WEBVTT - Digging Deeper into the Data 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:01.760 Good. 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.440 Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:08.840 verdicts against all three defendants. 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:12.039 It was absolutely shambles to day the truth just absolutely 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:12.600 really honous. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.160 Blood on his clothing the day after the alleged a. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:16.960 Top on a shallow mud bank and it fits through 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.079 a river. Basically, I think most of the people are 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:19.639 used to me. 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:20.960 Are good people. 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.640 I think a really important question we need to ask 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.720 is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent. 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:30.280 This is Curtain, a podcast where we pulled back the 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:32.800 blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.600 our justice system and ask who are the victims. I'm 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.200 Amy Maguire and I'm. 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:43.400 Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.520 And a warning, this series contains the names of deceased 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:52.400 peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners. 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.640 Welcome to Curtain the podcast. Today we're going to continue 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.520 talking about a topic that has been a theme throughout 0:01:00.680 --> 0:01:04.000 the history of this podcast, and it relates to the 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:09.839 crisis surrounding disappeared Aboriginal women. There's currently an inquiry into 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.000 missing a murdered Indigenous women and Girls underway in the 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:17.479 Australian Senate, but through conversations Martin and I have had 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.679 over the past few months, we're starting to realize that 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:23.679 there are a lot of gaps in the conversations around 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.280 this issue, and we're going to discuss some of those today. 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:31.920 One of the issues comes down to data. Currently, we 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.440 just do not have a national data set that tells 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:38.640 us the numbers of missing a murdered Indigenous women across 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:42.360 state and territories. That's part of the terms of reference 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:45.720 of the Senate Inquiry, and I just wanted to start 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:47.920 by bringing up an article that had to do with 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:51.400 the Senate Inquiry, which is published in August on The 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:56.000 Guardian and the Inquiries. The article said the inquiry is 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:59.280 expected to hold hearings in every state and territory, and 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:02.120 in particular to focus on regional and remote areas where 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:05.520 Indigenous people are missing at higher numbers. Now that's an 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:08.560 a fact that's included in the terms of reference, but 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.080 that idea that there will be a focus on regional 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.480 and remote areas because Indigenous people are going missing at 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:19.880 higher numbers in this area is sort of accepted uncritically. 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:23.840 But what we've found as we've researched these issue is 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.400 that we have to interrogate absolutely everything we know about 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.720 what is currently happening in Australia around the targeting of 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:34.560 Aboriginal women for violence, and Martin, I just wanted to 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:39.920 start by asking you that idea that Indigenous people are 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.440 going missing at higher rates in regional and remote areas, 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.920 is there any evidential basis for that or what have 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.560 you found when looking at this issue. 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:53.520 I think there's been a natural assumption in reporting and 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:58.400 conversation that that's the fact. But as we've discussed over 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.400 the years of doing this podcast, so much of the 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.960 information on these issues is either simply not available or 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:10.200 it's completely inaccurate. So a few weeks ago I wanted 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.240 to sit down and try and crunch the numbers and 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:16.440 work out what the truth was as best as we 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:21.840 can understand it with what's available. And the AFP keeps 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:27.120 the most comprehensive list of missing and potentially murdered people 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.840 in Australia. What makes it a little bit difficult is 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.440 they do not have a category for Indigenous people, so 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.440 you have to go through every single individual to try 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:45.520 and get an idea of basically whether the person is 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.960 Aboriginal or not in the first place, and then start 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:53.720 to look into their circumstances. But basically what I found 0:03:54.000 --> 0:04:00.920 was that if you remove historic cases we're talking some 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.760 are back to the nineteen twenties, and if you remove 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:10.240 the data from Australians who are missing overseas, you basically 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:15.800 find that despite Aboriginal entirestrat island to people making up 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.800 three point two percent of the population, more than twenty 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:26.839 percent of women missing in Australia are Aboriginal. Then when 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:31.479 you start to look at the individual cases, sixty percent 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:36.160 of all those Aboriginal women who are missing are missing 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:39.480 from an urban area. And the way I categorized an 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:44.200 urban area was a town or city larger than twenty 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:48.159 five thousand people. So this is not small towns, this 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:53.400 is not really certainly not rural and remote, that's for sure. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:05:01.120 And that's sixty percent. So this idea, that article makes 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.880 this statement, it's just it's actually factually incorrect when you 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.279 start to dig down into the numbers, and I think 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:10.640 it points to a bigger issue, which is that we 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.359 don't have a data set of any kind from which 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:20.359 to work. No one has ever taken the time and 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.800 I think this is a huge failing of the Australian 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:27.400 Federal Police, who have the resources and the information to 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:31.480 do this, to sit down and work this out, and 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.160 it's simply never been done. I mean the fact that 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:38.880 they have listed in their database everything from eye color, 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:43.560 hair color and things like that, but they don't have 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:47.880 it listed whether the woman who is missing or forcibly 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:52.960 disappeared is Aboriginal. There's nothing about their ethnicity. In fact, 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:57.320 even more disturbing was there is a category for ethnicity, 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:02.359 but it's never used for its Aboriginal people. And it 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:07.760 seems to me that that is pure laziness because in 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:12.799 a lot of the descriptive text in each individual's case file, 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.480 they will list that the person is Aboriginal. So they 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:22.280 simply just haven't gone and added it to the way 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:27.240 they categorize people now. So for anyone whether it's a journalist, 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.880 a student doing PhD work, the family members trying to 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:36.640 raise more information, anyone who might have seen the person 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.279 and gone and logged on to try and find is 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:45.440 that person missing. It might be healthcare worker, someone in 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:50.279 a hospital, someone at a women's refuge. They're actually making 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.839 it very difficult for them to find who that person 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:58.800 is that they may have seen or encountered. So yeah, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.880 there's a huge amount of issues in first the assumption, 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.440 the lack of a data set, and then the way 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.560 that data is being put together. 0:07:09.720 --> 0:07:11.880 And Marnin, I just wanted you to explain to our 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:17.040 listeners that AFP data. What does it incorporate is that 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:23.160 all missing persons reports across states and territories or when 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.640 you're looking at it, what are these cases or who 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:26.560 are these cases? 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.320 Yes, so it includes nearly one thousand men, women, and 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:34.200 children who are missing. To find the figure I did. 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:36.760 What I did was first narrow it down to women. 0:07:37.480 --> 0:07:42.680 Basically there is no protocol as to how they maintain 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:47.800 the list, but the majority of the people on the list, 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.600 if you remove those who are missing overseas or the 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.680 historical cases, are people who have been missing for a 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.560 year or more in all states and territories. 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.000 Which is so it's likely something has happened to them 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.640 because they haven't been found for a certain length of time. 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:05.760 Is that the suggestion? 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:11.880 Well, yeah, absolutely, I think there is suspicion around their disappearance. 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.560 As people know, ninety percent of cases are resolved very 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:22.240 quickly and it usually involves either family finding the person, 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.960 maybe a school, local law enforcement. But these are all 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.920 cases that have been elevated to a national level because 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:34.319 there has been no resolution and generally there is an 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:39.079 element of suspicion as to how that person disappeared. 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.160 And I just wanted to bring up for our listeners 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.880 and many many people might notice that, you know, counting 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:50.160 the numbers of disappeared Aboriginal women was central to understanding 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.960 the severity of the crisis over in Canada when in 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.000 twenty ten the Native Women's Association of Canada found five 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.080 hundred and eighty two cases and that continued to rise 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:02.040 through PhD research by Maryanne Pierce, and then the Royal 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:05.960 Canadian Mountain Police had done a report and found one 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.440 one hundred and eighty one cases. And I also wanted 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.000 to raise the example of this was also the case 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.000 in the Mexican border city of Sudad Jurez, where they 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.480 began counting in nine ninety three, and so actually finding 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.160 the numbers can illustrate the severity of the crisis. And 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.880 yet we've started a national inquiry where we have no 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:29.920 understanding of the data set. What does that mean for 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.640 you know, the future of this inquiry mardinal or what 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.599 sort of stepbacks does it pose for us when we 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:40.720 just sort of I really feel we're in the initial 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:43.480 stages of really understanding what is happening in this country 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.600 around the active disappearing of Aboriginal women. 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.680 I think there's one clear stand I mean, there's a 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.800 lot of problems I think that stem when you start 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:57.160 without knowing the basic facts and figures. But to me, 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.200 a lot of it goes to that quote where it 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:06.360 says that the majority are missing from rural and remote areas. Now, 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:12.280 from my initial investigation, that's wrong, and so we start 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.920 looking in the wrong areas. We are going to spend 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:20.040 this whole inquiry and all this effort looking in the 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.360 wrong place. Now, sure some benefit will come from it, 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.720 but if we are not focusing on where the worst 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:33.520 part of the problem is and understanding why if the 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.400 assumption is wrong, what is making that assumption wrong? And 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:43.800 also there is a disappearing of these Aboriginal women in 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:47.840 the process. So if we already know that sixty percent 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.960 are missing from urban areas, but the focus is on 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:55.720 rural and remote, once again we are missing them in 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:58.280 the work that is being done at a national level, 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:03.040 and we are missing they are being forcibly disappeared and 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:08.280 going missing the circumstances, and also, I think the commonality 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:12.120 of what is going on here and if we miss that, 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.720 then we will revisit this issue in a generation. Having 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:20.320 watched the figures climb, And again, I think it's really 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.680 important when we talk about all this that when we 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.440 talk about facts and figures, we're talking about human beings, 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:30.600 and we're talking about Aboriginal women who are missing, most 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.079 likely deceased, and their families have absolutely no answers. There's 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.840 never been any justice, and I don't think it's acceptable 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:42.840 that we head down a path where we are potentially 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.600 getting it so wrong and we are failing these women 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:49.560 and we're failing their families because we haven't done the 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.160 initial work and it's hard work to do, but it 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.280 has to be done or we're just going to end 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.400 up in the same place in thirty years time. And 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.360 I think one thing we know from looking at a 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:07.840 lot of these cases, speaking to the families is where 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.000 and how they've been failed. And there's a lot of commonalities. 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:16.560 And one of those commonalities starts at the very beginning 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:21.880 of this podcast, when a solicitor in Rockhampton over the 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:26.800 murder of Linda approached the police and the police officer replied, 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:31.040 And this solicitor approached the police because someone had confessed 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.080 to them, And the police officer replied, we've got a 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:39.439 black for a black and that was in a town 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.079 larger than twenty five thousand people. This is not rural 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.400 and remote. This is the cops showing what they always do, 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:51.000 no care about the truth, no care about getting justice. 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:56.920 And from that we saw a family never get answers, 0:12:57.360 --> 0:12:59.960 never get justice, and the wrong man spend thirty year 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.280 in prison for a crime he didn't commit. And that 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.480 is the risk we take if we don't know what 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.000 we're looking at when we begin. 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.439 And I just wanted to draw more into that, Martin, 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.000 because I know that we had You know, you and 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.640 I both have been sort of working on individual cases 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.680 and listening and understanding these stories before you began looking 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.320 at the data set. And one of the things we 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:25.880 sort of looked at and began I thought hypothesizing, was 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.880 that a lot of Aboriginal women were being disappeared away 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.040 from their home communities, and that was something we were 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:35.720 just thinking through looking at the stories of the women. 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:37.800 And I know you talked about this a lot. What 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:39.800 did you find when you looked at that data set? 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.320 Was that's something else that emerged through numbers? 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:48.520 Yeah? Absolutely, I mean, and it's a very scary statistic, 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:53.280 which is that so we have sixty percent of Aboriginal 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:57.440 women going missing in urban areas in populations twenty five 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:04.520 thousand people or more, but the vast, vast majority in 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.880 excess of eighty percent. And I don't want to put 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:12.080 a specific figure on it because the information that the 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:16.079 AFP is limited in quite a number of cases, making 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:21.000 determinations impossible. But at the minimum, we're talking about eighty 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:26.120 percent of women disappearing from a community, a town, a 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:31.160 city other than their own, and I think that is 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:36.800 something far more illustrative of what's going on than whether 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:40.960 they are been missing or forcibly disappeared from a rural 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.800 and remote area, from a small town, a large town, 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:49.440 or a city. Is that the women are away from home, 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:54.560 away from their community. And I think this also goes 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:56.600 to a lot of the reporting, and this is where 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.160 we have to be super critical of the media, which 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:05.000 is that the Four Corners report that came out relied 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:10.360 very heavily on media reports. Well, that presupposes that the 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.480 media even bothered to care about reports of a missing 0:15:14.600 --> 0:15:20.200 or murdered Aboriginal woman in their area now, particularly in 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.920 anywhere outside of probably Sydney or Melbourne. But even then, 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:29.560 the media ignore these examples all the time. So much 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.200 of the media is just a copy and paste job 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.800 of a police press release where the police barely speak 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:42.600 to the families. So we're missing a huge amount of 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:48.120 what's going on. And the reaction to that report by 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.600 four corners from and you know, there's no point mincing 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:56.040 around the right wing media. A number of well known 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.720 racists like Andrew Bolt in the media was to shift 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:06.000 the focus and start talking about dysfunction in Aboriginal communities. Well, 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:09.240 the facts just don't bear it out. I mean, he 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:12.520 was successfully sued over getting facts wrong and he's doing 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.160 it once again, which is that you can't blame small 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:21.680 Aboriginal communities when the facts very clearly show that sixty 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.320 percent of the women who are missing or forcibly disappeared 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:31.200 are going missing from large towns and cities, not Aboriginal communities, 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:34.840 and at least eighty percent are going missing from a 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.480 place that is not their community or their home. So 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:44.240 once again we're seeing this the focus being directed by 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:49.360 people with often ulterior motives and or ignorance, and it's 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.560 shifting us to places where it's not that the facts 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.120 just don't back it up. And again that means we 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.520 run the risk of getting this very wrong if we 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:00.720 listen to those people. 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:03.480 Yeah, and I would just like to add as well, 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.080 like when we're talking about this AFP data, it's this 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.359 police categorization of missing persons, So we're not looking even 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.160 at the stories of Aboriginal women who have been found 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.479 and who have been killed or whose deaths might not 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:19.639 have even been investigated as potential commicides as well. So 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.080 we're actually even just at the tip of the iceberg 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.560 in understanding this. But already you've shown that where we're 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:28.400 going or the common assumptions and how it's being reported 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.760 is drastically different to what the reality actually is on 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.840 the ground where you're having Aboriginal women vulnerable, particularly when 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.879 they're away from their communities in urban centers. And I 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:41.560 also wanted to ask about, you know, this link between 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:46.440 criminalization and the victimization of Aboriginal women, like I see 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:50.480 a direct continuum and often Aboriginal women are away from 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:54.000 their communities because they have been criminalized, they've been incarcerated, 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.880 and maybe they've just gotten out. So even though we've 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.360 got this early data looking at the AFP, we've also 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.440 got all of these other subsets we have to look 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:07.040 at in what's happening, And it feels almost overwhelming because 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.760 there is nothing at all in which to start interrogating 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:14.040 what we're starting to see emerge from inquests and emerge 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.679 from cases in their mind, and like, there's just you know, 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.920 to me, it shows that Aberiginal women are incredibly vulnerable 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:25.840 to perpetrators when they're away, you know. But we're just 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.000 really at the beginning. And when you talk about four corners, 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.040 and you know, you talk about the way that this 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:36.679 issue is being reported on, focusing on family violence, the 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:38.880 way that viting media are looking at it at three 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:44.960 prisms of pathologization and dysfunction, it's taking us further and 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.440 further and further away from actually understanding the core issues 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.520 and what is making Aboriginal women vulnerable and what are 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:54.480 these conditions of impunity and how are the police supporting 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.639 those conditions and the state. So it just feels, you know, 0:18:57.680 --> 0:18:59.480 When you see that and you consider all the other 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.400 factors that come into play, it feels really overwhelming, doesn't it. 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:08.040 Yeah, absolutely, And I think it must be particularly overwhelming 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:12.960 for the families watching this happen knowing that the discussion 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:18.280 is taking place in a way that is completely different 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:22.679 to what their experience is. And their experience is the experience. 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:27.879 There isn't any other one that's it. They're the victims 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.560 of all of this. They're the ones left behind without 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:35.320 answers and everything you just said we can back up 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.520 with facts. So this morning, to explain to our listeners, 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.680 I shared a photo with Amy that was taken from 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:47.240 a database of all missing women in the state of 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:52.000 Queensland in a ten year period, and all the photos 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.919 of the non Indigenous women are happy family photos, the 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.040 sort of photos you would expect to be shared when 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:03.560 a person goes missing. The photos shared by the police 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:11.080 of the Aboriginal women, all of them in prison uniform. Now, 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.560 I think immediately that tells you where the police attitude is. 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:19.280 It also tells me, having worked on hundreds of missing 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:22.520 persons cases, that they never asked the family for a 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.600 photo because they didn't care. And so it goes to 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:30.280 the dehumanization. It also shows us something very clear which 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.440 goes to the fact that we're talking about Aboriginal women 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:38.280 going missing from urban centers, which is that these three women, 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:42.480 we know their cases quite well, we've spoken to i 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:47.320 think between us all their families, that they had been 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:51.359 heavily criminalized and not thought we're not talking about any 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.360 serious crime, and the fact that they are still being 0:20:55.400 --> 0:21:00.359 criminalized in their disappearance and potential murder is really sick. 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:05.200 And that dehumanization, I think goes into how the media 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:09.520 reported how much effort the police go to, but also 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.479 what it shows to us is how much danger they 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:17.320 were put in by the state and by the police. 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:22.320 So to give an example is that obviously if you've 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.720 been in prison, and that's the photo they're going to use. 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:30.480 What we also know is that many of these women 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:35.680 are going missing relatively soon after they're being released. Because 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.520 they're being released with no support, they're not able to 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:43.480 return to their community. Many people from regional and remote 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.760 areas are simply dumped in the city where they were 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:52.840 serving their time, and this makes someone incredibly vulnerable. They've 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:57.479 just gone through a very traumatic experience having been in prison, 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.320 been away from their family, are now potentially in a 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:05.600 city where they know nobody, They have no access to 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:13.000 financial resources, they have no access to any support, and 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:16.679 this is when predators swoop in. And I think this 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.640 is the other thing that we have to address absolutely 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:24.920 immediately that counters the narrative of both the ignorant and 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.320 much of the right wing, which is that these murders 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:32.399 are being carried out by other Aboriginal people. Well, in 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:37.600 the three cases we're speaking about in Queensland, prime suspects 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:40.240 have been identified. In all three, not a single one 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:44.879 of those prime suspects is Aboriginal. They're all white. So 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:53.960 this criminalization, the dehumanizing and then the making the person 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:59.840 so vulnerable is putting them right into the clutches of 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:05.000 violent criminals, white men. Let's be honest, in the cities 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:09.119 of Australia, and that is an issue we're going to 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:11.679 have to address and it's a hard one for a 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.200 lot of people to face up to because suddenly city 0:23:15.280 --> 0:23:18.679 people are going to have to start taking responsibility for 0:23:18.920 --> 0:23:22.360 the murder of women that come from the bush and 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:26.280 that sits very uncomfortably with a lot of people. But 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:29.359 it also goes to something I think that's much deeper, 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:33.320 which is what if these women had never been criminalized 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:37.080 in the first place and removed from their families? How 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:40.359 much consideration is a judge taking. You know, if we 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:44.040 had a data set and as lawyers, we could stand 0:23:44.119 --> 0:23:47.719 there and say, your honor, are you really going to 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:51.120 send an Aboriginal woman a thousand kilometers away from her 0:23:51.200 --> 0:23:55.600 family and her support because she stole something of value 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:59.439 of less than fifty bucks? I mean, who cares? And 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:02.199 not only are you sending them to prison where we 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:08.280 know Aboriginal people die and are harmed constantly, but then 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:13.200 upon their release into this city where they know nobody 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.639 and have no support, they are at an enormous risk. 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:21.600 And here's the data to show it. Are you willing 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:24.160 to make that decision? Are you willing to risk their 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:28.320 life both in custody and out over something so trivial. 0:24:28.680 --> 0:24:31.720 Maybe that's where the answer is. Maybe it lies with 0:24:31.800 --> 0:24:34.399 the police who made the charges in the first place 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:38.440 over something so ridiculous. When we know the over policing 0:24:38.440 --> 0:24:42.399 of Aboriginal people ensures that Aboriginal people end up in 0:24:42.440 --> 0:24:47.600 courts on these stupid charges at percentages much higher than 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:51.639 any other community in this country. And that begins the process. 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:56.880 The police make the charge, the judge sends the woman 0:24:56.960 --> 0:25:01.960 to prison, and from there the data backs up the 0:25:02.040 --> 0:25:05.640 fact that with every act that the state, the police, 0:25:05.760 --> 0:25:11.040 and the courts take, that woman is increasingly vulnerable to predators. 0:25:11.840 --> 0:25:15.840 And this may just be the key fact that we 0:25:16.040 --> 0:25:18.239 have to begin to look at, and it's one that 0:25:18.320 --> 0:25:22.560 has been born out overseas, and it's one we might 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:26.800 have to be willing to face because simply blaming dysfunctional 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:29.800 Aboriginal communities is not going to cut it in twenty 0:25:29.840 --> 0:25:33.000 twenty two. You will not get away with it. The 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:36.239 data doesn't support it, the facts don't support it, and 0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:40.040 lives will continue to be lost if that's the narrative 0:25:40.160 --> 0:25:41.000 that gets pushed. 0:25:42.320 --> 0:25:44.399 But I just wonder as you talk about that might 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:47.439 and because I've seen that operate so clearly in some 0:25:47.520 --> 0:25:49.920 of the cases I've looked at which police are looking 0:25:49.920 --> 0:25:53.040 at Aboriginal women as wanted persons and failing to search 0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:58.159 for them when they're missing persons, failing, not even failing, 0:25:58.240 --> 0:26:00.800 refusing to. But as you talk about that, I just 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:03.760 think of how data is so often used against Aboriginal people, 0:26:03.840 --> 0:26:06.919 because even in the coronial process, you see that in 0:26:07.000 --> 0:26:09.840 cases where Aboriginal women have been disappeared, there is a 0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:12.800 keen focus still on dysfunction, so they will focus in 0:26:12.840 --> 0:26:17.000