WEBVTT - Asking Questions of an Inquiry 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.480 Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:10.440 verdicts against all three defendants. It was absolute shambles, to 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:12.960 tell you the truth, just absolutely really put his blood 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.120 on who's clothing The day after the alleged a. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:17.320 Tip on a shallow mud bank and it fits Roy River. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.520 Basically, I think most of the people are used to 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.000 me are good people. 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.680 I think a really important question we need to ask 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.759 is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.280 This is Curtain, a podcast where we pull back the 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:32.839 blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.800 our justice system and ask who are the victims. 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:41.480 I'm Amy Maguire and I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.360 for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning, this 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.320 series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.360 content that might upset some listeners. 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.440 Welcome to Curtain the podcast. This week, we're going to 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.040 focus on the issue of disappeared and murder First Nations, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:05.880 women and children. In previous episodes, we've spoken about specific 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.760 cases like that of Monique Club, who went missing in 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.640 Queensland and whose coronial inquest was held last year. But 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.240 this week we want to focus on the inquiry into 0:01:17.319 --> 0:01:20.880 Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children that is 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:25.120 currently before the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Reference Committee in 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.640 the Australian Federal Senate. I want to begin Amy by 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.800 just asking you briefly about what you think of the inquiry, 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.240 and I should mention that, in our professional capacities, both 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.559 Amy and I have submitted submissions to this inquiry. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.520 I think the first thought is that, obviously this inquiry 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:46.759 is in part influenced, We're supposed to be influenced by 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.520 the landmark Canadian Inquiry into Missing a Modern Indigenous Women, 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:54.760 which followed years of concerned advocacy from Aboriginal women and 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.680 families actually trying to break the silence about the huge 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.320 numbers of Aboriginal women over in Canada who were being 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.720 forcibly disappeared and which police were not investigating and the 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.919 state was not even considering a crisis. And yet over 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:12.520 here in Australia the issue is still shouted in silence, 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.880 even with the formation of the inquiry, and what we're 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.200 seeing is that there is very limited media coverage of 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:21.960 the inquiry, and even in the processes of an inquiry, 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.000 I don't get the feeling that they understand that it 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.920 is the crisis and that it deserves the attention that 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.880 it needs, which is unusual for a parliamentary inquiry. You know, 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:35.880 usually you would have details of the hearings. Usually you 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:38.960 would hear a lot more which is coming from the inquiry. 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:46.200 And yet here as is the continual debate around or 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.560 not debate, as the continuing conversation around the issue of 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:54.120 murther than forcibly disappeared Aboriginal woman, there is just silence. 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:58.280 And recently I looked into, you know, with an inquiry 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.960 in Queensland which we had on going into the racist 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.120 gendered violence of Queensland Police. There were over three hundred 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:10.919 news reports as that inquiry was ongoing. I counted the 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.959 media coverage of the Missing Amodian Indigenous Women's in Girls Inquiry, 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:19.000 which is a national federal parliamentary inquiry, and from November 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.239 twenty twenty one till only recently there was just over 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.040 fourteen years reports, which is shocking given what we are 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.280 currently seeing in communities where there are so many families, 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:30.800 so we're still missing their loved ones. And this is 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.280 the problem, is that the silence shrouding this issue is 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.360 actually allowing an environment in which perpetrators can continue to 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.760 target continue to target Aboriginal women. So it's an inquiry 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.480 of huge significance, and yet we're not seeing that merit 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.960 in the attention or the prominence that they're paying to 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.720 the inquiry. And I think it's really really concerning that 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.560 we're not seeing that focus that you know, we're currently 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:01.040 having a debate into the Voice to Parliament and yet 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.400 there's nothing on what communities are calling for in relationship. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:06.240 We really need to start looking at this issue of 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.440 the numbers of Aboriginal many girls and Aboriginal children and 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:13.640 Aboriginal people who have been forcibly disappeared in this country. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.479 There's just this devastating silence which characterizes it, and it's 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.920 a silence that the inquiry should be breaking, and yet 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.560 what we're seeing is that it's business as usual almost 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.120 and it's really distressing to think about that, you know, 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:30.040 the numbers of families who are out here are wanting answers, 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:35.679 and that their concerns are not being met with any 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.360 level of public outrage at all. And I think that's 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.320 what the most concerning part of it is. It's almost 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:45.080 like they don't think it's the crisis that it is, 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.080 you know what I mean? And so I think it 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.599 has been really concerning to think that there is just 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:55.720 so little public attention paid to what is a huge issue. 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:01.680 I think from my perspective, I began very hopeful that 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:04.720 this inquiry would, as you say, give a voice to 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:10.599 families and communities and try and get justice for the 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:15.640 victims and also work really hard to ensure this doesn't 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.960 keep happening at the rate that it does. But the 0:05:19.000 --> 0:05:24.320 first day of the inquiry we saw nobody who works 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:29.520 specifically in the area called this is in October twenty 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:36.000 twenty two, largely we saw academic criminologists talk about data 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:41.719 and data collection. You know, it's a small, very small 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.880 part of it, But that shouldn't have been the start 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:49.640 of an inquiry. I would have thought that centering the 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.320 victims and their families would have been the best approach 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.760 to begin. And then secondly we saw the calling of 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.600 the Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police and their 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:07.960 colleagues from the AFP various divisions, and again the questions 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:10.719 from all the senators across the board, from all the 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:15.839 political parties were around data collection and where that data 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:19.919 may or may not live up to the standards that 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:24.560 the AFP Missing Persons Center hopes to have on hand. 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:31.200 And even more bizarrely was a discussion about recruitment in 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.800 New South Wales with a partnership between Taife and the 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.440 AFP and New South Wales Police. I mean, this has 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:43.240 absolutely nothing to do with the issue on hand, And 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:47.159 when you're talking about hundreds of Aboriginal women and children 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:52.799 who have been forcibly disappeared missing and many who are murdered, 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.000 it clearly showed to me that the people who had 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.880 been called had no idea what they were talking about, 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.360 and reading through many of the submissions, quite frankly, they 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.360 were the same. It was very broad statements and comments 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:15.280 about black deaths in custody, around policing and the community, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:21.040 around representation, but absolutely nothing that really focused in other 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:25.960 than a handful of submissions on the actual issue at hand. 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:28.920 The other problem with the inquiry, of course, is that 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:32.360 not only has there not been a lack of media, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:39.520 we haven't seen enough sitting days in Canberra where families 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:44.640 can address the Senate and address the committee and share 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:50.200 their experiences and articulate to those committee members, how they've 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.080 been failed and who has failed them. I don't understand 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:57.000 who you can possibly call the AFP on the first 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:01.520 day without first having heard from the families to know 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:05.800 the appropriate questions to ask. So one thing I would 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:10.560 say very clearly is that the committee needs to reconvene 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:13.640 in Canberra, which they have We've been told they have 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:17.680 no plan to do and hear from the families directly 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:20.280 and those that assist them so that they can learn 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:25.160 where the failures are. And I think this is something 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.560 aiming you talk about a lot, is the fact that 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:33.760 victims and their families are all too often completely silenced 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:38.840 and this committee seems to be perpetrating that silence. Once again, 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:40.640 I was just wondering if you could talk to the 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.280 audience about the work you do and about that issue 0:08:43.320 --> 0:08:44.040 in particular. 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:47.080 Yeah, and I think you brought up such an important 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.680 comment in relation to the inquiry prioritizing the viewpoint of 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.200 the AFP or also, you know some of a lot 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.240 of the submissions from anti police and other police forces 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.720 which I think totally do not address the issue. For example, 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:02.800 and Police in their submission claim they didn't have any 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:06.880 currently any missing Aboriginal women in the territory at all, 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.920 which we know is totally false. But I think that's 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.440 part of the problem is that a police version of 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:17.120 events are being given prominence when we know that often 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.120 it's the police who are failing to investigate the deaths 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.360 and disappearances, and yet they they're shielded by this fake 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.240 benevolence as if they're continually searching, and we know that's 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.079 not true as well, but prioritizing the views of police 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.520 and these sort of authorities who have no understanding and 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.600 no honestly, I don't think they even care about black 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:37.360 women in order to search for them, because that's what 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.640 I'm seeing currently in a lot of the cases I'm 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:43.240 looking at. That further silences the voices of families because 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.280 if you have families coming and then speaking again about 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:50.760 their lived experience, that ultimately is downgraded below the version 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.520 of events put forward by police. So that's all example 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.439 of this the way aberage and women and families are 0:09:56.480 --> 0:09:59.120 being silenced in this country. Because silence is not just 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.920 about an absence of speaking, because we know Aboriginal families 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.520 have never stopped advocating for their loved ones. They're always 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.440 the ones there. They're the ones who go to the 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.440 police first trying to get information. They're the ones in 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.719 the courtroom, they're the ones always contacting the media. They're 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.840 the ones always there. And yet the issue is that 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.320 this overwhelming discourse, or the overwhelming ways that these stories 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:27.280 are spoken of, effectively silences them and invalidates their version 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:29.679 of events. And I think that's what we're seeing in 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.360 the inquiry as well, is that I think we've spoken 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:36.000 about it before. I don't think that they are fully 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.800 understanding the level of the crisis and what the crisis 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.040 actually is, because they're not going to the people who 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:44.600 can speak to that. They're not going to the families, 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:47.960 as you say, they're not. It's not an open process. 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.720 It doesn't seem to be. As you said before, we're 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:53.480 finding it hard to get information about the process, finding 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:56.360 it hard to get information about any future public hearings, 0:10:56.360 --> 0:11:01.199 which is unconscious conscionable in you know, other inquiries of 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.600 this importance, this level of importance, she wouldn't have that happened, 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:10.160 and so this is very I think the inquiry as 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.840 a whole is another example of how this issue is 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:16.560 being silenced. And also the terms of reference are very 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:20.400 focused towards castoral responses, so they're focused towards police reform. 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:22.720 And if I can just bring up the example of 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.040 the recent case of Monique Club whose inquest was held 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:30.280 in late twenty twenty two, and it ended with Minique, 0:11:30.760 --> 0:11:34.280 no answers for m Nique's family, no pressure on police 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.480 to continue to search for her. She has still disappeared, 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.480 but the only recommendations that came out of that coronial 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.880 process was more investment in police technology. So you saw 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.520 how the coronial process was always orientated not towards finding Monique, 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:51.800 but instead further criminalizing her and claiming she was responsible 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.280 for her own disapearance, but also allowing police to advocate 0:11:56.360 --> 0:12:00.160 for investments in certain technologies that would not have help 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.600 Monique or may not help other cases of Aboriginal women 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.520 who've been disappeared at all. And so that's the problem 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:10.640 with having hearings based on the word of the AFP 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.280 or the anti police without actually going first to the 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.360 voices of family, because if you don't know what is happening, 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.720 you don't know their experiences, you aren't going to ask 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.199 the right question. But what we're seeing out in QUO 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.080 is it doesn't seem to be any care for those 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.320 questions at all, you know what I mean. There's no 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.760 interrogation of police accounts, and it's you know, these solutions 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.120 that are being brought forward are literally just band aid solutions. 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.160 We're not going to have, you know, investment in police 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.000 resources and investment in things that are ultimately going to 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.000 end up surveiling and overincarcerating, particularly Aboriginal women more are 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.719 not the answer at all, you know what I mean. 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:49.280 So the failure to prioritize the voices of families and 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:53.440 the failure to prioritize the lived experiences of the Aboriginal 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.960 women who have died or disappeared is a real failure 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:00.400 and an exother example of this silence, which has stating 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:06.440 consequences for Aboriginal women across this country. Martin, I know 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.480 that you have also been working on a lot of 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.680 these cases, and you're not seeing those questions replicated in 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.360 the Acquirer or even asked of the inquiry. What do 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:17.600 you think of the other gaps that are missing in 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:18.840 the inquiry's focus. 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.200 One of the first things I look at, having worked 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:26.480 directly on missing persons cases for the past twenty years, 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:31.880 is that would the inquiry begin by not only calling 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:37.000 the families and their communities of Aboriginal women and children 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.640 who have been murdered or forcibly disappeared, but would they 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.280 talk to the people who do the work on the ground. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.920 And again we've seen a focus as I mentioned that 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:52.240 and as Amy discussed of first listening to the Australian 0:13:52.280 --> 0:14:01.800 Federal Police, then speaking to criminologists who work truly in 0:14:01.920 --> 0:14:06.160 the university space and don't work directly with families. And 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.679 then the third group who were called by the inquiry 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:15.600 to give evidence was employees, high ranking employees of the 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:21.760 Department of Social Services, the National Policy Branch, the Deputy 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:27.320 Secretary of Families and Communities. And immediately my years prick 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.840 up and I didn't have to wait long to see 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.520 the victim blaming. And what you saw in some of 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:40.920 their testimony was a lot of discussion around Aboriginal communities. Well, 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:45.000 that's not what we're talking about. There was this real 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.480 seems to be either deliberate or uninformed. It's the old 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.960 stupid or lawyar. It can only be one or the other. 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.680 From one of the witnesses, in particular from the Department 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.200 of Social Services that seemed to be pushing the blame 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:03.360 back on Aboriginal communities. I mean, this is absolutely absurd. 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.360 We've said it before and I'll say it again that 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.680 the inquest held last year in Queensland into three missing 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:18.640 Aboriginal women presumed murdered, the suspects, by police's owned admission, 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.800 are all middle aged white men. So none of this 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:26.280 data that they're supposedly coming up with, none of this 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:32.280 sort of liaising with Aboriginal communities about safety within the community, 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.480 and it was a particular focus on I think smearing 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:41.720 young Aboriginal men actually has anything to do with addressing 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.960 where the crisis stems from. And again, I think a 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:49.920 lot of this goes to the fact that the committee 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:54.520 has simply not done their research, which is unforgivable, and 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:58.960 has not spoken to the families and their communities to 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:04.240 understand where there might be some commonality between many of 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:09.160 the cases of women and children being murdered or forcibly disappeared, 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.320 and then they could have honed in on these things, 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.520 and there's some very clear areas where this could happen. 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:22.120 I mean, one thing we know about this approach where 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:27.560 they were focusing on Aboriginal communities is the potential for 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.720 this to cause and for the committee to hand down 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:37.960 recommendations that would see further over policing of Aboriginal communities. Now, 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.320 one thing we know for sure, and that the senators 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:43.920 would have known if they'd listened to those of us 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:48.840 who do the work or the families, is that many 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:52.320 of the women, and clearly some of the most vulnerable women, 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.440 are those who are exiting the justice system, who were 0:16:55.520 --> 0:17:00.280 leaving prison, usually for ridiculously small problems they should ever 0:17:00.320 --> 0:17:05.639 have gone to prison for in the first place. So 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:09.960 that's something I would have liked to addressed, because if 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:14.520 they want to take on broader issues, then over incarceration 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.919 directly leads into this issue. But you know, when you 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.080 call the police and do what too many in the 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.320 media do, which is take whatever the police say as 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:30.399 being the uncontested facts of the situation, then you're going 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.399 to walk away with the no answers or the wrong 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.680 answers being suggested. And there was definitely a pattern of 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.359 that in the opening days of the inquiry, and it 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.879 seems to have been formed that The other thing I 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.560 want to go back to is this issue around data collection. 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.280 I mean, for the purposes of the podcast. I'll keep 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:59.919 my language polite, but it is absolutely ridiculous. Who cares 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.800 whether the number is five hundred and fifty or five 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.120 hundred and fifty one, and the one is being excluded 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:10.320 because the police can't decide yet whether they categorize that 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.919 woman as missing. Her family doesn't know where she is, 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.879 She's at grave risk. Do your freaking job. 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:17.600 You know. 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:22.640 We see this rush by police when particularly people from 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:28.200 rich families, young white children go missing, that all resources 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.719 are made available and pushed out into the open and 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.119 the work is done. But what we're seeing when we 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:41.160 talk about this obsession with data and numbers is not 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.240 any way shifting the focus so that Aboriginal people get 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.400 that same level of care. It's just reducing people to stats. 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:55.280 And I do not understand why every single senator involved 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:02.720 spend hours upon hours wasting everybody's time about each state's stats, 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:07.240 how they collected it. The qualitative and quantitative disaster, I 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:11.760 mean data, which is a disaster given that you've got 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.719 the Northern Territory Police saying there is not a single 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.920 Aboriginal woman or child missing in the NT. Are they joking? 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.000 I mean, does anyone seriously believe that You only have 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:27.879 to look at the AFP's Missing Persons Center website to 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.840 see that they categorize a number of Aboriginal women and 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:36.840 children in the NT as missing presumed murdered. So why 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.359 wasn't that put to the Northern Territory police? How can 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.639 you be so obsessed by data that you call in 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.479 criminologists to discuss all of this and then failed to 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.600 say to the police sitting before you, how can you 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.840 possibly claim that in the Northern Territory there's not a 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:58.560 single missing or murdered, unsolved Aboriginal woman or child. And 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:02.359 that is insulting to the families. It is insulting to 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:06.280 those women and children. And that's partly why this issue 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:10.679 will continue to occur, because for the communities around the 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:15.840 country and the families impacted, it is an epidemic. For 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.320 the people in Canberra and the senators in particular, who, 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:24.520 let's not forget we pay their wages, very damn good wages. 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:29.600 It's just about going through the process, punching the clock, 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.960 talking about data, data collection and really not annoying anyone. 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.520 I mean, there were comments by some of the senators 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:41.560 about directly to the AFP Deputy Commissioner about the great 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:45.840 work the AFP does and could we see that replicated 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:50.720 across the country. I'm sorry, which case can they possibly 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.720 name where the AFP has done great work in this area. 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:58.400 All they were referencing was the fact that the AFP 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:03.080 had slightly prooved their data gathering. Again, it's got nothing 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:08.359 to do with assisting families, supporting families, getting justice and 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:13.200 most of all, finding preventative measures so that this doesn't 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.720 happen again and continue to happen. You know, one of 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.639 the things I find infuriating when people are talking about 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:24.160 looking at reviews of the data in three years time, 0:21:25.680 --> 0:21:28.680 knowing that that number that it currently sits at will 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:33.160 go up. Well, that's someone's family member, that's a mother, 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:35.240 that's a daughter, forget any of that. That is an 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:39.399 Aboriginal woman who is dead, and they worried about whether 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.560 that number will be recorded in a database that they 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.520 can access. Who cares whether you can access the number. 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.080 How about doing the work now to ensure that she 0:21:50.240 --> 0:21:54.119 is safe and she never comes to the harm that 0:21:54.400 --> 0:21:58.119 is going to occur by this lack of inaction. So 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:02.879 I think one of the problems too, that, as you said, Amy, 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:08.280 about the silencing is that the silencing leads to this 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:13.360 problem continuing and ensures that more Aboriginal women and children 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:19.520 will die at the hands of you know, terrible, bloody 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:23.040 individuals that the police know all too well who they 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.919 are and are not doing anything about it. And I 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:31.199 just cannot, for the life of me understand how the 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:35.560 senators don't care about that, how the mainstream media isn't 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:37.840 pushing them to care about that, and why the media 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:41.760 themselves don't care enough to even bother. If this was 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:45.160 an inquiry as we saw a few weeks ago into 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:48.560 interest rates, you best believe there would be a lot 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:51.640 more fuss, a lot more media coverage, and a lot 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:56.080 more impassioned police from politicians on behalf of their constituents. 0:22:56.680 --> 0:22:59.600 But so far on this issue, we just haven't seen that. 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:03.840 Yeah, And I think the other point to make, I mean, 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.880 just following on from the issue around data collection, is that, 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:11.080 as you mentioned before, it is so focused on police categorization, 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.000 and we've seen that needs to be interrogated as well, 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:19.360 because when a police when they consider a person missing, 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:23.440 the word missing comes with certain connotations, so it means 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:25.440 that you know, the police are still searching for them 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:27.080 when we know in a number of these cases, the 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:29.760 police have not done anything to search for them, or 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:33.440 they've closed their investigations far too early. And it also 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:36.439 suggests that these women may just suddenly turn up, you know, 0:23:36.480 --> 0:23:39.800 it may be their own responsibility. And there's this continual 0:23:39.880 --> 0:23:41.960 myth and I saw it perpetrated even by the Australian 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.000 Crime Commission a report I read where they were speaking 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:48.520 about the high rates of missing Aboriginal people maybe due 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:51.560 to transience, and we know that this issue around transience. Sure, 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:54.560 Aboriginal women travel around the country, but they are always 0:23:54.560 --> 0:23:57.639 connected to someone, They're always connected to their communities, a 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:01.720 lot of them always have children. Aboriginal families know when 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:03.760 someone is missing that it is if it's a high 0:24:03.840 --> 0:24:07.720 risk disappearance, and various concerns from Aboriginal witnesses on the 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:10.959 ground are never taken seriously by police and obscured by 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:14.120 these police categorizations. And then you have all of these 0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:16.480 deaths where bodies are found when they're not even considered 0:24:17.119 --> 0:24:20.119 soul play or suspicious deaths or murders, which is another 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:22.760 problem as well. So relying on the police to collect 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:25.680 that data, relying on police categorization, I think would be 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:28.080 another example of a second disappearance of a lot of 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:30.600 these women, and you'll find with the numbers that they'll 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:33.920 never have a full database because what we're seeing is 0:24:33.920 --> 0:24:35.840 that a lot of averagin and women who have died 0:24:35.960 --> 0:24:38.600 or disappeared are not even counted at all, and so 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:40.240 there needs to be a lot If they are looking 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:42.760 at data, they have to interrogate it a lot more 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:44.800 than they're currently doing, in which they've shown they are 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:48.080 inable to do, because they can barely start collecting the 0:24:48.160 --> 0:24:51.600 numbers now because they are so focused on the police. 0:24:51.600 --> 0:24:54.440 So I think there's a real problem with that focus 0:24:54.440 --> 0:24:56.480 on data in the way that it's been presented in 0:24:56.520 --> 0:24:59.040 the terms of reference, you know what I mean, and 0:24:59.080 --> 0:25:02.639 the lack of information about what's happening in the majority 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:05.600 of these cases as well. So I think there's a 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:09.560 clear example of a failure of the inquiry and as 0:25:09.600 --> 0:25:12.480 you say, a lack of care in actually understanding what 0:25:12.680 --> 0:25:13.720 is actually happening. 0:25:14.760 --> 0:25:18.760 That issue amy rays of transience and also the police 0:25:18.800 --> 0:25:25.160