Asking Questions of an Inquiry

The inquiry began and was launched in November twenty twenty one, and was supposed to report back to the Parliament by the thirtieth of June twenty twenty two, but it's since been extended to that same date thirtieth of June twenty twenty four. As regular listeners will know, we've had a lot of criticisms about this inquiry, both in the way

it's structured and the way it's been carried out. There's been very little information given or been heard from families of those whose loved ones are either missing, or murdered. There's also been a strange reaction from the inquiry as to any negative commentary, some of which has come from us, and also negative commentary that came in the form of the submissions to the inquiry themselves that a lot of

the key issues were being completely ignored. The inquiry also heard initially largely from police, some academics researchers, but there's been almost nothing from those on the ground this week. On Tuesday, the twentieth of February twenty twenty four, there was another public hearing and it was held at the High Regency in Brisbane. Those heard were Karen Isles, the Queensland Police Service, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution,

and then a panel discussion with family violence experts. So we're going to break down a lot of what was said this week and analyze how the Queensland Police in particular came to the inquiry. Our discussion around their involvement in this issue is critical because, as we've discussed in this podcast, Queensland is sadly a hotspot for forcibly disappeared and murdered Aboriginal women and children, and the Queensland response

in every case we've looked at has been terrible. Amy was in the building on the day and the first witness was Karen Isles. Amy, can you tell me a little bit about what she said to the inquiry. Yeah.

to violence. So I was only able to attend the public hearing, but it was in the High Regency in Queen Street Mall in the heart of Brisbane, and the first witness was an Aboriginal woman named Karen Isles, who has been a really strong advocate for Aboriginal women who are victims of sexual violence because she is a victim

survivor herself. And a few years ago now her story was actually reported on in The Guardian and it revealed a really shocking case of abject failure by both the Queensland and your South Wales Police who had failed for over a decade to investigate her case of sexual assault. She has been very vocal about and a trigger warning to our listeners. It was a gang rape when she was only a teen in nine ninety three, and she actually came forward in two thousand and four and reported

it to meself. Wealth Police gave names photographs of her alleged attackers. Was quite detailed in what she was saying. Her statement was then forwarded to the Queensland Police and it literally was not followed through for over a decade until Karen went to the media. And so Karen has been a really really strong advocate for Aboriginal women who

are victim survivors of family violence. So I was able to sit in a little on her testimony to the inquiry, which was incredibly strong, and so she was talking about the need for statutory minimum legislative standards across the country and her key pieces of testimony was about holding police account for breaches of their own standards, so that includes for their failure to interview victims when they destroy statements, which is something that happened in her own case. It

came out that a statement had been destroyed. And she was talking about the need for independent investigators to investigate these really horrific cases, and she used specifically the language of abductions and sexual violence, and she was very clear in separating those form of violence from family violence, which I think is something really important. So she was specifically using the language of abduction, sexual assault, and murder of

First Nations people. She really called on the inquiry and particularly the politicians to actually stand up against police unions and the police and come out in making changes that would support Aboriginal victims of murder and sexual assault and abduction. Basically her testimony, she was saying that she had been shut up and so she was fighting to really ensure that Aboriginal women's voices are brought out of those silences.

And she spoke also of the need for a truth and Justice commission which would not be held by the police, but would actually be run by Aboriginal people, and it would be about Aboriginal women being able to give testimony.

And I think one of the things that stood out to me was the fact she wanted to really focus on the police all across the country, but there was a lack, a clear lack of political will, not just in her cases, but a lot of the other cases of Aboriginal women who are victim survivors who she was advocating for. And just before she left, she actually appealed to the committee to actually hold the police to account.

And that really stood out to me because when I went to the inquiry and I entered the hotel, I was really amazed to see that there was a really big police presence, so a really big presence from the QPS there that day, and it was contrasted with the WA Police. So when the inquiry went to Western Australia, the WA Police just didn't show up to the inquiry and it made the media. So the QPA, we're using a different strategy and they were putting on a show

really and they had their lawyers there. There was all up. The delegation from the QPS was at least fifteen people and they really filled that room. And then afterwards they gave their testimony, which was vastly different obviously from Kareniles. Martin, you were listening as well from your own hometown self. What did you pick up firstly when you were listening to the QPS testimony.

So Detective Inspector Damien Hansen from the Homicide Group and the Crime Intelligence Command, and he's one of the most high profile detectives in all of Queensland. But a few years ago and I just want to give this his background, there was another inquiry looking back at the famous whiskeyer Go Go attack when fire bombing, when it was burnt down and many people were killed, and there was a new inquiry looking at where others involved and how the

police handled that investigation. And even though it was decades old, the Inspector Damien Hanson, who was here on this day for this inquiry, made sure that one of his more junior officers didn't include in their submission to that inquiry any criticism of the police and instructed that they remove those criticisms from their report. And it was Sergeant Gray was his junior and this is what was reported then.

Sergeant Gray said, Inspector Hanson told her and I quote that sort of material should not be included in a report from the police and that we would leave that to the journalists and police haters end quote. So that's the context of how he has come to address inquiries in the past and his sort of attitude. You can imagine the police didn't really address any of the criticisms that have been made in all of the submissions against them,

both written and verbal. And I think more worrying to me than the fact that this is someone who has attempted to cover things up in a past inquiry and that only came to lie because media organizations fought for the opportunity to publish what he'd had redacted, and it took two years for that to happen. So immediately we have to ask what does he know? What is in the police files, the police recommendations internally that he has ensured didn't see the light of day at this inquiry.

But something really stood out to me, and it sounds simple, but this was an answer he gave when he was asked about what happens when an Aboriginal woman or child is murdered. In particular, we're talking about homicide here, and what assistance is provided to the families. And this was his answer. Remember, he is a detective inspector providing transport and that what is that as an answer, and that providing transport and that he sounded like a complete moron.

And this is not being critical for critical sake. We're talking about a detective inspector whose sole job is to solve homicides and when it comes to what assistance his organization can prove vied to the families and loved ones of those people, all they can say is transport and that that's an answer a six year old could give. And to me, that was what riddled the police submission to the inquiry, which was verbal, given that they hadn't

provided a proper written submission. The other thing that really stood out to me, and having watched endless inquiries over the years into all sorts of issues, whether they be on domestic violence, the way that the AFP handles the arrests of Australians overseas, but also just on personal issues. I'm interested in climate change and other health issues for

Aboriginal communities. I've never seen so many questions taken on notice as the QPS took unnotice because they simply couldn't provide the answers there, and then again that just shows how unprepared they are and just how lacking their knowledge

is on this issue. And we're expecting that this organization that we know from recent internal reports and investigative journalism over the last few years alone, is riddled with misogyny, is riddled with homophobia, and is riddled with racism, and yet we're expecting them to care and solve the cases of missing and murdered First Nations women and children. And the fact that they had to take so many questions on notice because they didn't know the answers should shock people.

They're supposed to be experts in solving these crimes. These are the people we pay millions and millions of dollars to and they couldn't answer anything. And when they did provide answers, largely it went to their own failings. But the way they combat that was to say they are implementing and I quote holistic training, And it was clear that they'd been worded up about all the latest buzzwords. They used the word holistic training over and over again.

They used the term victim centric and coercive control over and over again, because they had nothing of substance to say. It's clear that anytime they were challenged about their failings, they simply discussed training that will take place in the future or the very limited one two day training that is currently given to their officers at the moment, and they couldn't really answer many questions about that training other than going back to saying it's holistic, it's victim centered,

there was no substance. So for all the other things we've criticized Queensland Police about in terms of their racism, their negligence, their failure to even search for missing and murdered women and children, the way they treat the families, the institutionalized racism in this organization, the other thing that we can really take away this public hearing was just how little they know and how poorly they were prepared

to answer questions. They've had, as we said, since November twenty twenty one to get ready for and they couldn't answer anything. Amy. What did you take away from their evidence.

majority of the panel. So there was five QPS police officers on the panel, but then there was QPAS offices in the audience who are ready to stand up and give evidence if needed, but the majority of them were Aboriginal police officers, and there were Aboriginal police officers from the First Nation's Unit, which was a unit only set up in December twenty twenty three as a response to

a task force, and so it is relatively new. And when the Aboriginal police officer who gave the opening statement spoke, he did not mention once really the cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, which is the reason for the inquiry.

And so the inquiry and the senators on the inquiry mentioned a couple of times, Oh, we want to extend our gratitude to the QPS for showing up, because their counterparts in WA didn't bother to show up, but they had actually shown up in order to deflect from their own failings and the fact that they're not willing to own up to what was happening and so I feel like the people on the panel there were the ones who were so ill equipped to actually give answers about

why there is a crisis of missing or what we call disappeared Aboriginal women, and that was a clear tactic from the QPS. But I also want to say is that they didn't really even need to be prepared because one of the things that I was most shocked at was the questions coming from the inquiry, and I was

reflecting on it afterwards. I was thinking, if you had a parliamentary inquiry into black deaths in custody, for example, you may have a lot of stupid questions maybe around like deflecting questions around incarceration, rather than looking at the actual issue of violence against Black men, women and children in custody. But I feel that the inquiry would still be focused on the issue of black deaths in custody,

you know what I mean. But in this inquiry, what I found most horrific is that there was no focus on the actual fact of disappeared Aboriginal women in Queensland.

And as I'm sitting there, you know, knowing that this is a real crisis, it was almost like I was sitting in just some random inquiry, you know, and the majority of people there are white people, and there's just that feeling of they have no understanding that this is an issue, you know, and you mentioned before at the start might and that you know, this inquiry has been

going for two or three years. There were no questions about how many numbers of Aboriginal women have been disappeared, how many numbers of Aboriginal women have been murdered, how many cases have been solved. Last week we talked about response times, police response times. What was your response time to, for example, Constance May, what you watch you compared to Allison biden Clay, who is a really high profile case

in Brisbane. What was your response to testing the forensics of other cases compared to cases of non white victims. There was just none of that, And I feel one of the reasons is because there is an inability or a refusal to acknowledge the racial engendered nature of policing, which is honestly outrageous because we have literally just had an inquiry into the racism and misogyny ingrained in the QPS only just recently, which on that very same day

the inquiry was sitting in Brisbane. We saw the Queensland Police Commissioner announce her resignation, Katriana Carrol, and that is directly tied to that inquiry and her being pushed out of the QPS as that figurehead role. And so I'm really just like sitting going through my notes reflecting on what I heard. I feel like I didn't hear anything because they didn't say anything, you know what I mean, Martin, Did you want to pick up anything from that?

One thing that appalled me. I won't name the person who got it wrong, but when discussing miss you completely got who people will know died in police custody. They got the circumstances and even the state where it happened. Completely wrong. But as Amy said, really appropriately, you wouldn't have known that this is what it was about. If it was about death in custody, you would have had

that term over and over again. If this was an inquiry into climate change, for example, you would have heard from you would leading scientists in the area and real discussion about that topic. As Amy said too. You know last week we talked about response times, but not a single senator asked any of the questions about Constance wat Show or Monique Club's disappearance and murder. In the case of Constance wat Show that has not been solved. Monique Club has never been found. This is the exact issue

we're talking about. It happened in Brisbane. They were in Brisbane and they didn't ask about it. They didn't ask why when Monique was reported missing in Brisbane, her mother reported in Harvey Bay because that's where she lives. Was it handled by the Harvey Bay police they're not in Brisbane. That could have been a simple question that goes to how the police tackle this issue, But not a single

one of the senators were prepared. And you know, I think this is something that some people on the Left are going to have to come to grips with, which is the fact that there was three Green senators that I'm aware of, that were taking part, and not one of them asked a single decent question, and one of them thanked very enthusiastically the DPP for showing up and

what a great team they had. These are the people who overcharge Aboriginal Terrostrait Islander people every single day, and who had done that to Miss Bernard, to Constance Watcho, to Manique Club, all of whom died soon after being released from custody. So the victims of this epidemic of misogynistic and racist violence are simply forget victim centric as the cops claim, they're not present at all, and Amy's work centers on presencing the victims and their families, and

that simply didn't happen. And the other key part, as Amy said too, is there was a number of First Nations officers brought onto the panel who clearly, through no fauld of their own, have never worked in this area and said as much themselves, So why were they there

other than to be frank, to be window dressing. And then one of the worst aspects the Assistant Commissioner talked about One of the worst aspects of his testimony was his discussion of indigenously Hazon officers who work with the QPS, and basically when it came to any discussions of difficulties communicating with families, he threw the ILOs under the bus and said they're often not involved because of conflicts of interest,

family fighting inside Aboriginal communities, disagreements between families. It was all crap, But rather than take any responsibility, he took the lowest level people in the entire organization who are black and threw them under the bus and then brought black faces in to wash over the fact that his organization never solves these cases and is largely responsible for the fact that a they occur in the first place, the over policing and overcharging of Aboriginal women and children

and making them so vulnerable in the first place, and then do nothing to find them when they go missing,

let alone when they're murdered. So I just think the fact that the senators were not able to not only not lay a glove on these police, but were practically clapping them along or too unprepared to ask them a single appropriate question really raises questions about how useful this inquiry is to begin with, and whether it is worth the trauma of the families who do give evidence, And obviously we know of families who have decided not to

because it is too traumatic for their men. Quite frankly, I don't think it's worthwhile.

in Queensland. And I would just say that just to make it clearer to our listeners, that Martin and I both submitted separate submissions to the Inquiry into Missing Medeness Women and Girls. Mine was with Sisters Inside and ICRR, which is an organization looking at issues of race up here in Brisbane. Martin did his submission based on his extensive experience working in cases like this, and none of us were approached to give evidence based on that submission.

I'd previously given evidence around the bearable case that that was really just I was given and hours noticed that was an in relation to the submission I had joint orfored. And at no point in time has Mardin been approached by the inquiry to talk about these really interconnected issues and how the police is contributing to the crisis of

disappeared Aboriginal women. And that's the other thing that I was thinking as I sat there, is that they're not looking at the police as complicit and allowing the conditions in which Aboriginal women are continually disappeared to continue. There's no connection between that, even as the QPS has been under fired by two separate inquiries as to their handlings of domestic violence cases and around racism and misogyny in

their own force. So this is something that the QPS have continually been under investigation for and yet there was no mention of that really in the inquiry. And the most heated part of it with the QPS was when Green Senator David Chubridge started questioning the QPS about their numbers of First Nations officers and obviously it's woefully low, as we would expect very very low, and he asked

for a breakdown of based on seniority and position. And as I listened to that as well, I thought, well, it's great to have those statistics, I guess, but what good is that going to do, you know what I mean? And I kept thinking, you know, the police are not the answer, because the police are directly complicit. So if you think the answer to this is getting more black cops in these positions, you're going down the completely wrong road because you do not understand what is actually happening

in so many of these cases. So I just at this point, I'm at a loss to see what the inquiry will actually come back with. And I'm not just at a loss, I'm actually really really worried about what it is going to publish.

and domestic violence experts. But here's the problem. Miss Bernard, who was murdered in Queensland and whose inquest we've discussed on this podcast, has seen the recent arrest of a white man for her disappearance and murder. Monique Club who we've talked about on this podcast, who went missing in Queensland and whose inquest wrapped up recently. All the prime suspects are white. Constance may watchhow also in Brisbane, where this inquiry took place, was murdered and her body has

been found, but nobody has been in charge. The chief suspects are all white. The Baureville Children, who we've spoken about before on this podcast, who's closest capital city would be Brisbane, and who the senators should know about. The chief suspect in the murder of not one, not two, but three Aboriginal children is white. So what is all

this addressing of family violence? Yes, of course it is an enormous issue in Australia, but it's being used as a deflection at the moment for police failure And what it further does, and what I worry this inquiry will see is that they will pinpoint it on this issue when it's clearly not the main factor. Does it play a role, yes? Is it the leading issue? Absolutely not,

as the cases we've discussed show. And my worry is that this inquiry will see recommendations that continue the over policing of Aboriginal communities and the continued victy and blaming of Aboriginal women who do report violence against them, and see further victims end up inside the prison industrial complex in this country. And if that is what happens and comes out of this inquiry, then the senators involved should and must be held accountable. This episode was brought to

you by Black Cast and produced by Clint Curtis. For more, you can visit us at www dot Curtain podcast dot com, follow us on Twitter at Curtain Podcast, and help to support our work at Patreon dot com backslash Curtain Podcast