Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 2: Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty
Speaker 2: verdicts against all three defendants.
Speaker 3: It was absolutely shambles, to tell you the truth, just
Speaker 3: absoutely really heaving.
Speaker 2: Blood on his clothing the day after the alleged a.
Speaker 1: Toime on a shallow mud bank, and it fits Roy River. Basically.
Speaker 1: I think most of the people are used to me,
Speaker 1: there are good people. I think a really important question
Speaker 1: we need to ask is how many Indigenous prisoners in
Speaker 1: Australia are innocent.
Speaker 2: This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled 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. I'm
Speaker 2: Amy Maguire and I'm.
Speaker 1: Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service.
Speaker 1: And a warning, this series contains the names of deceased
Speaker 1: peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Curtain the podcast. As some of you might
Speaker 3: have heard you strained. Federal Parliament is in the middle
Speaker 3: of an inquiry into murdered and missing Aboriginal women and children.
Speaker 3: It's a national inquiry that seeks to understand the issue
Speaker 3: and hopefully find answers and justice to this appalling problem.
Speaker 3: Over the last number of months, my co host Amy
Speaker 3: Maguire has attended a number of inquests into murdered and
Speaker 3: forcibly disappeared Aboriginal women. In the meantime, I've also been
Speaker 3: investigating one of these cases further as the inquest filed
Speaker 3: to provide the family with any justice or answers. So
Speaker 3: this week we're going to discuss some of these issues.
Speaker 3: As Coroner Stephanie Gallagher said at the end of the
Speaker 3: hearings of the inquest of Constance, what show and I
Speaker 3: quote the evidence is very much full of conflict and
Speaker 3: there is very little new or useful information in there
Speaker 3: to inform this court and the family of what actually
Speaker 3: happened and to her. Immediately outside the court, close family
Speaker 3: friend Arita Fisher said she was wild, angry and crying
Speaker 3: for the family who just wanted answers. We can't live
Speaker 3: without knowing what happened to her. We've had it. You
Speaker 3: just need to tell us. Let her rest in peace now. Amy,
Speaker 3: you were there for this inquest and I just want
Speaker 3: to start by asking what it was like to observe
Speaker 3: and how it seemed speaking with the family how it
Speaker 3: was for them.
Speaker 2: So I think it was very traumatic the whole process,
Speaker 2: because Constance was found quite a few years ago now,
Speaker 2: but they've been waiting for answers for a very long time,
Speaker 2: and I think the general feeling was that the process,
Speaker 2: which is still ongoing, hadn't delivered any of those answers.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, when you consider the FA's five
Speaker 2: or six years, the waiting and the waiting, the cranial
Speaker 2: process constituted another long period of waiting, and that's what
Speaker 2: it was like. Often it would be, you know, waiting
Speaker 2: outside the court, waiting, you know, in the long lawn
Speaker 2: between like the magistrates court and the coronial court, and
Speaker 2: knowing that well, Constance has died, but this is a
Speaker 2: coronial court, shouldn't it be in the other court, you know,
Speaker 2: the magistrates the Supreme Court. And I think it's just
Speaker 2: the inherent re traumatization of families through the failure to
Speaker 2: actually see the gravity of the situation. You know, sitting
Speaker 2: in there, it just felt like they were going through
Speaker 2: they were ticking the boxes, you know, the coronial processes,
Speaker 2: ticking the boxes. The focus is not actually finding out
Speaker 2: what happened to Constance. May watch you and who had
Speaker 2: perpetrated the accagans constants may watch you. So I just
Speaker 2: felt again, and this is the feeling I felt sitting
Speaker 2: in a lot of coronial in quests, that it's just
Speaker 2: just general apathy towards families who were there fighting for
Speaker 2: their for their for their loved ones, and there's always
Speaker 2: the absence of their personhood even in this process, and
Speaker 2: so it's really important for the families to sit there
Speaker 2: and resist that. But you're also taking on all of
Speaker 2: those waves of violence, you know, hearing horrendous and traumatic
Speaker 2: things that have happened. Yeah, so it's just that continual
Speaker 2: process of revictimization, the long periods of waiting with no answers,
Speaker 2: and just that general feeling of apathy that they're not
Speaker 2: there to actually provide justice and in that what does
Speaker 2: justice even mean? You know? So I just I really
Speaker 2: felt for the families through those five days, and and
Speaker 2: the other thing is, you know, like five days isn't
Speaker 2: long enough at all, and the inquest has been will
Speaker 2: continue in December. But yeah, just seeing them have to
Speaker 2: go through that again and again and still to come
Speaker 2: out with no answers was really hard, I think, gone
Speaker 2: everyone to witness it's.
Speaker 3: A huge amount of horrific material to have to sit
Speaker 3: through for anyone, but it's almost unimaginable when it's your
Speaker 3: own loved one and family member, and I can't even
Speaker 3: imagine what they're feeling too. To be retraumatized by it all,
Speaker 3: as you say, and then get no answers, and also
Speaker 3: to watch people give testimony who clearly have more to
Speaker 3: say and know a lot more and get away with
Speaker 3: not saying anything, it does start to make you wonder
Speaker 3: whether the process is even worth it for the family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But like I also just wanted to say as well,
Speaker 2: I forgot to say at the beginning, was that at
Speaker 2: the very beginning, Constance's three adult children they'd actually made
Speaker 2: this really beautiful display for their mother. So they had
Speaker 2: all pictures of her. They had a beautiful cross that
Speaker 2: they brought from Shabir Accunts, so Constance was from Sherburg,
Speaker 2: And they had like sand from her gravesite which they
Speaker 2: brought into the court which signified bringing Constance in and
Speaker 2: they really felt like she was there. And at the
Speaker 2: beginning they gave this beautiful sort of letter to their
Speaker 2: mother and they read it so powerfully to the court.
Speaker 2: You know, so they were there to contest a lot
Speaker 2: of what happens in the coronial process. But I think
Speaker 2: the significance of that is lost by many who were
Speaker 2: very conditioned at what this process means, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, and just do not see how important it
Speaker 2: is to do that and to make sure that Constance
Speaker 2: is always presenced. But that their presence, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: just the children, but like Constance's brothers, you know, her
Speaker 2: extended family just filled the chairs of the courtroom as well,
Speaker 2: and it just made me think, you know, you had
Speaker 2: this court room full of black fellows and on the
Speaker 2: other side it's just all white people pretty much, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So it's just that and a
Speaker 2: lot of police officers and everything like that. But they
Speaker 2: were just really strong in their presence for their mum
Speaker 2: and really ensuring that she was not lost in this process.
Speaker 2: So I think that's part of it, you know, like
Speaker 2: how they fight for justice even though we don't know
Speaker 2: what justice means.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess the way, you know, I'm just imagining
Speaker 3: the way you describe the courtroom full of blackfellows on
Speaker 3: one side, and then all the white lawyers and police
Speaker 3: and officials and everything on the other and it makes
Speaker 3: you question, can this all white process that you know,
Speaker 3: he's constructed out of a colonial period and an ongoing
Speaker 3: colonial project, can it ever actually deliver justice to the family.
Speaker 3: You know, as you describe, the family have done so
Speaker 3: much to presence, constance, to show up through something I
Speaker 3: think most of us couldn't sit through to hear about
Speaker 3: what has been done to our own loved one. And
Speaker 3: then the moment the family are no longer able to
Speaker 3: speak and the process begins, it seems like all of
Speaker 3: that is lost and we go into this weird formal
Speaker 3: legal process that's not about anything but just rubber stamping
Speaker 3: and moving on. As you sit there, do you feel
Speaker 3: like it's a process that's getting closer to justice or
Speaker 3: does it feel like we need to be doing this
Speaker 3: whole thing in a completely different way.
Speaker 2: I think it definitely has to be done in a
Speaker 2: completely different way. And there's a lot of really good
Speaker 2: scholarship and critique from First Nations people's over in Canada,
Speaker 2: like I think of Leanne Betterson Miki Simpson who talks
Speaker 2: about you know, justice is just always defined through a
Speaker 2: Western lands, so she said, in the past, and this
Speaker 2: is um quoting her, A lot of the time, state
Speaker 2: justice is about white people feeling better about themselves. State
Speaker 2: narratives are justice, are processes that are actually about injustice
Speaker 2: for us. I think that's what we're seeing, whether it's
Speaker 2: in the coronial court, whether it's in the criminal court,
Speaker 2: where's any sort of structure in this country, is that
Speaker 2: justice is predicated not onnustice for black fellows, but on
Speaker 2: this idea of justice which is about denying accountability for
Speaker 2: white perpetrators. Because that's what we're seeing, you know, like
Speaker 2: in the coronial process and in the justice system, it
Speaker 2: seems there's so many, so much leniency given to white
Speaker 2: perpetrators if the victims are Aboriginal women particularly, and it
Speaker 2: just seems like the structures are supporting that in so
Speaker 2: many ways, even just the way they deny direct interrogation
Speaker 2: of the police officers for their failure to search and
Speaker 2: their failure to prosecute and their failure to conduct appropriate investigations.
Speaker 2: And I've seen this many times, like police make this
Speaker 2: big claims of benevolency and that they've done everything to find,
Speaker 2: you know, a missing person, or they do everything, but
Speaker 2: the evidence just wasn't there to further it, but it's
Speaker 2: always just been aboult. Well, actually, what is the like,
Speaker 2: what that's your job. You're supposed to gather the evidence,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? For like, the state structures
Speaker 2: of justice are always set up against black followers, whether
Speaker 2: particularly when you're victims, and they can only see us
Speaker 2: as perpetrators and as criminals. So they're very they're very
Speaker 2: efficient in criminalizing Aboriginal women. But when Aboriginal women are missing,
Speaker 2: or when Aboriginal women have died at the hands of
Speaker 2: other perpetrators, they become very inefficient. But they cover up
Speaker 2: that inefficiency through this rhetoric of benevolence or you know,
Speaker 2: the evidence just wasn't there. You know, it's just and
Speaker 2: that's pretty much accepted through the process, Like there's no
Speaker 2: adequate questioning of just how screwed up that is. And
Speaker 2: that's what I felt, like, just that's why I took
Speaker 2: about that apathy, Like the questioning just felt at times
Speaker 2: like ticket books exercises, you know, like not about finding
Speaker 2: justice or finding truth even though the gravity of what
Speaker 2: had happened. Yeah, So I don't think that these coronial processes,
Speaker 2: just like the courts, you know, are there for victims
Speaker 2: at all, because they're not predicated on that at all,
Speaker 2: and they're not victims centered, you know.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and I think you know, hearing what you're saying.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of the not only are the
Speaker 3: processes flawed, but we have to accept as a broader
Speaker 3: society that the people involved and in charge, whether they're
Speaker 3: court's police, are beyond flawed. I think one of the
Speaker 3: infuriating things for me reading through transcripts watching inquests and
Speaker 3: court cases take place, is that you see officials of
Speaker 3: the state, usually police, but sometimes they're police prosecutors and
Speaker 3: the DPP and everyone else will be presented with a
Speaker 3: piece of evidence that, in a case that involved a
Speaker 3: non indigenous person, probably in a wealthy suburb, would instantly
Speaker 3: have everyone screaming, well, it's clear what's going on. And
Speaker 3: yet in these cases where the victim is an Aboriginal woman,
Speaker 3: the point is raised and then immediately glossed over, like
Speaker 3: so long as it's on the record, then that's all
Speaker 3: they had to do. When there is no holding of accountability,
Speaker 3: no one stops and says to a police officer, hang on,
Speaker 3: why didn't you follow up on this lead? Why didn't
Speaker 3: you follow up on this information. So often families go
Speaker 3: out of their way to look into what's gone on
Speaker 3: themselves and provide the police with further information. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's no secret that in a lot of the cases
Speaker 3: we're talking about, the men who were with the women
Speaker 3: immediately before they disappeared as suspects, and there is a
Speaker 3: lot of evidence pointing to them. But throughout all of this,
Speaker 3: not once have they had to feel uncomfortable. The whole
Speaker 3: process has protected them, even though they're sitting in a
Speaker 3: courtroom clearly with knowledge at the least of what's gone on,
Speaker 3: if not directly responsible for a person's death. And not
Speaker 3: once do they feel even a shred of the uncomfort
Speaker 3: that the family is forced to feel. And it just
Speaker 3: seems like this is all about a way to move
Speaker 3: a case, as the police would put it in inverted commas,
Speaker 3: from unsolved into resolved and move along and no more
Speaker 3: than that. And I guess, from a personal standpoint, as
Speaker 3: an Aboriginal woman sitting through these processes, what does that
Speaker 3: make you feel?
Speaker 2: Well? I was just good leading on from that is
Speaker 2: that you know, when you're actually seeing how this is happening,
Speaker 2: you're seeing the conditions that are being laid for impunity
Speaker 2: for violence against Aboriginal women. So there are a lot
Speaker 2: of Aboriginal women, a lot of relatives sitting in the
Speaker 2: court when you're watching that, and you're seeing the callous
Speaker 2: disregard to the lives of Aboriginal women shown not just
Speaker 2: by the police but by all pretty much a lot
Speaker 2: of people in this process. That's a form of you know,
Speaker 2: almost like a form of terror, because they're basically making
Speaker 2: a statement in an indirect way that your lives don't
Speaker 2: matter enough to pursue justice, Your lives don't matter to
Speaker 2: take what is a clear threat away from you in
Speaker 2: these spaces, you know what I mean. And so it's
Speaker 2: just that continuation of that terror. And I always think
Speaker 2: of Professor Marcia Langton wrote this piece in relation to
Speaker 2: let Daily, and she said something along the lines of,
Speaker 2: you know, the failure to prosecute, the failure to do
Speaker 2: anything about these cases suggests that, you know, I think
Speaker 2: it's about like the license to kill. And that's what
Speaker 2: is actually happening, you know what I mean, because otherwise
Speaker 2: we would see a different response, you know. And the
Speaker 2: thing to the real what else heurin constance may watch
Speaker 2: those cases is that at every single stage there was
Speaker 2: a failure from police. There were only ever two police
Speaker 2: officers actually called to give evidence the coronial process. But
Speaker 2: for those who don't know the case, Constance was found
Speaker 2: literally two minutes walk from where she was last seen
Speaker 2: and it was her family who actually made the missing
Speaker 2: person's report. It was her family who first began investigating,
Speaker 2: went back to the era was asking everyone where is Constance?
Speaker 2: Then they put in the missing person's report. At no
Speaker 2: stage was any search and rescue attempt ever made. And
Speaker 2: if they had searched for her at the time that
Speaker 2: she had disappeared, the time she was last seen, they
Speaker 2: would have likely found her and that would have led
Speaker 2: to differences in the investigation. You know, there would have
Speaker 2: been more forensic evidence, there would be more evidence together,
Speaker 2: but they fundamentally didn't search. She was found two minutes
Speaker 2: walk away from where she was last scene and there
Speaker 2: was no explanation in the cronia process given for that
Speaker 2: missing persons unit. There was no one from missing persons
Speaker 2: unit to speak to what role they played, What were
Speaker 2: they doing as an over why didn't they take a
Speaker 2: more proactive role in this case? It was always at
Speaker 2: the local CIB Dudham Park, which was also criminalizing Constance,
Speaker 2: which knew Constance only when she was alive, by claiming
Speaker 2: she was a criminal, you know, which she wasn't. You know,
Speaker 2: she was a loving mother of ten who was deeply
Speaker 2: loved by her family. And also there was no explanation
Speaker 2: from homicide when Constance was found as to why they
Speaker 2: had left, what role they had in the investigation, but
Speaker 2: also why they were not involved all the way through.
Speaker 2: So I think they stopped being involved about a year afterwards,
Speaker 2: So there was no explanation from homicide, and the lead
Speaker 2: investigator at Dudham Park was on the stand and he
Speaker 2: still considered her death a suspicious death. It was almost unbelievable,
Speaker 2: you know, like just they the explanations or the lengths
Speaker 2: they go to to deny that violence, extreme forms of violence,
Speaker 2: which is like the direct continuation from the frontier to
Speaker 2: the present, has been perpetrated against the body of an
Speaker 2: Aboriginal woman, even when a body has been found, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's just yeah, I think it's just that bringing
Speaker 2: back to your question, seeing that they refuse to search,
Speaker 2: and they refuse to deliver justice for Constance, and they still,
Speaker 2: you know, the media is reporting of her in really
Speaker 2: dehumanizing terms that you had never seen in other cases.
Speaker 2: It sends messages to Aboriginal women that we know to
Speaker 2: be true that society has not cared about us, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And so that's a huge thing
Speaker 2: to think about when you're sitting there in this process.
Speaker 2: And that's another level of the violence endemic in the
Speaker 2: process and in Australian society, which is a sellt colonial society.
Speaker 2: It's showing that, you know, Aboriginal women are still targeted
Speaker 2: for violence, and we know that, but we're continually reminded
Speaker 2: of that, and there's a violence in how we are
Speaker 2: reminded of that continually.
Speaker 3: Yeah, listening to what you describe there, it takes me
Speaker 3: to two matters that I think everyone in Australia will
Speaker 3: probably know about. The first is this idea that Marshall
Speaker 3: Lancton speaks about a license to kill. And one of
Speaker 3: the first times we heard it in relation to the
Speaker 3: police and someone who we know was a murderer was
Speaker 3: chopper Red, and whether it was true or not, he
Speaker 3: felt he had been given a green light by the
Speaker 3: police to murder and he kept murdering. And these processes
Speaker 3: by allowing perpetrators not only to go off scot free,
Speaker 3: but to never be interrogated, to never feel like they're
Speaker 3: under any risk of being prosecuted for what they do.
Speaker 3: Not only gives them a green light to continue to
Speaker 3: abuse and potentially murder Aboriginal women, but it sends to
Speaker 3: all men in our society that same message, this green light,
Speaker 3: that you can literally do the worst imaginable things to
Speaker 3: an Aboriginal woman and you will face no consequences. And
Speaker 3: that message then to Aboriginal women, I think it is
Speaker 3: as you say, it's a message of terror and terrorism
Speaker 3: and that this is the state in which you are
Speaker 3: being forced to live. And it made me think too
Speaker 3: about Melissa Caddick and the reporting that has gone on
Speaker 3: about her disappearance. For those who don't know, she is
Speaker 3: alleged to have swindled an enormous amount of money before
Speaker 3: taking her own life and her remains being found, and
Speaker 3: more than one hundred police have been involved in that
Speaker 3: process and it has resulted in four corners reports, endless
Speaker 3: media coverage. The story has been number one on the
Speaker 3: news from the time she was first being looked at
Speaker 3: for swindling the money to the time of her disappearance,
Speaker 3: the recovery of some of her remains, and on and
Speaker 3: on it goes. And yet that same level, and it's
Speaker 3: been handled with kid gloves. I mean, despite all the
Speaker 3: controversy around what has gone on there, the media's handling
Speaker 3: of it has been very sympathetic. And we've also seen
Speaker 3: this enormous amount of police resources. And as I was
Speaker 3: watching the Four Corners the other night about Melissa Caddick,
Speaker 3: I realized it wasn't so much about her. What the
Speaker 3: police really were there to do, and we're talking about
Speaker 3: one hundred police officers involved in this case, was find
Speaker 3: out where the money was. That's what the focus, and
Speaker 3: that's what all the resources and all the care and
Speaker 3: all the hard work went into was finding some bloody money.
Speaker 3: That Constance and every other Aboriginal woman we've talked about,
Speaker 3: and those who's lost lives we've never heard about and
Speaker 3: whose families search for answers don't get anything when some
Speaker 3: missing money gets everything. And again, the message that sends
Speaker 3: is just horrific, and that message is delivered by the media.
Speaker 3: And so as a journalist, amy and someone who investigates
Speaker 3: the role the media plays in this and looks at
Speaker 3: the way the media reports on issues impacting Aboriginal women,
Speaker 3: What can you tell us about the way it's done
Speaker 3: and the impact that it has.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think we've seen that in the
Speaker 2: context of like violence against Aboriginal women, Aboriginal people are
Speaker 2: always held responsible for breaking what is seen as an
Speaker 2: alleged silence, and the silence is always seen as predicated
Speaker 2: on Aboriginal culture being violent, and also Aboriginal men being
Speaker 2: perpetrators and Aboriginal women being voiceless and agentless, which we
Speaker 2: know not to be true. But the way that the
Speaker 2: media report on it is often just through really dehumanizing representations, which,
Speaker 2: like a very key example, is constant. But it's largely
Speaker 2: their refusal to report, I find because in a lot
Speaker 2: of these cases, you will never know about them. Like
Speaker 2: I've looked in a few cases and a few stories
Speaker 2: where when Aboriginal women have gone missing, it'll be like
Speaker 2: a couple of stories in like the eight long years
Speaker 2: they've been missing, and it'll be always based on police
Speaker 2: versions of events, so they're never actually going to families
Speaker 2: and giving them the right to speak back to these
Speaker 2: real dehumanizing, dehumanizing representations of their loved ones and they
Speaker 2: also validate police versions of events, and they believe police,
Speaker 2: and they believe police when they say that they're doing
Speaker 2: everything to search for them. So the fact that there
Speaker 2: is absolutely no pressure applied on police to continue searching
Speaker 2: and continuing to find them, but at the same time blaming,
Speaker 2: constantly blaming aboritional communities for this, you know, long colonial
Speaker 2: history of target taring our communities are savage and violent.
Speaker 2: It all leads to what we're seeing today, which is that,
Speaker 2: you know, there is a continual issue around Aboriginal people
Speaker 2: being Aboriginal women being targeted for violence and being actively disappeared,
Speaker 2: and the media directly complicit in that in their failure
Speaker 2: to report, and when they do report, it is always
Speaker 2: based on these really deep, dehumanizing sort of accounts of
Speaker 2: them that are so far removed from who they actually are.
Speaker 2: And the other thing that I've noticed is that often
Speaker 2: the police will use mug shots for missing persons alerts
Speaker 2: when Aboriginal women go missing, so that those mug shots
Speaker 2: make them seem as if they're wanted persons and not
Speaker 2: missing persons. And that comes back to the criminalization of
Speaker 2: Aboriginal women as well, even when they're victims, and how
Speaker 2: they're only visible when they're there to be criminalized, and
Speaker 2: that leads you to all of the connections with the
Speaker 2: disappearing of Aboriginal women into the justice system, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. So, I think the media is totally complicit,
Speaker 2: but particularly in holding up this apparatus of disappearance in
Speaker 2: this country, which always targets Aboriginal women, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. So, and to failing to actually ensure that
Speaker 2: the lives and the worth of Aboriginal women are front
Speaker 2: and center, and Aboriginal families having the right to speak
Speaker 2: to their memories first and foremost. That's something that the
Speaker 2: media continually fails. But sorry, just to pick up at
Speaker 2: that point. They're providing conditions for what we are seeing
Speaker 2: in the court process and by the police for impunity.
Speaker 2: And that's what's happening, is there's this general impunity that
Speaker 2: we're seeing, and the media are complicit in that through
Speaker 2: their normalization of this violence and through blaming Aboriginal communities.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think you raise so many really good points
Speaker 3: and points I think we all have to go away
Speaker 3: and think more about and not you know, I think
Speaker 3: when people are challenged and industries are challenged, so often
Speaker 3: they get their back up. Well, I think this is
Speaker 3: an opportunity for any journalist or person in the media
Speaker 3: listening to actually think about what Amy said and the
Speaker 3: truth of it. And if you can't accept that truth,
Speaker 3: then you need to think about it a little bit longer.
Speaker 3: And one thing I really want to add for context,
Speaker 3: because not everyone will have had the time to look
Speaker 3: at these cases we're speaking about, is that, as Amy said,
Speaker 3: a lot of it is framed around the violence of
Speaker 3: Aboriginal communities. Well, one thing I can tell you for
Speaker 3: a fact, the cases we've spoken about today and the
Speaker 3: cases we've spoken about in previous episodes in regards to
Speaker 3: missing and murdered Aboriginal women, not a single one of
Speaker 3: the suspects is a black man. So I think the
Speaker 3: media needs to start taking a long, hard look at
Speaker 3: themselves as to why they even introduce that narrative in
Speaker 3: the first place in cases where not a single suspect
Speaker 3: is an Aboriginal man in the death of these Aboriginal women.
Speaker 3: So all the bringing in of the other issues about
Speaker 3: dysfunction and all these other lives that they like to tell,
Speaker 3: they're not even relevant to the case. So all you're
Speaker 3: doing is journalists when you write that is exposing your
Speaker 3: own racism and prejudices. And then the investigating power to
Speaker 3: give context in what we've discussed today is the Queensland
Speaker 3: Police who are currently being exposed for endemic domestic violence,
Speaker 3: endemic racism, recruits being taught to be racist, and high
Speaker 3: ranking Queensland police involved indespicable and criminal behavior. And these
Speaker 3: are the people who are being put in charge of
Speaker 3: finding out and bringing truth and justice. They don't live
Speaker 3: truth and justice in their own lives or their own work,
Speaker 3: and then definitely not going to bring that to people
Speaker 3: they admit to despising. And I think as we pose
Speaker 3: the question at the very start about whether this is
Speaker 3: an appropriate process to discovering the truth of what has happened,
Speaker 3: you've had your answer and to me, it's really clear.
Speaker 2: And I just wanted to build on what you said
Speaker 2: about the Queensland Police because it ties exactly the violence
Speaker 2: of policing to what the frontier the frontier policing, because
Speaker 2: that's what actually happened. Like so, my colleagues, the Institute
Speaker 2: for Collaborator Race Research actually gave evidence that that inquiry
Speaker 2: that you spoke about, and they spoke specifically drawing direct
Speaker 2: lines from the earliest police in Queensland, which was the
Speaker 2: Queensland Native Mounted Police, to the Queensland Police Service. And
Speaker 2: I'm just quoting my colleague Elizabeth Stradshock. This is not
Speaker 2: a history that's been disavowed by the contemporary Queensland Police.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty four, at the centenary of the establishment
Speaker 2: of the QPS, a senior police officer said Walker, who
Speaker 2: was the original lieutenant of the Mounted Police and his
Speaker 2: force soon established themselves. He tamed the Natives, saved the
Speaker 2: whites and made the country comparatively safe. And that's exactly
Speaker 2: what the Queensland Police Service is still predicated upon. It
Speaker 2: hasn't changed at all, and that's what we're seeing currently
Speaker 2: with the inquiry. And there's all this shock and outrage
Speaker 2: that's coming as a reporting as if this is nothing new.
Speaker 2: But this is something that Aboriginal women particularly were talking
Speaker 2: about from the very beginning when they were looking into
Speaker 2: criminalize and coercives and control, the impact that it would
Speaker 2: have particularly on average women, and the continual criminalization of
Speaker 2: Aboriginal women and the failure to keep them safe. But
Speaker 2: that last line, he tamed the native, saved the whites,
Speaker 2: and made the country comparatively safe to make a white
Speaker 2: Australian safe, that that relies on the disappearance of Aboriginal
Speaker 2: people from this land. And that's exactly what's happened from
Speaker 2: invasion but to the present. And that's why we're seeing
Speaker 2: a failure to understand what is currently happening. The Aboriginal
Speaker 2: women is targeted for violence because this whole settler colony
Speaker 2: is founded on our inevitable erasure and by our presence
Speaker 2: still here and our presence contesting that that's where the
Speaker 2: threat is. And that's why you're not hearing this spoken about,
Speaker 2: and that's why you're not hearing about the inherent violence
Speaker 2: of policing only you know, in short cyclical waves. You know.
Speaker 2: I was watching ABC News last night and they included
Speaker 2: the reporting from the inquiry and then every every every
Speaker 2: story afterwards quoted police and it was all based on
Speaker 2: crime reporting. So there connecting what is happening in the
Speaker 2: and quiry at the moment from their own practices and
Speaker 2: their own reliance on Queensland Police as a source. So
Speaker 2: I just wanted to include that, to include the historical
Speaker 2: context of Queensland Police, their failure to investigate the destined
Speaker 2: disappearances of Aboriginal women and the reason why they're failing
Speaker 2: to investigate.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: I think it's a crucially important point and it made
Speaker 3: me realize as you were saying that, and it's not
Speaker 3: something I've been directly conscious of, which is that we've
Speaker 3: been doing this podcast for more than five years, and
Speaker 3: not only have we covered, as the name suggests, the
Speaker 3: case of Curtin Kevin Henry, but we've spoken about a
Speaker 3: lot of other crimes committed, particularly against Aboriginal women in Queensland,
Speaker 3: over decades and decades, and I think we've done seventy
Speaker 3: five or more episodes, and it just occurred to me
Speaker 3: as you were saying that that every single act of
Speaker 3: violence that we've spoken about in this podcast, which must
Speaker 3: now run into more than fifty hours, has involved either
Speaker 3: a police officer, a Queensland Police officer, or a Queensland
Speaker 3: Police officer covering up that violence every single case. And
Speaker 3: as I say, this is a realization I am making now.
Speaker 3: Obviously I'm very aware that and the part of the
Speaker 3: reason we started this is because of the violence of
Speaker 3: the Queensland Police, but you don't expect over a five
Speaker 3: year period that every crime you discuss will either have
Speaker 3: been perpetrated by the Queensland Police or deliberately covered up.
Speaker 3: And as Amy was just saying about the existence and
Speaker 3: the peace of this place being predicated on the disappearance
Speaker 3: out of sight, out of mind, and into the ground
Speaker 3: of Aboriginal women. It should come then as no surprise
Speaker 3: that we're seeing in quest after inques coming up about
Speaker 3: the murder of Aboriginal women and the fact that Aboriginal
Speaker 3: women are the fastest growing cohort being imprisoned in this country.
Speaker 3: So the raw truth of it is that not only
Speaker 3: is it still going, this is not something that we're
Speaker 3: not talking about the eighteen hundreds, this is twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two and it's happening right now and nothing's changed and
Speaker 3: nothing's being done, and no one's angry. And that leads
Speaker 3: into the National Inquiry into Missing murdered and Murdered Aboriginal
Speaker 3: Women and Children. And in a few weeks we'll take
Speaker 3: the time out to discuss that inquiry, hopefully give a
Speaker 3: little background and explain what it hopes to achieve and
Speaker 3: our views on some potential solutions and what can be
Speaker 3: done going forward.