of the people are used to
Speaker 3: me are good people.
Speaker 4: I think a really important question we need to ask
Speaker 4: is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
Speaker 5: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the
Speaker 5: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 5: our justice system and ask who are the victims.
Speaker 2: I'm Amy Maguire and.
Speaker 4: I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner
Speaker 4: Support Service. And a warning, this series contains the names
Speaker 4: of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset
Speaker 4: some listeners.
Speaker 3: Welcome to episode twenty eight of Curtin the Podcast. In
Speaker 3: this last week, we've seen a really good report on
Speaker 3: NITV about the rally for Kevin. Henry and Linda will
Speaker 3: put video clips of this report up onto the website
Speaker 3: so you can see them for those who haven't been
Speaker 3: able to catch them. Either on NITV or on SBS's
Speaker 3: on demand service. The coverage was really good because it
Speaker 3: gave a voice to Kevin Henry's family, the Rockhampton and
Speaker 3: Wuabinda community, and also people like Lex Wotton who traveled
Speaker 3: down to speak at the rally, and it's gained further
Speaker 3: traction for Kevin Henry's case around Queensland and around Australia. Now.
Speaker 3: In addition to the rally, there's also been a number
Speaker 3: of petitions circulating. There's one online that will post on
Speaker 3: the website again for those who may wish to sign
Speaker 3: and there's also been written petitions that are going around
Speaker 3: Queensland for people who don't necessarily have access to computers,
Speaker 3: and those petitions will be collected separately. Amy's going to
Speaker 3: read you just some of the comments that have been
Speaker 3: left on the main petition that will be online, just
Speaker 3: to give you an idea of the feedback we've been
Speaker 3: getting about the case of Kevin Henry and what people
Speaker 3: have been saying since the.
Speaker 1: Rally was held in rock Campdon earlier this month. The
Speaker 1: online petition has actually attracted quite a number.
Speaker 5: More signatures and this petition has been.
Speaker 1: Online for quite a few months now. There's currently two
Speaker 1: and forty five supporters, and there's a lot of very
Speaker 1: interesting supportive comments from listeners and other people who may
Speaker 1: have heard about Kevin Henry's case from other media coverage
Speaker 1: of the podcast. I'll read out a couple of them.
Speaker 1: Naetia says, give this man back his life, a life
Speaker 1: taken by a corrupt system in an unfortunate situation by
Speaker 1: police so desperate they can't seem to do the job
Speaker 1: they are employed to do.
Speaker 4: Lionel rights.
Speaker 1: Our innocent brother and other brothers are locked away without
Speaker 1: a trial for no reason. Just being accused is enough
Speaker 1: for our so called system to lock away and break
Speaker 1: first nations, families, and communities apart. And I would appreciate
Speaker 1: some justice for my people. Stephen writes. If this is true,
Speaker 1: regarding the disregard given against a person having their rightful
Speaker 1: legal representation and the possibility of forced confession no DNA submitted,
Speaker 1: then he deserves a retrial cat rights. I'm tired of
Speaker 1: our so called justice system, which is anything but just.
Speaker 1: It serves no one except for the legal industry and
Speaker 1: a corrupt political and economic system we were all disempowered by.
Speaker 1: This is just one of many injustices innocent people have
Speaker 1: faced and continue to face. It's time for change, one
Speaker 1: step at a time, and Josh writes this case needs
Speaker 1: a revisit as a lack of evidence is unbelievable. A
Speaker 1: fair trial is more than necessary. Kevin has been locked
Speaker 1: up since the year I was born. This man has
Speaker 1: been imprisoned for my whole life, twenty five years. Imagine
Speaker 1: what it's like to be in his shoes. I'm sure
Speaker 1: anyone with compassion or empathy would sign just on that basis,
Speaker 1: even without taking into account the injustice that has taken place.
Speaker 1: And we even attracted a couple of more high profile signatures,
Speaker 1: including pad O'Shane, who was Ashe's first female Aboriginal magistrate,
Speaker 1: and she wrote I am angry about injustice and closing.
Speaker 1: Danielle writes that stated facts don't add up and it
Speaker 1: is illogical to put anyone in jail when there is
Speaker 1: overwhelming doubt. Also, I personally am aware, even in today's
Speaker 1: unfortunate cultural acceptance of the normality of bias and prejudicial
Speaker 1: behavior towards people from Robinda. All you have to do
Speaker 1: is go into any pub in central Queensland and listen
Speaker 1: to the filth that comes out of far too many
Speaker 1: men and women's asked towards Aboriginal people. Sometimes that has
Speaker 1: included a couple of local police persons.
Speaker 3: Now we just heard one of the petitioners talk about
Speaker 3: the racism and prejudice that they've seen and experienced in
Speaker 3: Central Queensland. And as we know, the town of Rockhampten
Speaker 3: is in central Queensland and is a regional town center.
Speaker 3: So given this is where Linda's death occurred and where
Speaker 3: Kevin Henry is imprisoned, there is a direct link between
Speaker 3: regional Australia and the disproportionate number of Aboriginal and Torestrait
Speaker 3: Islander people who are in prison. So this episode we're
Speaker 3: going to spend a little bit of time focusing on
Speaker 3: this issue of regional Australia, the policing, the justice system,
Speaker 3: and why so many Aboriginal in Torostraight Islander people from
Speaker 3: regional Australia end up in the prison system despite the
Speaker 3: crime rates actually being considerably lower than the major cities.
Speaker 3: And given Kevin Henry is from regional Australia and this
Speaker 3: case focuses on regional Australia, we think it's really important
Speaker 3: to point these things out.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, a new report was released by the
Speaker 1: Human Rights Law Center and the Change Record Coalition, specifically
Speaker 1: focusing on Aberigeal Entarree Shade Islander women and their interactions
Speaker 1: with the justice system. It created quite a lot of
Speaker 1: media coverage and it was all focused around one disgraceful
Speaker 1: statistic that rates of female Indigenous imprisonment have increased two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty eight percent since the ninety ninety one
Speaker 1: report into the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
Speaker 1: But as usual, the media didn't look close enough. Martin,
Speaker 1: what did you think when you looked and read.
Speaker 4: Through the report?
Speaker 3: Look, I think the report itself is very important, and
Speaker 3: that is a frightening figure. Two hundred plus percent when
Speaker 3: you're talking about anything to do with the justice system
Speaker 3: is a disgraceful number, and to see it happening to
Speaker 3: women is particularly interesting and particularly frustrating for those of
Speaker 3: us who work in the sector, because one thing we
Speaker 3: do know is that offending amongst Aboriginal and Terrestraate Island
Speaker 3: to people men and women in that same period of
Speaker 3: time is down around forty percent. In fact, it's down
Speaker 3: thirty percent in just the last ten years, and yet
Speaker 3: we are seeing this dramatic increase in the number of
Speaker 3: people who are spending time in the prison system. I
Speaker 3: think one of the things that was missed by the
Speaker 3: media in reporting on this very good report and work
Speaker 3: that was done some of the issues that lead to
Speaker 3: people being incarcerated in the first place, and what we
Speaker 3: know about the vast preponderance of the women, in particular
Speaker 3: that they come from backgrounds of housing insecurity, poverty, They
Speaker 3: may have a mental illness or disability, and often suffer
Speaker 3: very severe effects of trauma and colonization. So the trauma
Speaker 3: might be very modern in terms of domestic violence, assault
Speaker 3: at hands of police and other officials, and all sorts
Speaker 3: of trauma, and the colonization trauma is obviously one that
Speaker 3: continues throughout the generations where the cycle hasn't been broken. Now,
Speaker 3: the other thing that the media did not pick up
Speaker 3: on that I think was pointed out but has been
Speaker 3: completely glossed over, is the number of Aboriginal women who
Speaker 3: have been placed on remand that is, locked up before
Speaker 3: their trial and who never go on to serve any sentence. Now,
Speaker 3: some of these people might be found guilty and are
Speaker 3: just being sentenced to time already served. But we know
Speaker 3: a huge number of these women are held on remand
Speaker 3: and then freed post their trial with no conviction recorded.
Speaker 3: So with crime stats amongst Aboriginal people going down, remand
Speaker 3: rates are going up, and the incarceration rate overall is
Speaker 3: going up, these two things are diametrically opposed, and yet
Speaker 3: no one seems to be pointing that out, and I
Speaker 3: find that particularly concerning, and Mardin.
Speaker 1: It wasn't only that, was it. This never seems to
Speaker 1: be a lot of media coverage or analysis looking at
Speaker 1: the breakdown of the figures, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: problem in Aboriginal affairs, where the facts that obviously we
Speaker 1: have a huge diversity across Aboriginal Australia is obviously lost.
Speaker 1: Did you find any interesting facts in relation to the
Speaker 1: geographical background?
Speaker 3: Yes, So the statistics I found and went looking for
Speaker 3: were not in the report itself, but they're quite readily
Speaker 3: available and they're not reported. Now the largest Aboriginal community
Speaker 3: in Australia is Western Sydney, but the rate of incarceration
Speaker 3: amongst that community is in fact the lowest amongst Aboriginal
Speaker 3: people in Australia. The highest rate of imprisonment for Aboriginal
Speaker 3: people is in regional areas like Rockhampton, where Kevin Henry
Speaker 3: was imprisoned and where Kevin Henry went to court and
Speaker 3: where Linda was murdered. Nearly fifty percent of all Indigenous
Speaker 3: prisoners come from regional Australia, and that is despite them
Speaker 3: being a much smaller overall population compared to the large
Speaker 3: Indigenous populations we see in Darwin, Sydney and Brisbane in particular.
Speaker 3: So both men and women from regional areas are disproportionately
Speaker 3: locked up despite the crime rates being no higher. Their
Speaker 3: locality is almost fifty percent regional areas. Now, if we
Speaker 3: look back at what the report found in terms of housing, insecurity, poverty,
Speaker 3: mental illness and disability, domestic violence and trauma, regional Australia
Speaker 3: is exactly where these services are clearly lacking. Now, I
Speaker 3: don't think that would come as a surprise to anyone
Speaker 3: at all. But if we're going to stop this increase
Speaker 3: that's already two hundred plus percent in just a number
Speaker 3: of decades, the media needs to first report and the
Speaker 3: politicians need to understand why this is happening. But because
Speaker 3: the link is not being made by the fifty percent
Speaker 3: coming from regional Australia and the lack of services, particularly
Speaker 3: for women and also juvenile Aboriginal people and children in
Speaker 3: regional Australia. If this correction is not made, we will
Speaker 3: get to a point where it's one thousand percent increase.
Speaker 1: Martin, you talked briefly about remote Australia and Urban Australia,
Speaker 1: and that seems to be the only two parts of
Speaker 1: Aboriginal Australia that is largely focused on. It is either
Speaker 1: a focus on remote communities where there's obviously a minority
Speaker 1: of Aboriginal people live, or a focus on urban areas.
Speaker 5: Why do you think regional Australia is completely left out?
Speaker 5: There seems to be a huge black spot around this area,
Speaker 5: even though so many Aboriginal people live in regional Australia.
Speaker 3: It's a very difficult one to understand, but I think
Speaker 3: we can see it largely in the way our federal
Speaker 3: electorates are divided up in that there's no votes in
Speaker 3: these issues. There's never been votes in reducing the impress
Speaker 3: rates of Aboriginal people, and there's never been votes in
Speaker 3: Australia in reducing things like domestic violence, poverty, increasing access
Speaker 3: to housing, health, education and domestic violence services. So single
Speaker 3: electorates can cover vath swathes of Australia's regional areas. Many
Speaker 3: of these regional areas have been held by the National
Speaker 3: Party or the Liberal Party for generations and generations, and
Speaker 3: so funding is just not a priority. But just from
Speaker 3: the brief amount of study we've done just for this episode,
Speaker 3: but it's something Amy and I know because of the
Speaker 3: work we've done for so long that regional areas are neglected.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't surprise us at all that the statistics
Speaker 3: that are coming out now show what is occurring, which
Speaker 3: is that a huge number of Aboriginal and torrestrate Islander
Speaker 3: people from regional life Australia are going to prison, are
Speaker 3: spending enormous times on remand. And remember many prisons are
Speaker 3: not located in regional Australia, so people are moved five,
Speaker 3: six ten hours away from where they live to be
Speaker 3: on remand. And now we know as well the factors
Speaker 3: that are pushing these people into prison also the areas
Speaker 3: that receive the least amount of funding and support. This
Speaker 3: is not rocket science, and yet it continues to go
Speaker 3: ignored and sadly, the media had an opportunity this week
Speaker 3: to address this issue and simply didn't despite the information
Speaker 3: being right in front of their faces.
Speaker 5: Before bringing it back to Kevin's case and the impact
Speaker 5: of regional Australia and is that black spot on his case?
Speaker 5: Can I ask you personally where both from regional areas,
Speaker 5: but do you even see it down in your home country?
Speaker 5: These same recurring problems we what we've seen up here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think absolutely, and I think we've seen it,
Speaker 3: both of us with anyone we've spoken to from regional
Speaker 3: areas that in my regional area, for example, there's a court,
Speaker 3: but there's no Indigenous legal service. There's a police station,
Speaker 3: but the funding for domestic violence for women's shelters has
Speaker 3: been drastically cut in the last few years. There's endless
Speaker 3: transport to Nara and Golden Prison on a daily basis,
Speaker 3: but there is absolutely no public transport for people who
Speaker 3: might wish to seek further education, who might need to
Speaker 3: access medical services. So just observing it on a day
Speaker 3: to day basis amongst the people we know and having
Speaker 3: grown up in these areas, these regional areas as we do.
Speaker 3: It's very obvious to ask why this takes place. But again,
Speaker 3: as Amy correctly points out, the focus tends to be
Speaker 3: on the major cities or the remote areas. And we're
Speaker 3: not saying those areas don't need funding, that people from
Speaker 3: those areas don't go to prison at alarming rates when
Speaker 3: they simply don't belong there. They absolutely do. What we're
Speaker 3: pointing out is that the statistics are disproportionately against Aboriginal
Speaker 3: Andora Straight Islander people from regional Australia and that cannot
Speaker 3: be ignored any longer when looking.
Speaker 5: At Kevin's case. Did any of these aspects unique to
Speaker 5: regional Australia play a part?
Speaker 3: Do you think? I think almost every single one we
Speaker 3: raised in terms of what was raised in the latest
Speaker 3: report by the Human Rights Law Center played a role.
Speaker 3: So physical violence and being a survivor of physical or
Speaker 3: sexual violence was a common trait. Housing insecurity is obviously
Speaker 3: a clear issue here. We know Tanuba House was where
Speaker 3: many homeless people and people suffering housing insecurity were Poverty
Speaker 3: is another issue that was raised, and we know that
Speaker 3: everyone who was at Tanuba House was suffering from poverty,
Speaker 3: mental illness, disability and undiagnosed conditions were a huge issue.
Speaker 3: These were things that services at Tanuba were trying to
Speaker 3: address but clearly underfunded. And the effects of trauma and colonization.
Speaker 3: And I think there wasn't a person there that night.
Speaker 3: Everybody who was there that night had been a victim
Speaker 3: of trauma and the ongoing effects of colonization. We know also,
Speaker 3: of course, the community of Warabinda was particularly impacted by
Speaker 3: forced removals. We know Sherberg, where some of the other
Speaker 3: people who were there that night were from, has been
Speaker 3: tragically impacted by government policy for more than one hundred years.
Speaker 3: And rock Hampton itself, the Aboriginal community in rock Hampton
Speaker 3: too has been subject to really gross human rights violations
Speaker 3: for a considerable period of time, hundreds of years, while
Speaker 3: all the sort of health and education services services to
Speaker 3: address issues like alcoholism domestic violence go completely unfunded. And
Speaker 3: there is an absolute correlation between Kevin's case and these
Speaker 3: statistics that have come out this week now, Mardin.
Speaker 1: We've talked a lot about statistics this episode, and none
Speaker 1: of them are good statistics. And recently a prominent Aboriginal
Speaker 1: journalist actually tried to I guess put a positive spin
Speaker 1: on these types of statistics.
Speaker 4: Can you tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it's a stat that's being passed around
Speaker 3: a lot of the moment, used in many articles all
Speaker 3: over social media. And it was a comment made by
Speaker 3: Stan Grant in a speech that for every one Aboriginal
Speaker 3: person in prison, there are four Aboriginal people in university. Now,
Speaker 3: that would be a wonderful statistic and something every Aboriginal
Speaker 3: and Torres Straight Islander person would love if it was true.
Speaker 3: The fact is it simply isn't. So I'll give you
Speaker 3: what the actual stats are, and these are from the
Speaker 3: Bureau of Statistics and a report recently compiled by doctor
Speaker 3: Don Weatherburn from the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.
Speaker 3: For every one hundred thousand Aboriginal people, there are one thousand,
Speaker 3: eight hundred and thirty in prison. For every one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand Aboriginal and Tores Straight Islander people, there are four
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty in university. Now, clearly the statistic stand
Speaker 3: Grant has given is the wrong way way around. It's
Speaker 3: for every four Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people who
Speaker 3: are in prison, there is one in university. It is
Speaker 3: not the other way around. And once again, it would
Speaker 3: be fine to say these things, and it would be
Speaker 3: wonderful news if it was true. And there's a great
Speaker 3: deal of evidence to tell us why this is not
Speaker 3: true and why claiming such a statistic is wrong and
Speaker 3: should have been obviously wrong to anyone versed in these issues.
Speaker 3: Just ten percent of Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander children
Speaker 3: who leave year twelve receive a mark that would make
Speaker 3: them eligible for university. That's as opposed to forty six
Speaker 3: percent from a non Aboriginal background. Now, to put those
Speaker 3: figures in context, that ten percent who get the grade
Speaker 3: to go to UNI, eighty five percent of Maori in
Speaker 3: New Zealand receive a university entrance score, and sixty five
Speaker 3: percent of Native Americans in the United States. Now, there
Speaker 3: are also some other figures that need to be pointed out.
Speaker 3: The completion rate for university for Aboriginal Andentario Straight Islander
Speaker 3: students is around a third so from the latest statistics
Speaker 3: for twenty fifteen, While some twoy one hundred Aboriginal Onentari
Speaker 3: Straight Island students enrolled less than six hundred graduated. So
Speaker 3: again you can pick the higher figure that are entering
Speaker 3: but not making it through again is the issue, and
Speaker 3: this issue is much the same as when we talk
Speaker 3: about incarceration. It comes down to a lack of support,
Speaker 3: It comes down to being moved a long way from home,
Speaker 3: family and country. It comes down to a misrepresentation of
Speaker 3: what is happening on the ground. To say that four
Speaker 3: for everyone are in UNI instead of jail a is
Speaker 3: not accurate, but also misses the point that fifty percent
Speaker 3: of all juvenile prisoners in Australia are Aboriginal, despite being
Speaker 3: less than three percent of the population. How on earth
Speaker 3: can our young people be ready for university when of
Speaker 3: all of those young people in juvenile detention are Aboriginal people.
Speaker 6: It seems to me it's not only misleading, it's incredibly irresponsible. Mardin,
Speaker 6: because we've seen through Kevin Henry's case, through this report
Speaker 6: which is just released into the really horroring statistics into
Speaker 6: the rising rates of Aboriginal women being incarcerated, that it's
Speaker 6: something we shouldn't ignore. And it sort of feels as
Speaker 6: if comparing the two, even though the figures are completely wrong,
Speaker 6: are almost acts as if it's covering up the problem,
Speaker 6: as if we shouldn't be talking about it when it's
Speaker 6: a very present issue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And given that we're
Speaker 3: not seeing a reduction here. If we were seeing a
Speaker 3: reduction in Indigenous incarceration, then I could completely understand why
Speaker 3: people would see that as a progress away from the
Speaker 3: prison system and involvement in the judicial system and towards
Speaker 3: say higher education. But we're not seeing that. We're seeing
Speaker 3: dropout rates just as high, and we're seeing imprisonment rates
Speaker 3: going through the roof two hundred and something percent. We're
Speaker 3: seeing crime amongst Aboriginal people go down. Violent crime in
Speaker 3: particular is down forty three percent amongst Aboriginal people in
Speaker 3: the last ten years in New South Wales, and yet
Speaker 3: incarceration rates for Aboriginal people in New South Wales have
Speaker 3: gone up eighty four percent in the same time. So
Speaker 3: it's very irresponsible because it sends a message to the
Speaker 3: broader public that things are on the improof when the
Speaker 3: statistics clearly show they are not. And how we ever
Speaker 3: expected to reverse these drastic and horrific stats of Aboriginal
Speaker 3: entorres Strait Islander people being sent to prison clearly for
Speaker 3: nonviolent crimes. In the large part, when people are sharing
Speaker 3: statistics who are given a large platform that make the
Speaker 3: nation believe the majority of Aboriginal people are attending university
Speaker 3: rather than suffering because of incarceration. And remember it's not
Speaker 3: just the person who goes to prison that suffers. Again,
Speaker 3: if we come back to the case of Kevin Henry,
Speaker 3: twenty five years of his life stolen away, look at
Speaker 3: the impact it has had on his family, Look at
Speaker 3: the impact it's had on the community of Warabinda and
Speaker 3: the community in Rockhampton. These are one hundred of people
Speaker 3: detrimentally impacted for twenty five plus years. Look at the
Speaker 3: suffering cause to Lenda's family. This is something they'll never
Speaker 3: get over. So sharing stats that are both wrong and
Speaker 3: have no comparison or relevance to each other whatsoever will
Speaker 3: not make any difference for Aboriginal entrres Strait Islander people.
Speaker 3: It'll simply mean the blinkers are applied even more.
Speaker 1: But we of course don't have the blinkers on. Just
Speaker 1: recently we uncovered more evidence in relation to Kevin Henry's case,
Speaker 1: a large swave of documents that hasn't come to light before.
Speaker 1: So keep listening because.
Speaker 2: In the near future we'll be bringing you that new
Speaker 2: information for now. You can find out the details of
Speaker 2: that online petition on our website www dot kurninthepodcast dot
Speaker 2: com and you'll also find the recent story by National
Speaker 2: Indigenous Television.
Speaker 1: Here in Australia. Be sure to check it out and
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook and Todo as well.
Speaker 3: That was episode twenty eight of Curtain the Podcast.