Just before nine o'clock last night, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all three defendants.
It was absolute shambles, to tell you the truth, just absolutely really.
Pallous blood on his clothing the day after the alleged.
A top shallow mud bank and it fits Roy River.
Basically.
I think most of the people are used to me are good people.
I think a really important question we need to ask is how many Indigenous prisoners in Australia are innocent.
This is Curtain, a podcast where we call back the blinds to shine a light on the darkest parts of our justice system and ask who are the victims.
I'm Amy Maguire and I'm Martin Hodgson, a senior advocate for the Foreign Prisoner Support Service. And a warning this series contains the names of deceased peoples and has distressing content that might upset some listeners.
Welcome to Kada in the podcast, and today we've got a very special guest in it, someone who I look up to particularly in a lot of my research, particularly recently in this current time where we're looking around black lives matter, I think it's really important that we learn from this place first and foremost and I think that's where our current guest today, her work is so important around the history of policing, particularly how blackfellows, but also
in ways that we talk about issues of violence and state institutions. So our guest today is Amanda Porter. I don't know, Amanda, did you want to describe your first your mob in your country first and maybe a bit about what you or how you came to be in this area.
Thanks, Amie.
And that's a really a very generous introduction and one that I'm not worthy of.
So for those who don't know me, my name is Amanda.
I'm of bringy Euan descent and also of settler descent Greek and Scottish descent, and I grew up on Yapel Country, far North Coast in South Wales. And yeah, my family is connected to you and country through Archie Ferguson and people on Cabestry Island.
So hello to everyone who's tuning in from there. How I came.
Into to be interested in this work has been, I guess my whole life. I've been interested in the ways in which different populations and different people or police differently and why so, yes, someone who's white passing, but you
know has grown up seeing all of this. You know, it was always you know, I was always intrigued by how you know, the side of the town where my family lived, you'd see the police, you know, up to ten times a day, whereas on the side where the school was, you know, you rarely see the police at all.
And I think we still see this today, like, you know, even though now I'm uh, you know, middle class and working for you know, a white corporation that doesn't pay any rent, you know, I you know, it's the way that policing, you know, the way that original and black communities and especially original black and working class families of police is very different to the way.
That wealthy suburbs, like.
Wealthy suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne here where I'm zooming in from, is a completely different story.
Amanda is very modest. I want to say for our listeners in Australia around the world that she's currently calling to us from Melbourne Law School, having previously been at u n s w Utes Australian National University, Oxford. So one of the reasons we really wanted to have Amanda on is this is someone who, as Amy said, we both look up to whose writings we both read and who clearly knows their stuff. And one thing that has occurred last week obviously was the thirtieth anniversary of the
Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody. Amanda, I'm just wondering, you know, thirty years on, what are your reflections on where we are? And I guess more importantly, one thing a lot of people have said to me is that we hear that it's been thirty years, we hear the number of people who have died since, we hear about these recommendations, But what would you say are the things we need to do asap to really start to tackle this issue head on?
For me, for thirty years, it's just like groundhog Day, may as well have been, you know, the final may as well come out down, come out now, and nothing's
happened the recommendations. Still people don't understand that it was written for Australians, and it was written for you know, all Australians, the police, the media, the government bureaucrats, the you know, so called leaders, and they just haven't been acted on their you know, today, the Queensland Biel has passed its completely at odds with all of the recommendations right now, the things we need to do make sure police and prisons are spar away from are out of
Aboriginal lives, everyday lives. And yet nothing has happened. There's still you know, there's so recommendations that haven't been acted on. There's you know, one of the for me, the thing that is sickening and that made me feel ill to my core last week was the fact that reflecting on on on those recommendations and how all of the work has been done by families, it just it just.
It just makes me feel ill to my core.
So, you know, one of the recommendations was to decriminalize public drunkenness and that was you know, a recommendation that came out of the interim report to the Royal Commission and then it came out in the final report in nineteen ninety one. And you know, how can it be that, you know, in Queensland it's still a crime. There's so many recommendations that say arrest is the last resort. Prison
as a last resort. It's clear there, you know, throughout all of the pages and the volumes of this report and the recommendations that the solution is to keep cops out of Aboriginal lives, to keep make sure that, you know, to make sure that we are divesting and defunding castlele solutions, you know. And I say, I'm sorry that the slipper shouldn't be because they're not solutions, They're just you know, part of the festering, you know problem, that's the crux of all this.
And yeah, you know, I don't know what to say. Really, it was just such a shit show the last week.
And I'm just bitterly disappointed and can't make sense of anything at all.
But you said, like, there's such a disconnect because I noticed in the Royal Commission reporting last week it was mainstream media or asking about why is this still an issue? Why is this why are we still having different custodes?
And then you see what's.
Happening in Queensland today where they're trying to pass this really draconian legislation which will overseve our black kids again, where the media have been largely complicit producing propaganda. There's such a disconnect in the way that that is reported and that we're seeing it in real time that all of the solutions are going the opposite way. As you said towards locking up mobs. So it's yeah, I like mirror your sort of distress would also you know, disoleete
and I don't know what to even call it. I just think they don't really It comes down to that they don't really talk because they're not taking through. And then they continually ask families and advocates and activists and people working in this area, why do we still have so many deaths?
Yeah, I'm the lost too, I mean, and I'm sorry, I'm just being really candid in my responses because you know, you know, the media kind of reporting on it was just hugely disappointing. I was expecting to see naively, you know, justice for Nathan Reynolds, justice for ten your Day, justice from a zoo trending on social media, and it didn't happen, you know, when there was the work of starda Were Foundation and all of the As I said, it's just
for me inexcusable. It's intolerable that it's families doing the work. This is a document that was produced so that in the hopes that families might be able to heal, and there's just we're not not even close yet. Families that
are the ones doing all the work. So it's families more so than government, more so, you know, more than anyone that's you know that thanks to the Day family, for example, in the state of Queensland that the decriminalized the public drunkness has finally been decriminalized, and there's there's.
Still so much more work to go. But for me, that's just inexcusable that that should fall on.
The hands of a family that you know, you know, and even the way you know, it was even for me personally disappointing to see that how this isn't recognized by the mainstream media.
The you know that there's still this refusal to.
Hear anything but pain and and and I remember that was the way that it was framed on on the drum when April, the tendid Day's daughter and the founder of the Judge Foundation, was was on. It's just a people only want to hear about pain. They can't see sovereign actors, they can't see people that are actually doing
all the emotional and intellectual labor. And yeah, as you say, Amy, the example of the you know what's happening in Queensland is is is just one of many examples of where we've got, you know, policy which is completely at odds. You know, these tough on crime laws that Paliches put through this morning, it just makes my heart think it just I don't I don't even have the words like and it's just one examples, you know, so many examples of of carthoral feminism, like so many examples bail policies
that are just troubling. Aspects of that legislation about you know JEEP, which will expand police powers to allow police to have GPS ankle bracelets and to allow them to carry medal detectors. And really this is deeply, deeply troubling because we know now there is so much evidence there that you know, it needs to be about decriminalizing you know, offenses and to and making sure police powers are curbed
not expanded on. And you know, we should be minimizing the opportunity for police contact with original Tou Australiana communities, not not thinking about how to maximize it.
And you know, I think it's just this.
I don't know, you know, I've spent a long time trying to understand why this can happen. You know, going back to your point Amy about you know, just how this, you know, how we can find ourselves thirty years on from the Royal Commission, when this is still happening. Is it that they don't care? Is it that they don't know?
And yeah, I think it's I think it just goes speaks to the deep ignorance of of the Australian apartheid states that you know, people don't know this, you know, because it's just they'd rather believe that whatever racist stereotypes there are, that there's this refusal to read and to come to terms with with the true history of of this nation, that the history of the violence of policing and the violent foundations and the violent contemporary operation of
of of policing here. And you know, as someone who researches and teaches policing history, I think it's you know, speaks volumes to the fact that you know that the need for queens the Queensland Premiere to to read about the you know, the frontier, how the foundations of QPS lie in that you know, genocide and frontier wars and and and I just think that the iance is so so deep. But that's really that's the only way I can make sense of it is.
Ignorance and prejudice.
I have a question that perhaps you could both answer, maybe aim if you go first, which is, how do we keep the mainstream media accountable, you know, and reporting accurately on these issues, and not just taking sound bites from politicians, but really doing the work to delve deep into this issue when ask the experts and check facts and make sure that they're not perpetuating harm and just serving their role as the fourth estate.
I mean, I don't even know if I have an answer for how to keep the mainstream media accountable, because I feel like the mainstream media in a sense of doing its job, and its job has often been on the side of police and the side of control.
And you know why.
Aspirations when you look at particularly around you know, these law and order responses, they're often around the idea of safety. But safety for example, white women, of safety for white Australia, So policing and the media and government they're often on the same side when it comes to our mobs. And so I don't even other than the fact that as we saw with ten or seven, like Aberiginal mob are
very quick to resist those discourses. And I often find like Aboriginal people in this country are the most distute media commentators. And if it wasn't for black fellows coming out straight away and contesting those really racist portrayals of black kids as criminals and you know, as deviant and as like these really horrunous policies is justified, then it would still be up, you know what I mean. So I think it really lies often in the resistance of
Aboriginal people to these media representations and portrayals. But it's just often that we don't have a voice in those conversations, and so like, I never have a lot of hope
in the mainstream media that they go and change. And we saw that just in what you know, Amanda was talking about in the Royal Commission and the way the Royal Commission anniversary was being reported in ways that they weren't actually interested in the structure of violence and the continual oppression that they are complicit in, but just in hearing again wounds and trauma, you know, and that's all we were being asked for. And so I think there's
a very different way that mainstream media is reporting. And I was just thinking about in relation to cops as well, like they're often and what you said about the you
know the police propaganda this week about the puppies. You know, police are still and I think Amanda you could talk about this too, like they're still seen in very uh favorable white to Australians, which is really confusing for me when you look at the actual history of policing and not just you know history on the frontier, but recent history in relation to you know, the Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland and oh this history around police brutality. Yes, I
don't know. You know, Australian still believe that the police as a whole are good and then have their best interests in mind in relations of safety.
Yeah, it's really interesting to me the kind of addiction of the average Australian to the police and the you know, blind faith. And I know I can't help but see it like through the like a historian lens, just because for me, there always has been two very different policing history.
So like the history of police for settlers was you know the night Watch patrol, which was quite literally eleven of the best behaved convicts and you know, for their purpose was to look out for you know, the public safety and best interests of the governor and settlement kind of families that were and people the settler popular within the you know, within Sydney Cove and the growing colony, and that's that, you know, that's very different when you kind of trace the line of what happened there to
the history that happened at the colonial frontier, which was the Mounted Police and the Border Police and the Native police and it was you know, not just me, but says that, you know, Henry Reynolds described the Mounted Police as one of the most violent organizations in Austraie history. But you know that to go back to Martin's question about the ways to put pressure into flip what's going on in the mainstream media, I mean, I don't I don't know if I even have an answer to that, but.
I mean, I think it's interesting to look at that.
Example of the Queensland you know laws and how that came to be. And it's that the same thing with you know, to Amy's point about castural feminism, as I think that maybe it's something about media that they something that's appealing to see the most punitive response pedled out the most extreme response, and you know, because when you think about it, like the you know, both uh you know, whether it's the the tough on crime laws in Queensland that was peddled out.
In response to uh, you know, I think there was.
A death involving involving speeding, and speeding is very different, you know, like it's not I don't know if any of these laws are actually gonna they're completely unrelated the proposed laws to the initial response. But it's the you know, the Premiere Palichet has to you know, come up with some response, and she's obviously got the Queensland Police Union.
And I mean, and this is this is the bigger issue than the media, is just the way in which the police, regardless of what jurisdiction you're talking about, you know, have had you know, record budgets for the past god knows, and and that as part of that, they have a very well resourced media and pr unit that's able to put these messages out and whenever, you know, there is this you know, human tragedy that occurs, the police union will be like, well, you know, you know, and again
the most powerful police unions are among the most powerful in the nation that that have the premieres year to say, well, these are the things that would make out a lot easier, and it all just you know, it's all just feeds off racist stereotypes and deficit discourses that are so deeply ingrained in the Australian psyche. And you see that, for example through what Martin was talking about with the with with you know, the way even research is produced here.
So you know, uh, you know we had I I confess I didn't see the channel not but you know, I'm not surprised at the Australian corporate media. You know we're peddling out you know, the I did see the clip that Professor Ross Hommel gave it, and that was that going back to my point, that was actually out of police union conference and and I just wrote this down. He said at this conference, and I quote, I get emails from people Ross, why don't you talk more about the Aborigines sick?
They are s I see. I mean that's I'm citing it as as he said, they are always the offenders, well them, Let's be honest. That is a statistical fact. End quote.
So you know that when I say ingrained, I know deeply ingrained in the And they can take that down off their Twitter account, nine can take that down.
But it's not the public record, and you know, and and it's just even the kind of.
The you can look up this this this full clip on the internet, but you know, in in you know, so it's often I think we're feeling the way that people frame the problem. For for Ross Hommel, it was, you know, kids who are a problem. In his words, you know, he keeps talking to kids who are a problem, you know, and you know, high risk children as this is the language that it's.
Couched in, and in his speech the need.
To to start early and he says as early as five.
And and frankly it makes.
Me terrified because my niece and my nephew live up in the engine and I just you know, these these are the that that's the level that we're that the soul operating up. That's how deep set it is in the minds of so many Australians about you know, the deficit that they see when they see black kids.
It's just it says.
You know nothing about you know, the Aboriginal kids themselves, and it says so much about someone else perception of.
What they think about Aboriginal and black kids.
Yeah, and you know, you could say, you know, that's just the example of the you know, but I think it's hugely, deeply problematic to have anyone that has these you know, beliefs about Aboriginal kids to be going into school and I think, you know, in school, you know, it's important for kids just to have the chance to
be themselves and to be safe. And there's no understanding as far as I'm concerned that for Aboriginal kids that you know, it's not it's not safe to be because it's re traumatizing for kids, it's you know, they need a chance just to just to you know, be a young person like everyone else and to you know, receive you just learn and enjoy being with friends at school, like you know, there's a I think it's inexcusable that there's fifty seven schools in Queensland that are participating in
this program.
That was part one of our discussion with Amanda Porter. Before we bring you part two in the coming weeks, I'd like to encourage you just to consider what a man to spoke about then about police in schools and policing and talking about the way police discuss the criminality of children as young as kindergarten age kids, and consider that in the context of all we talk about in Curtain the podcast until next time, Thank you for your ongoing support.