Speaker 1: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 1: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 2: It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 2: absolutely really.
Speaker 3: Pallous blood on his clothing the day after the alleged.
Speaker 4: A top shallow mud bank and it fits Roy River.
Speaker 2: Basically.
Speaker 1: I think most of the people are used to me
Speaker 1: 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 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we call back the
Speaker 2: blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of
Speaker 2: our justice system and ask who are the victims.
Speaker 4: I'm Amy Maguire and I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate
Speaker 4: for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning this
Speaker 4: series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing
Speaker 4: content that might upset some listeners.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Kada in the podcast, and today we've got
Speaker 2: a very special guest in it, someone who I look
Speaker 2: up to particularly in a lot of my research, particularly
Speaker 2: recently in this current time where we're looking around black
Speaker 2: lives matter, I think it's really important that we learn
Speaker 2: from this place first and foremost and I think that's
Speaker 2: where our current guest today, her work is so important
Speaker 2: around the history of policing, particularly how blackfellows, but also
Speaker 2: in ways that we talk about issues of violence and
Speaker 2: state institutions. So our guest today is Amanda Porter. I
Speaker 2: don't know, Amanda, did you want to describe your first
Speaker 2: your mob in your country first and maybe a bit
Speaker 2: about what you or how you came to be in
Speaker 2: this area.
Speaker 3: Thanks, Amie.
Speaker 1: And that's a really a very generous introduction and one
Speaker 1: that I'm not worthy of.
Speaker 3: So for those who don't know me, my name is Amanda.
Speaker 1: I'm of bringy Euan descent and also of settler descent
Speaker 1: Greek and Scottish descent, and I grew up on Yapel Country,
Speaker 1: far North Coast in South Wales. And yeah, my family
Speaker 1: is connected to you and country through Archie Ferguson and
Speaker 1: people on Cabestry Island.
Speaker 3: So hello to everyone who's tuning in from there. How
Speaker 3: I came.
Speaker 1: Into to be interested in this work has been, I
Speaker 1: guess my whole life. I've been interested in the ways
Speaker 1: in which different populations and different people or police differently
Speaker 1: and why so, yes, someone who's white passing, but you
Speaker 1: know has grown up seeing all of this. You know,
Speaker 1: it was always you know, I was always intrigued by
Speaker 1: how you know, the side of the town where my
Speaker 1: family lived, you'd see the police, you know, up to
Speaker 1: ten times a day, whereas on the side where the
Speaker 1: school was, you know, you rarely see the police at all.
Speaker 1: And I think we still see this today, like, you know,
Speaker 1: even though now I'm uh, you know, middle class and
Speaker 1: working for you know, a white corporation that doesn't pay
Speaker 1: any rent, you know, I you know, it's the way
Speaker 1: that policing, you know, the way that original and black
Speaker 1: communities and especially original black and working class families of
Speaker 1: police is very different to the way.
Speaker 3: That wealthy suburbs, like.
Speaker 1: Wealthy suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne here where I'm zooming
Speaker 1: in from, is a completely different story.
Speaker 5: Amanda is very modest. I want to say for our
Speaker 5: listeners in Australia around the world that she's currently calling
Speaker 5: to us from Melbourne Law School, having previously been at
Speaker 5: u n s w Utes Australian National University, Oxford. So
Speaker 5: one of the reasons we really wanted to have Amanda
Speaker 5: on is this is someone who, as Amy said, we
Speaker 5: both look up to whose writings we both read and
Speaker 5: who clearly knows their stuff. And one thing that has
Speaker 5: occurred last week obviously was the thirtieth anniversary of the
Speaker 5: Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody. Amanda, I'm just wondering,
Speaker 5: you know, thirty years on, what are your reflections on
Speaker 5: where we are? And I guess more importantly, one thing
Speaker 5: a lot of people have said to me is that
Speaker 5: we hear that it's been thirty years, we hear the
Speaker 5: number of people who have died since, we hear about
Speaker 5: these recommendations, But what would you say are the things
Speaker 5: we need to do asap to really start to tackle
Speaker 5: this issue head on?
Speaker 1: For me, for thirty years, it's just like groundhog Day,
Speaker 1: may as well have been, you know, the final may
Speaker 1: as well come out down, come out now, and nothing's
Speaker 1: happened the recommendations. Still people don't understand that it was
Speaker 1: written for Australians, and it was written for you know,
Speaker 1: all Australians, the police, the media, the government bureaucrats, the
Speaker 1: you know, so called leaders, and they just haven't been
Speaker 1: acted on their you know, today, the Queensland Biel has
Speaker 1: passed its completely at odds with all of the recommendations
Speaker 1: right now, the things we need to do make sure
Speaker 1: police and prisons are spar away from are out of
Speaker 1: Aboriginal lives, everyday lives. And yet nothing has happened. There's
Speaker 1: still you know, there's so recommendations that haven't been acted on.
Speaker 1: There's you know, one of the for me, the thing
Speaker 1: that is sickening and that made me feel ill to
Speaker 1: my core last week was the fact that reflecting on
Speaker 1: on on those recommendations and how all of the work
Speaker 1: has been done by families, it just it just.
Speaker 3: It just makes me feel ill to my core.
Speaker 1: So, you know, one of the recommendations was to decriminalize
Speaker 1: public drunkenness and that was you know, a recommendation that
Speaker 1: came out of the interim report to the Royal Commission
Speaker 1: and then it came out in the final report in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. And you know, how can it be that,
Speaker 1: you know, in Queensland it's still a crime. There's so
Speaker 1: many recommendations that say arrest is the last resort. Prison
Speaker 1: as a last resort. It's clear there, you know, throughout
Speaker 1: all of the pages and the volumes of this report
Speaker 1: and the recommendations that the solution is to keep cops
Speaker 1: out of Aboriginal lives, to keep make sure that, you know,
Speaker 1: to make sure that we are divesting and defunding castlele solutions,
Speaker 1: you know. And I say, I'm sorry that the slipper
Speaker 1: shouldn't be because they're not solutions, They're just you know,
Speaker 1: part of the festering, you know problem, that's the crux
Speaker 1: of all this.
Speaker 3: And yeah, you know, I don't know what to say. Really,
Speaker 3: it was just such a shit show the last week.
Speaker 1: And I'm just bitterly disappointed and can't make sense of
Speaker 1: anything at all.
Speaker 2: But you said, like, there's such a disconnect because I
Speaker 2: noticed in the Royal Commission reporting last week it was
Speaker 2: mainstream media or asking about why is this still an issue?
Speaker 2: Why is this why are we still having different custodes?
Speaker 3: And then you see what's.
Speaker 2: Happening in Queensland today where they're trying to pass this
Speaker 2: really draconian legislation which will overseve our black kids again,
Speaker 2: where the media have been largely complicit producing propaganda. There's
Speaker 2: such a disconnect in the way that that is reported
Speaker 2: and that we're seeing it in real time that all
Speaker 2: of the solutions are going the opposite way. As you
Speaker 2: said towards locking up mobs. So it's yeah, I like
Speaker 2: mirror your sort of distress would also you know, disoleete
Speaker 2: and I don't know what to even call it. I
Speaker 2: just think they don't really It comes down to that
Speaker 2: they don't really talk because they're not taking through. And
Speaker 2: then they continually ask families and advocates and activists and
Speaker 2: people working in this area, why do we still have
Speaker 2: so many deaths?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm the lost too, I mean, and I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm just being really candid in my responses because you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the media kind of reporting on it was
Speaker 1: just hugely disappointing. I was expecting to see naively, you know,
Speaker 1: justice for Nathan Reynolds, justice for ten your Day, justice
Speaker 1: from a zoo trending on social media, and it didn't happen,
Speaker 1: you know, when there was the work of starda Were
Speaker 1: Foundation and all of the As I said, it's just
Speaker 1: for me inexcusable. It's intolerable that it's families doing the work.
Speaker 1: This is a document that was produced so that in
Speaker 1: the hopes that families might be able to heal, and
Speaker 1: there's just we're not not even close yet. Families that
Speaker 1: are the ones doing all the work. So it's families
Speaker 1: more so than government, more so, you know, more than
Speaker 1: anyone that's you know that thanks to the Day family,
Speaker 1: for example, in the state of Queensland that the decriminalized
Speaker 1: the public drunkness has finally been decriminalized, and there's there's.
Speaker 3: Still so much more work to go. But for me,
Speaker 3: that's just inexcusable that that should fall on.
Speaker 1: The hands of a family that you know, you know,
Speaker 1: and even the way you know, it was even for
Speaker 1: me personally disappointing to see that how this isn't recognized
Speaker 1: by the mainstream media.
Speaker 3: The you know that there's still this refusal to.
Speaker 1: Hear anything but pain and and and I remember that
Speaker 1: was the way that it was framed on on the
Speaker 1: drum when April, the tendid Day's daughter and the founder
Speaker 1: of the Judge Foundation, was was on. It's just a
Speaker 1: people only want to hear about pain. They can't see
Speaker 1: sovereign actors, they can't see people that are actually doing
Speaker 1: all the emotional and intellectual labor. And yeah, as you say, Amy,
Speaker 1: the example of the you know what's happening in Queensland
Speaker 1: is is is just one of many examples of where
Speaker 1: we've got, you know, policy which is completely at odds.
Speaker 1: You know, these tough on crime laws that Paliches put
Speaker 1: through this morning, it just makes my heart think it
Speaker 1: just I don't I don't even have the words like
Speaker 1: and it's just one examples, you know, so many examples
Speaker 1: of of carthoral feminism, like so many examples bail policies
Speaker 1: that are just troubling. Aspects of that legislation about you
Speaker 1: know JEEP, which will expand police powers to allow police
Speaker 1: to have GPS ankle bracelets and to allow them to
Speaker 1: carry medal detectors. And really this is deeply, deeply troubling
Speaker 1: because we know now there is so much evidence there
Speaker 1: that you know, it needs to be about decriminalizing you know,
Speaker 1: offenses and to and making sure police powers are curbed
Speaker 1: not expanded on. And you know, we should be minimizing
Speaker 1: the opportunity for police contact with original Tou Australiana communities,
Speaker 1: not not thinking about how to maximize it.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think it's just this.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I've spent a long time
Speaker 1: trying to understand why this can happen. You know, going
Speaker 1: back to your point Amy about you know, just how this,
Speaker 1: you know, how we can find ourselves thirty years on
Speaker 1: from the Royal Commission, when this is still happening. Is
Speaker 1: it that they don't care? Is it that they don't know?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think it's I think it just goes
Speaker 1: speaks to the deep ignorance of of the Australian apartheid
Speaker 1: states that you know, people don't know this, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's just they'd rather believe that whatever racist stereotypes
Speaker 1: there are, that there's this refusal to read and to
Speaker 1: come to terms with with the true history of of
Speaker 1: this nation, that the history of the violence of policing
Speaker 1: and the violent foundations and the violent contemporary operation of
Speaker 1: of of policing here. And you know, as someone who
Speaker 1: researches and teaches policing history, I think it's you know,
Speaker 1: speaks volumes to the fact that you know that the
Speaker 1: need for queens the Queensland Premiere to to read about
Speaker 1: the you know, the frontier, how the foundations of QPS
Speaker 1: lie in that you know, genocide and frontier wars and
Speaker 1: and and I just think that the iance is so
Speaker 1: so deep. But that's really that's the only way I
Speaker 1: can make sense of it is.
Speaker 3: Ignorance and prejudice.
Speaker 5: I have a question that perhaps you could both answer,
Speaker 5: maybe aim if you go first, which is, how do
Speaker 5: we keep the mainstream media accountable, you know, and reporting
Speaker 5: accurately on these issues, and not just taking sound bites
Speaker 5: from politicians, but really doing the work to delve deep
Speaker 5: into this issue when ask the experts and check facts
Speaker 5: and make sure that they're not perpetuating harm and just
Speaker 5: serving their role as the fourth estate.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't even know if I have an
Speaker 2: answer for how to keep the mainstream media accountable, because
Speaker 2: I feel like the mainstream media in a sense of
Speaker 2: doing its job, and its job has often been on
Speaker 2: the side of police and the side of control.
Speaker 3: And you know why.
Speaker 2: Aspirations when you look at particularly around you know, these
Speaker 2: law and order responses, they're often around the idea of safety.
Speaker 2: But safety for example, white women, of safety for white Australia,
Speaker 2: So policing and the media and government they're often on
Speaker 2: the same side when it comes to our mobs. And
Speaker 2: so I don't even other than the fact that as
Speaker 2: we saw with ten or seven, like Aberiginal mob are
Speaker 2: very quick to resist those discourses. And I often find
Speaker 2: like Aboriginal people in this country are the most distute
Speaker 2: media commentators. And if it wasn't for black fellows coming
Speaker 2: out straight away and contesting those really racist portrayals of
Speaker 2: black kids as criminals and you know, as deviant and
Speaker 2: as like these really horrunous policies is justified, then it
Speaker 2: would still be up, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 2: I think it really lies often in the resistance of
Speaker 2: Aboriginal people to these media representations and portrayals. But it's
Speaker 2: just often that we don't have a voice in those conversations,
Speaker 2: and so like, I never have a lot of hope
Speaker 2: in the mainstream media that they go and change. And
Speaker 2: we saw that just in what you know, Amanda was
Speaker 2: talking about in the Royal Commission and the way the
Speaker 2: Royal Commission anniversary was being reported in ways that they
Speaker 2: weren't actually interested in the structure of violence and the
Speaker 2: continual oppression that they are complicit in, but just in
Speaker 2: hearing again wounds and trauma, you know, and that's all
Speaker 2: we were being asked for. And so I think there's
Speaker 2: a very different way that mainstream media is reporting. And
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about in relation to cops as well,
Speaker 2: like they're often and what you said about the you
Speaker 2: know the police propaganda this week about the puppies. You know,
Speaker 2: police are still and I think Amanda you could talk
Speaker 2: about this too, like they're still seen in very uh
Speaker 2: favorable white to Australians, which is really confusing for me
Speaker 2: when you look at the actual history of policing and
Speaker 2: not just you know history on the frontier, but recent
Speaker 2: history in relation to you know, the Fitzgerald Inquiry in
Speaker 2: Queensland and oh this history around police brutality. Yes, I
Speaker 2: don't know. You know, Australian still believe that the police
Speaker 2: as a whole are good and then have their best
Speaker 2: interests in mind in relations of safety.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting to me the kind of addiction
Speaker 1: of the average Australian to the police and the you know,
Speaker 1: blind faith. And I know I can't help but see
Speaker 1: it like through the like a historian lens, just because
Speaker 1: for me, there always has been two very different policing history.
Speaker 1: So like the history of police for settlers was you
Speaker 1: know the night Watch patrol, which was quite literally eleven
Speaker 1: of the best behaved convicts and you know, for their
Speaker 1: purpose was to look out for you know, the public
Speaker 1: safety and best interests of the governor and settlement kind
Speaker 1: of families that were and people the settler popular within
Speaker 1: the you know, within Sydney Cove and the growing colony,
Speaker 1: and that's that, you know, that's very different when you
Speaker 1: kind of trace the line of what happened there to
Speaker 1: the history that happened at the colonial frontier, which was
Speaker 1: the Mounted Police and the Border Police and the Native
Speaker 1: police and it was you know, not just me, but
Speaker 1: says that, you know, Henry Reynolds described the Mounted Police
Speaker 1: as one of the most violent organizations in Austraie history.
Speaker 1: But you know that to go back to Martin's question
Speaker 1: about the ways to put pressure into flip what's going
Speaker 1: on in the mainstream media, I mean, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if I even have an answer to that, but.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's interesting to look at that.
Speaker 1: Example of the Queensland you know laws and how that
Speaker 1: came to be. And it's that the same thing with
Speaker 1: you know, to Amy's point about castural feminism, as I
Speaker 1: think that maybe it's something about media that they something
Speaker 1: that's appealing to see the most punitive response pedled out
Speaker 1: the most extreme response, and you know, because when you
Speaker 1: think about it, like the you know, both uh you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's the the tough on crime laws in Queensland
Speaker 1: that was peddled out.
Speaker 3: In response to uh, you know, I think there was.
Speaker 1: A death involving involving speeding, and speeding is very different,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's not I don't know if any
Speaker 1: of these laws are actually gonna they're completely unrelated the
Speaker 1: proposed laws to the initial response. But it's the you know,
Speaker 1: the Premiere Palichet has to you know, come up with
Speaker 1: some response, and she's obviously got the Queensland Police Union.
Speaker 1: And I mean, and this is this is the bigger
Speaker 1: issue than the media, is just the way in which
Speaker 1: the police, regardless of what jurisdiction you're talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: have had you know, record budgets for the past god knows,
Speaker 1: and and that as part of that, they have a
Speaker 1: very well resourced media and pr unit that's able to
Speaker 1: put these messages out and whenever, you know, there is
Speaker 1: this you know, human tragedy that occurs, the police union
Speaker 1: will be like, well, you know, you know, and again
Speaker 1: the most powerful police unions are among the most powerful
Speaker 1: in the nation that that have the premieres year to say, well,
Speaker 1: these are the things that would make out a lot easier,
Speaker 1: and it all just you know, it's all just feeds
Speaker 1: off racist stereotypes and deficit discourses that are so deeply
Speaker 1: ingrained in the Australian psyche. And you see that, for
Speaker 1: example through what Martin was talking about with the with
Speaker 1: with you know, the way even research is produced here.
Speaker 1: So you know, uh, you know we had I I
Speaker 1: confess I didn't see the channel not but you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised at the Australian corporate media. You know
Speaker 1: we're peddling out you know, the I did see the
Speaker 1: clip that Professor Ross Hommel gave it, and that was
Speaker 1: that going back to my point, that was actually out
Speaker 1: of police union conference and and I just wrote this down.
Speaker 1: He said at this conference, and I quote, I get
Speaker 1: emails from people Ross, why don't you talk more about
Speaker 1: the Aborigines sick?
Speaker 3: They are s I see. I mean that's I'm citing
Speaker 3: it as as he said, they are always the offenders,
Speaker 3: well them, Let's be honest. That is a statistical fact.
Speaker 3: End quote.
Speaker 1: So you know that when I say ingrained, I know
Speaker 1: deeply ingrained in the And they can take that down
Speaker 1: off their Twitter account, nine can take that down.
Speaker 3: But it's not the public record, and you know, and
Speaker 3: and it's just even the kind of.
Speaker 1: The you can look up this this this full clip
Speaker 1: on the internet, but you know, in in you know,
Speaker 1: so it's often I think we're feeling the way that
Speaker 1: people frame the problem. For for Ross Hommel, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, kids who are a problem. In his words,
Speaker 1: you know, he keeps talking to kids who are a problem,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, high risk children as this
Speaker 1: is the language that it's.
Speaker 3: Couched in, and in his speech the need.
Speaker 1: To to start early and he says as early as five.
Speaker 3: And and frankly it makes.
Speaker 1: Me terrified because my niece and my nephew live up
Speaker 1: in the engine and I just you know, these these
Speaker 1: are the that that's the level that we're that the
Speaker 1: soul operating up. That's how deep set it is in
Speaker 1: the minds of so many Australians about you know, the
Speaker 1: deficit that they see when they see black kids.
Speaker 3: It's just it says.
Speaker 1: You know nothing about you know, the Aboriginal kids themselves,
Speaker 1: and it says so much about someone else perception of.
Speaker 3: What they think about Aboriginal and black kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, you could say, you know, that's
Speaker 1: just the example of the you know, but I think
Speaker 1: it's hugely, deeply problematic to have anyone that has these
Speaker 1: you know, beliefs about Aboriginal kids to be going into
Speaker 1: school and I think, you know, in school, you know,
Speaker 1: it's important for kids just to have the chance to
Speaker 1: be themselves and to be safe. And there's no understanding
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned that for Aboriginal kids that
Speaker 1: you know, it's not it's not safe to be because
Speaker 1: it's re traumatizing for kids, it's you know, they need
Speaker 1: a chance just to just to you know, be a
Speaker 1: young person like everyone else and to you know, receive
Speaker 1: you just learn and enjoy being with friends at school,
Speaker 1: like you know, there's a I think it's inexcusable that
Speaker 1: there's fifty seven schools in Queensland that are participating in
Speaker 1: this program.
Speaker 5: That was part one of our discussion with Amanda Porter.
Speaker 5: Before we bring you part two in the coming weeks,
Speaker 5: I'd like to encourage you just to consider what a
Speaker 5: man to spoke about then about police in schools and
Speaker 5: policing and talking about the way police discuss the criminality
Speaker 5: of children as young as kindergarten age kids, and consider
Speaker 5: that in the context of all we talk about in
Speaker 5: Curtain the podcast until next time, Thank you for your
Speaker 5: ongoing support.