Speaker 1: This is Curtain, a podcast where we expose the disappearances
Speaker 1: of Aboriginal people across this country. Shining a light on
Speaker 1: the darkest parts of our justice system. We ask who
Speaker 1: are the victims? I'm Ama Macquire and I'm.
Speaker 2: Martin Hodgson, Senior Advocate at the Foreign Prisoner Support Service.
Speaker 2: And a warning, this series contains the names of deceased
Speaker 2: people and includes distressing content that may upset some listeners.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Season two, Episode five of Curtain the Podcast.
Speaker 2: This week, we're going to continue our discussion about the
Speaker 2: Senate Inquiry into Missing and Murdered First Nations Women and Children.
Speaker 2: The inquiry began and was launched in November twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: and was supposed to report back to the Parliament by
Speaker 2: the thirtieth of June twenty twenty two, but it's since
Speaker 2: been extended to that same date thirtieth of June twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. As regular listeners will know, we've had a
Speaker 2: lot of criticisms about this inquiry, both in the way
Speaker 2: it's structured and the way it's been carried out. There's
Speaker 2: been very little information given or been heard from families
Speaker 2: of those whose loved ones are either missing, or murdered.
Speaker 2: There's also been a strange reaction from the inquiry as
Speaker 2: to any negative commentary, some of which has come from us,
Speaker 2: and also negative commentary that came in the form of
Speaker 2: the submissions to the inquiry themselves that a lot of
Speaker 2: the key issues were being completely ignored. The inquiry also
Speaker 2: heard initially largely from police, some academics researchers, but there's
Speaker 2: been almost nothing from those on the ground this week.
Speaker 2: On Tuesday, the twentieth of February twenty twenty four, there
Speaker 2: was another public hearing and it was held at the
Speaker 2: High Regency in Brisbane. Those heard were Karen Isles, the
Speaker 2: Queensland Police Service, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution,
Speaker 2: and then a panel discussion with family violence experts. So
Speaker 2: we're going to break down a lot of what was
Speaker 2: said this week and analyze how the Queensland Police in
Speaker 2: particular came to the inquiry. Our discussion around their involvement
Speaker 2: in this issue is critical because, as we've discussed in
Speaker 2: this podcast, Queensland is sadly a hotspot for forcibly disappeared
Speaker 2: and murdered Aboriginal women and children, and the Queensland response
Speaker 2: in every case we've looked at has been terrible. Amy
Speaker 2: was in the building on the day and the first
Speaker 2: witness was Karen Isles. Amy, can you tell me a
Speaker 2: little bit about what she said to the inquiry. Yeah.
Speaker 3: It should be known as well that the inquiry has
Speaker 3: public hearings so anyone can listen, including online, but then
Speaker 3: it has also in camera hearings which I assume with
Speaker 3: potentially members of families who have lost their loved ones
Speaker 3: to violence. So I was only able to attend the
Speaker 3: public hearing, but it was in the High Regency in
Speaker 3: Queen Street Mall in the heart of Brisbane, and the
Speaker 3: first witness was an Aboriginal woman named Karen Isles, who
Speaker 3: has been a really strong advocate for Aboriginal women who
Speaker 3: are victims of sexual violence because she is a victim
Speaker 3: survivor herself. And a few years ago now her story
Speaker 3: was actually reported on in The Guardian and it revealed
Speaker 3: a really shocking case of abject failure by both the
Speaker 3: Queensland and your South Wales Police who had failed for
Speaker 3: over a decade to investigate her case of sexual assault.
Speaker 3: She has been very vocal about and a trigger warning
Speaker 3: to our listeners. It was a gang rape when she
Speaker 3: was only a teen in nine ninety three, and she
Speaker 3: actually came forward in two thousand and four and reported
Speaker 3: it to meself. Wealth Police gave names photographs of her
Speaker 3: alleged attackers. Was quite detailed in what she was saying.
Speaker 3: Her statement was then forwarded to the Queensland Police and
Speaker 3: it literally was not followed through for over a decade
Speaker 3: until Karen went to the media. And so Karen has
Speaker 3: been a really really strong advocate for Aboriginal women who
Speaker 3: are victim survivors of family violence. So I was able
Speaker 3: to sit in a little on her testimony to the inquiry,
Speaker 3: which was incredibly strong, and so she was talking about
Speaker 3: the need for statutory minimum legislative standards across the country
Speaker 3: and her key pieces of testimony was about holding police
Speaker 3: account for breaches of their own standards, so that includes
Speaker 3: for their failure to interview victims when they destroy statements,
Speaker 3: which is something that happened in her own case. It
Speaker 3: came out that a statement had been destroyed. And she
Speaker 3: was talking about the need for independent investigators to investigate
Speaker 3: these really horrific cases, and she used specifically the language
Speaker 3: of abductions and sexual violence, and she was very clear
Speaker 3: in separating those form of violence from family violence, which
Speaker 3: I think is something really important. So she was specifically
Speaker 3: using the language of abduction, sexual assault, and murder of
Speaker 3: First Nations people. She really called on the inquiry and
Speaker 3: particularly the politicians to actually stand up against police unions
Speaker 3: and the police and come out in making changes that
Speaker 3: would support Aboriginal victims of murder and sexual assault and abduction.
Speaker 3: Basically her testimony, she was saying that she had been
Speaker 3: shut up and so she was fighting to really ensure
Speaker 3: that Aboriginal women's voices are brought out of those silences.
Speaker 3: And she spoke also of the need for a truth
Speaker 3: and Justice commission which would not be held by the police,
Speaker 3: but would actually be run by Aboriginal people, and it
Speaker 3: would be about Aboriginal women being able to give testimony.
Speaker 3: And I think one of the things that stood out
Speaker 3: to me was the fact she wanted to really focus
Speaker 3: on the police all across the country, but there was
Speaker 3: a lack, a clear lack of political will, not just
Speaker 3: in her cases, but a lot of the other cases
Speaker 3: of Aboriginal women who are victim survivors who she was
Speaker 3: advocating for. And just before she left, she actually appealed
Speaker 3: to the committee to actually hold the police to account.
Speaker 3: And that really stood out to me because when I
Speaker 3: went to the inquiry and I entered the hotel, I
Speaker 3: was really amazed to see that there was a really
Speaker 3: big police presence, so a really big presence from the
Speaker 3: QPS there that day, and it was contrasted with the
Speaker 3: WA Police. So when the inquiry went to Western Australia,
Speaker 3: the WA Police just didn't show up to the inquiry
Speaker 3: and it made the media. So the QPA, we're using
Speaker 3: a different strategy and they were putting on a show
Speaker 3: really and they had their lawyers there. There was all up.
Speaker 3: The delegation from the QPS was at least fifteen people
Speaker 3: and they really filled that room. And then afterwards they
Speaker 3: gave their testimony, which was vastly different obviously from Kareniles. Martin,
Speaker 3: you were listening as well from your own hometown self.
Speaker 3: What did you pick up firstly when you were listening
Speaker 3: to the QPS testimony.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one thing to point out is that
Speaker 2: Kareniles gave her evidence at nine am and that large
Speaker 2: delegation from QPS began at nine point thirty, So I
Speaker 2: just want to acknowledge her bravery as well in giving
Speaker 2: such powerful testimony with the police right there as she
Speaker 2: was making very sound criticism of them. It's not an
Speaker 2: easy thing to do. The QPS delegation, as Amy said,
Speaker 2: was quite large and among them was Assistant Commissioner Mark Kelly.
Speaker 2: So Detective Inspector Damien Hansen from the Homicide Group and
Speaker 2: the Crime Intelligence Command, and he's one of the most
Speaker 2: high profile detectives in all of Queensland. But a few
Speaker 2: years ago and I just want to give this his background,
Speaker 2: there was another inquiry looking back at the famous whiskeyer
Speaker 2: Go Go attack when fire bombing, when it was burnt
Speaker 2: down and many people were killed, and there was a
Speaker 2: new inquiry looking at where others involved and how the
Speaker 2: police handled that investigation. And even though it was decades old,
Speaker 2: the Inspector Damien Hanson, who was here on this day
Speaker 2: for this inquiry, made sure that one of his more
Speaker 2: junior officers didn't include in their submission to that inquiry
Speaker 2: any criticism of the police and instructed that they remove
Speaker 2: those criticisms from their report. And it was Sergeant Gray
Speaker 2: was his junior and this is what was reported then.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Gray said, Inspector Hanson told her and I quote
Speaker 2: that sort of material should not be included in a
Speaker 2: report from the police and that we would leave that
Speaker 2: to the journalists and police haters end quote. So that's
Speaker 2: the context of how he has come to address inquiries
Speaker 2: in the past and his sort of attitude. You can
Speaker 2: imagine the police didn't really address any of the criticisms
Speaker 2: that have been made in all of the submissions against them,
Speaker 2: both written and verbal. And I think more worrying to
Speaker 2: me than the fact that this is someone who has
Speaker 2: attempted to cover things up in a past inquiry and
Speaker 2: that only came to lie because media organizations fought for
Speaker 2: the opportunity to publish what he'd had redacted, and it
Speaker 2: took two years for that to happen. So immediately we
Speaker 2: have to ask what does he know? What is in
Speaker 2: the police files, the police recommendations internally that he has
Speaker 2: ensured didn't see the light of day at this inquiry.
Speaker 2: But something really stood out to me, and it sounds simple,
Speaker 2: but this was an answer he gave when he was
Speaker 2: asked about what happens when an Aboriginal woman or child
Speaker 2: is murdered. In particular, we're talking about homicide here, and
Speaker 2: what assistance is provided to the families. And this was
Speaker 2: his answer. Remember, he is a detective inspector providing transport
Speaker 2: and that what is that as an answer, and that
Speaker 2: providing transport and that he sounded like a complete moron.
Speaker 2: And this is not being critical for critical sake. We're
Speaker 2: talking about a detective inspector whose sole job is to
Speaker 2: solve homicides and when it comes to what assistance his
Speaker 2: organization can prove vied to the families and loved ones
Speaker 2: of those people, all they can say is transport and
Speaker 2: that that's an answer a six year old could give.
Speaker 2: And to me, that was what riddled the police submission
Speaker 2: to the inquiry, which was verbal, given that they hadn't
Speaker 2: provided a proper written submission. The other thing that really
Speaker 2: stood out to me, and having watched endless inquiries over
Speaker 2: the years into all sorts of issues, whether they be
Speaker 2: on domestic violence, the way that the AFP handles the
Speaker 2: arrests of Australians overseas, but also just on personal issues.
Speaker 2: I'm interested in climate change and other health issues for
Speaker 2: Aboriginal communities. I've never seen so many questions taken on
Speaker 2: notice as the QPS took unnotice because they simply couldn't
Speaker 2: provide the answers there, and then again that just shows
Speaker 2: how unprepared they are and just how lacking their knowledge
Speaker 2: is on this issue. And we're expecting that this organization
Speaker 2: that we know from recent internal reports and investigative journalism
Speaker 2: over the last few years alone, is riddled with misogyny,
Speaker 2: is riddled with homophobia, and is riddled with racism, and
Speaker 2: yet we're expecting them to care and solve the cases
Speaker 2: of missing and murdered First Nations women and children. And
Speaker 2: the fact that they had to take so many questions
Speaker 2: on notice because they didn't know the answers should shock people.
Speaker 2: They're supposed to be experts in solving these crimes. These
Speaker 2: are the people we pay millions and millions of dollars
Speaker 2: to and they couldn't answer anything. And when they did
Speaker 2: provide answers, largely it went to their own failings. But
Speaker 2: the way they combat that was to say they are
Speaker 2: implementing and I quote holistic training, And it was clear
Speaker 2: that they'd been worded up about all the latest buzzwords.
Speaker 2: They used the word holistic training over and over again.
Speaker 2: They used the term victim centric and coercive control over
Speaker 2: and over again, because they had nothing of substance to say.
Speaker 2: It's clear that anytime they were challenged about their failings,
Speaker 2: they simply discussed training that will take place in the
Speaker 2: future or the very limited one two day training that
Speaker 2: is currently given to their officers at the moment, and
Speaker 2: they couldn't really answer many questions about that training other
Speaker 2: than going back to saying it's holistic, it's victim centered,
Speaker 2: there was no substance. So for all the other things
Speaker 2: we've criticized Queensland Police about in terms of their racism,
Speaker 2: their negligence, their failure to even search for missing and
Speaker 2: murdered women and children, the way they treat the families,
Speaker 2: the institutionalized racism in this organization, the other thing that
Speaker 2: we can really take away this public hearing was just
Speaker 2: how little they know and how poorly they were prepared
Speaker 2: to answer questions. They've had, as we said, since November
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one to get ready for and they couldn't
Speaker 2: answer anything. Amy. What did you take away from their evidence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just a few things coming off that I would
Speaker 3: say they were poorly prepared, but also they were very
Speaker 3: well prepared, but obviously not to answer the questions that
Speaker 3: the inquiry posed to them. And one of the reasons
Speaker 3: I say that is because of the fact that the
Speaker 3: person who gave the opening statement and in fact the
Speaker 3: majority of the panel. So there was five QPS police
Speaker 3: officers on the panel, but then there was QPAS offices
Speaker 3: in the audience who are ready to stand up and
Speaker 3: give evidence if needed, but the majority of them were
Speaker 3: Aboriginal police officers, and there were Aboriginal police officers from
Speaker 3: the First Nation's Unit, which was a unit only set
Speaker 3: up in December twenty twenty three as a response to
Speaker 3: a task force, and so it is relatively new. And
Speaker 3: when the Aboriginal police officer who gave the opening statement spoke,
Speaker 3: he did not mention once really the cases of missing
Speaker 3: and murdered Indigenous women, which is the reason for the inquiry.
Speaker 3: And so the inquiry and the senators on the inquiry
Speaker 3: mentioned a couple of times, Oh, we want to extend
Speaker 3: our gratitude to the QPS for showing up, because their
Speaker 3: counterparts in WA didn't bother to show up, but they
Speaker 3: had actually shown up in order to deflect from their
Speaker 3: own failings and the fact that they're not willing to
Speaker 3: own up to what was happening and so I feel
Speaker 3: like the people on the panel there were the ones
Speaker 3: who were so ill equipped to actually give answers about
Speaker 3: why there is a crisis of missing or what we
Speaker 3: call disappeared Aboriginal women, and that was a clear tactic
Speaker 3: from the QPS. But I also want to say is
Speaker 3: that they didn't really even need to be prepared because
Speaker 3: one of the things that I was most shocked at
Speaker 3: was the questions coming from the inquiry, and I was
Speaker 3: reflecting on it afterwards. I was thinking, if you had
Speaker 3: a parliamentary inquiry into black deaths in custody, for example,
Speaker 3: you may have a lot of stupid questions maybe around
Speaker 3: like deflecting questions around incarceration, rather than looking at the
Speaker 3: actual issue of violence against Black men, women and children
Speaker 3: in custody. But I feel that the inquiry would still
Speaker 3: be focused on the issue of black deaths in custody,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. But in this inquiry, what
Speaker 3: I found most horrific is that there was no focus
Speaker 3: on the actual fact of disappeared Aboriginal women in Queensland.
Speaker 3: And as I'm sitting there, you know, knowing that this
Speaker 3: is a real crisis, it was almost like I was
Speaker 3: sitting in just some random inquiry, you know, and the
Speaker 3: majority of people there are white people, and there's just
Speaker 3: that feeling of they have no understanding that this is
Speaker 3: an issue, you know, and you mentioned before at the
Speaker 3: start might and that you know, this inquiry has been
Speaker 3: going for two or three years. There were no questions
Speaker 3: about how many numbers of Aboriginal women have been disappeared,
Speaker 3: how many numbers of Aboriginal women have been murdered, how
Speaker 3: many cases have been solved. Last week we talked about
Speaker 3: response times, police response times. What was your response time to,
Speaker 3: for example, Constance May, what you watch you compared to
Speaker 3: Allison biden Clay, who is a really high profile case
Speaker 3: in Brisbane. What was your response to testing the forensics
Speaker 3: of other cases compared to cases of non white victims.
Speaker 3: There was just none of that, And I feel one
Speaker 3: of the reasons is because there is an inability or
Speaker 3: a refusal to acknowledge the racial engendered nature of policing,
Speaker 3: which is honestly outrageous because we have literally just had
Speaker 3: an inquiry into the racism and misogyny ingrained in the
Speaker 3: QPS only just recently, which on that very same day
Speaker 3: the inquiry was sitting in Brisbane. We saw the Queensland
Speaker 3: Police Commissioner announce her resignation, Katriana Carrol, and that is
Speaker 3: directly tied to that inquiry and her being pushed out
Speaker 3: of the QPS as that figurehead role. And so I'm
Speaker 3: really just like sitting going through my notes reflecting on
Speaker 3: what I heard. I feel like I didn't hear anything
Speaker 3: because they didn't say anything, you know what I mean, Martin,
Speaker 3: Did you want to pick up anything from that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think And I may just raised
Speaker 2: something that I really should have pointed out, which was
Speaker 2: you could have sat in that entire inquiry on that
Speaker 2: day in the High Regency and not realized that this
Speaker 2: was an inquiry into missing and Aboriginal women and children.
Speaker 2: The issue was barely addressed, that the terms of the
Speaker 2: inquiry were barely addressed. There was no I think there
Speaker 2: was one or two names raised by the senators asking
Speaker 2: the questions of missing and murdered Aboriginal women and children.
Speaker 2: One thing that appalled me. I won't name the person
Speaker 2: who got it wrong, but when discussing miss you completely
Speaker 2: got who people will know died in police custody. They
Speaker 2: got the circumstances and even the state where it happened.
Speaker 2: Completely wrong. But as Amy said, really appropriately, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: have known that this is what it was about. If
Speaker 2: it was about death in custody, you would have had
Speaker 2: that term over and over again. If this was an
Speaker 2: inquiry into climate change, for example, you would have heard
Speaker 2: from you would leading scientists in the area and real
Speaker 2: discussion about that topic. As Amy said too. You know
Speaker 2: last week we talked about response times, but not a
Speaker 2: single senator asked any of the questions about Constance wat
Speaker 2: Show or Monique Club's disappearance and murder. In the case
Speaker 2: of Constance wat Show that has not been solved. Monique
Speaker 2: Club has never been found. This is the exact issue
Speaker 2: we're talking about. It happened in Brisbane. They were in
Speaker 2: Brisbane and they didn't ask about it. They didn't ask
Speaker 2: why when Monique was reported missing in Brisbane, her mother
Speaker 2: reported in Harvey Bay because that's where she lives. Was
Speaker 2: it handled by the Harvey Bay police they're not in Brisbane.
Speaker 2: That could have been a simple question that goes to
Speaker 2: how the police tackle this issue, But not a single
Speaker 2: one of the senators were prepared. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think this is something that some people on the Left
Speaker 2: are going to have to come to grips with, which
Speaker 2: is the fact that there was three Green senators that
Speaker 2: I'm aware of, that were taking part, and not one
Speaker 2: of them asked a single decent question, and one of
Speaker 2: them thanked very enthusiastically the DPP for showing up and
Speaker 2: what a great team they had. These are the people
Speaker 2: who overcharge Aboriginal Terrostrait Islander people every single day, and
Speaker 2: who had done that to Miss Bernard, to Constance Watcho,
Speaker 2: to Manique Club, all of whom died soon after being
Speaker 2: released from custody. So the victims of this epidemic of
Speaker 2: misogynistic and racist violence are simply forget victim centric as
Speaker 2: the cops claim, they're not present at all, and Amy's
Speaker 2: work centers on presencing the victims and their families, and
Speaker 2: that simply didn't happen. And the other key part, as
Speaker 2: Amy said too, is there was a number of First
Speaker 2: Nations officers brought onto the panel who clearly, through no
Speaker 2: fauld of their own, have never worked in this area
Speaker 2: and said as much themselves, So why were they there
Speaker 2: other than to be frank, to be window dressing. And
Speaker 2: then one of the worst aspects the Assistant Commissioner talked
Speaker 2: about One of the worst aspects of his testimony was
Speaker 2: his discussion of indigenously Hazon officers who work with the QPS,
Speaker 2: and basically when it came to any discussions of difficulties
Speaker 2: communicating with families, he threw the ILOs under the bus
Speaker 2: and said they're often not involved because of conflicts of interest,
Speaker 2: family fighting inside Aboriginal communities, disagreements between families. It was
Speaker 2: all crap, But rather than take any responsibility, he took
Speaker 2: the lowest level people in the entire organization who are
Speaker 2: black and threw them under the bus and then brought
Speaker 2: black faces in to wash over the fact that his
Speaker 2: organization never solves these cases and is largely responsible for
Speaker 2: the fact that a they occur in the first place,
Speaker 2: the over policing and overcharging of Aboriginal women and children
Speaker 2: and making them so vulnerable in the first place, and
Speaker 2: then do nothing to find them when they go missing,
Speaker 2: let alone when they're murdered. So I just think the
Speaker 2: fact that the senators were not able to not only
Speaker 2: not lay a glove on these police, but were practically
Speaker 2: clapping them along or too unprepared to ask them a
Speaker 2: single appropriate question really raises questions about how useful this
Speaker 2: inquiry is to begin with, and whether it is worth
Speaker 2: the trauma of the families who do give evidence, And
Speaker 2: obviously we know of families who have decided not to
Speaker 2: because it is too traumatic for their men. Quite frankly,
Speaker 2: I don't think it's worthwhile.
Speaker 3: Oh, I would definitely agree with Mardin and all of
Speaker 3: your points. I think the other thing to mention as
Speaker 3: well is that it's not that they haven't had people
Speaker 3: approaching the inquiry to explain the connections, for example, between
Speaker 3: police over surveillance and over criminalization and the violence inflicted
Speaker 3: upon Aboriginal women and then the targeting, the direct targeting
Speaker 3: of Aboriginal women, which is what we have seen particularly
Speaker 3: in Queensland. And I would just say that just to
Speaker 3: make it clearer to our listeners, that Martin and I
Speaker 3: both submitted separate submissions to the Inquiry into Missing Medeness
Speaker 3: Women and Girls. Mine was with Sisters Inside and ICRR,
Speaker 3: which is an organization looking at issues of race up
Speaker 3: here in Brisbane. Martin did his submission based on his
Speaker 3: extensive experience working in cases like this, and none of
Speaker 3: us were approached to give evidence based on that submission.
Speaker 3: I'd previously given evidence around the bearable case that that
Speaker 3: was really just I was given and hours noticed that
Speaker 3: was an in relation to the submission I had joint orfored.
Speaker 3: And at no point in time has Mardin been approached
Speaker 3: by the inquiry to talk about these really interconnected issues
Speaker 3: and how the police is contributing to the crisis of
Speaker 3: disappeared Aboriginal women. And that's the other thing that I
Speaker 3: was thinking as I sat there, is that they're not
Speaker 3: looking at the police as complicit and allowing the conditions
Speaker 3: in which Aboriginal women are continually disappeared to continue. There's
Speaker 3: no connection between that, even as the QPS has been
Speaker 3: under fired by two separate inquiries as to their handlings
Speaker 3: of domestic violence cases and around racism and misogyny in
Speaker 3: their own force. So this is something that the QPS
Speaker 3: have continually been under investigation for and yet there was
Speaker 3: no mention of that really in the inquiry. And the
Speaker 3: most heated part of it with the QPS was when
Speaker 3: Green Senator David Chubridge started questioning the QPS about their
Speaker 3: numbers of First Nations officers and obviously it's woefully low,
Speaker 3: as we would expect very very low, and he asked
Speaker 3: for a breakdown of based on seniority and position. And
Speaker 3: as I listened to that as well, I thought, well,
Speaker 3: it's great to have those statistics, I guess, but what
Speaker 3: good is that going to do, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: And I kept thinking, you know, the police are not
Speaker 3: the answer, because the police are directly complicit. So if
Speaker 3: you think the answer to this is getting more black
Speaker 3: cops in these positions, you're going down the completely wrong
Speaker 3: road because you do not understand what is actually happening
Speaker 3: in so many of these cases. So I just at
Speaker 3: this point, I'm at a loss to see what the
Speaker 3: inquiry will actually come back with. And I'm not just
Speaker 3: at a loss, I'm actually really really worried about what
Speaker 3: it is going to publish.
Speaker 2: In a sense, just to pick up something I Amy
Speaker 2: just said about what sena does. Shoe Bridge asked and
Speaker 2: talking about bringing more Aboriginal officers into the keps and
Speaker 2: a lot of this is framed around the fact that
Speaker 2: and on the day there was a very big focus
Speaker 2: about centering the blame for why this occurs inside Aboriginal communities,
Speaker 2: and then the afternoon was spent talking to family violence
Speaker 2: and domestic violence experts. But here's the problem. Miss Bernard,
Speaker 2: who was murdered in Queensland and whose inquest we've discussed
Speaker 2: on this podcast, has seen the recent arrest of a
Speaker 2: white man for her disappearance and murder. Monique Club who
Speaker 2: we've talked about on this podcast, who went missing in
Speaker 2: Queensland and whose inquest wrapped up recently. All the prime
Speaker 2: suspects are white. Constance may watchhow also in Brisbane, where
Speaker 2: this inquiry took place, was murdered and her body has
Speaker 2: been found, but nobody has been in charge. The chief
Speaker 2: suspects are all white. The Baureville Children, who we've spoken
Speaker 2: about before on this podcast, who's closest capital city would
Speaker 2: be Brisbane, and who the senators should know about. The
Speaker 2: chief suspect in the murder of not one, not two,
Speaker 2: but three Aboriginal children is white. So what is all
Speaker 2: this addressing of family violence? Yes, of course it is
Speaker 2: an enormous issue in Australia, but it's being used as
Speaker 2: a deflection at the moment for police failure And what
Speaker 2: it further does, and what I worry this inquiry will
Speaker 2: see is that they will pinpoint it on this issue
Speaker 2: when it's clearly not the main factor. Does it play
Speaker 2: a role, yes? Is it the leading issue? Absolutely not,
Speaker 2: as the cases we've discussed show. And my worry is
Speaker 2: that this inquiry will see recommendations that continue the over
Speaker 2: policing of Aboriginal communities and the continued victy and blaming
Speaker 2: of Aboriginal women who do report violence against them, and
Speaker 2: see further victims end up inside the prison industrial complex
Speaker 2: in this country. And if that is what happens and
Speaker 2: comes out of this inquiry, then the senators involved should
Speaker 2: and must be held accountable. This episode was brought to
Speaker 2: you by Black Cast and produced by Clint Curtis. For more,
Speaker 2: you can visit us at www dot Curtain podcast dot com,
Speaker 2: follow us on Twitter at Curtain Podcast, and help to
Speaker 2: support our work at Patreon dot com backslash Curtain Podcast