You can listen to the Front on your smart speaker every morning to hear the latest episode. Just say play the news from the Australian. From the Australian, here's what's on the Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Tuesday, September twenty four. A new mandatory grocery Code of conduct. That's Anthony Albanesi's new fight. The PM says Coals and Woolworths may have exacerbated inflation at the height of the cost of living crisis, and he's accused them of treating customers like fools with
fake discounts. The supermarkets say they do whatever they can to make groceries cheaper. Allegations of police racism from serving cops, disgusting racial slurs, physical violence, and moves to clear the streets of black people. They're all claims contained in a human rights case brought by more than twenty Northern Territory Aboriginal community police officers. That's today's story.
Run and see how fire you get before I shoot you. You don't deserve to get paid used through all one of you is we'll shoot yourselves in the foot.
This according to a group of Indigenous police officers from the Northern Territory is how some white officers speak to their Aboriginal colleagues. And this, according to a complaint lodged with the Australian Human Rights Commission, is how the Aboriginal community police officers say they heard white colleagues talking about Indigenous civilians the.
Hall like animals.
If you need any black blocked up, let me know and I'll sort them out.
Black camp dogs.
We used to shoot these black Where we come from.
The Northern Territory is home to nearly eight percent of Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community. An estimator seventy six thousand people. That's about thirty percent of the territory's overall population. Stephen Rice is a senior journalist with the Australian Russie. You've reported all over the world from what zones to remote communities here in Australia. What's your impression of the way these communities in the Northern Territory are
Alice Springs, Darwin remote communities. How would you compare it to other places where you've reported.
Look, living conditions as we know of, especially in the town camps, are pretty appalling. What we haven't seen before. Is this evidence of a really continuing problem where white police in cities like Alice Springs and Darwin really have no regard for Indigenous people and even no regard for their colleagues who are Indigenous. And that's pretty shocking.
How good is it to be Territory and tonight?
The New Country Liberal Party Chief Minister Lea Finocchio was elected in August on a promise to get tough on crime.
The heartbreak of watching families, friends and colleagues pack up and leave the territory because they cannot see.
A future here end today. We will do whatever it takes to restore community safety. In twenty twenty three, the age of criminal responsibility was raised from ten to twelve by the Labor government, but Finocchiaio has pledged to take it back down. That means ten year olds will be able to be charged with criminal offenses rather than being handled by the territory's Families department. Finocchio will also restore controversial restraint chairs and spit hoods on young people removed
by Labor in twenty twenty two. Human rights advocates say those techniques are dehumanizing and unnecessary. The Territories Police Association says they're essential to keep officers safe from violent offenders
and communicable diseases. Ricey, There's been a lot of rumors over the years about what goes on in the Northern Territory when dignitaries come to visit, the idea that the streets, which normally would have groups of people congregating like in any city, are cleaned up for dignitaries or for big moments. What have you learned about whether or not that's true.
Well, as you say, those claims have been around for a long time and the Northern Territory Police have always written them off as rumors, urban legend or conspiracy theories. What's happened now is that as a result of more than twenty Aboriginal police making a complaint of racial vilification to the Human Rights Commission against the Northern Territory Government and against the Northern Territory Police Commissioner, these allegations turn out to be true.
A voice actors reading the words from the complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission from Aboriginal community police officers, led by Sean Lufatt, a former footballer with Essendon who's been an ACPO for twenty six years, and Lisa Burkenhagen who's a senior ACPO and has been with the force for nine years.
Whenever significant events are held within the Darwin area that have political interest and guaranteed media attention or presence, mister Lufat and other acpos, together with other officers, are routinely directed to clean up the streets around the area of interest by moving on homeless Indigenous persons that sleep or congregate in the area to give public perception that homelessness and anti social behavior is not an issue.
For years now, the police have denied that they actually move people on. In these documents that I've obtained, the cops that the Aboriginal cops who are being asked to move people along, have made it clear that the people being target at a sober they're not committing any crimes. Basically,
their own clime is that they're black. This is about ordinary Aboriginal people going about their normal, everyday business who are being moved on taken out of town because the city has decided that they don't like having that sort of image presented to the rest of the world. And it happens on occasions when politicians are visiting precisely to allegedly deal with those kind of issues.
Coming up. The white cop who started the avalanche of claims RISEI. The Northern Territory police have come in for some serious scrutiny over the past few years, probably starting in this round when police have Zachari Rolf fatally shot an Indigenous man, Kumenjai Walker in the remote community of Yundermu. At his trial and at the coronial inquest into that death, zak Roff, who was acquitative murder, claimed that there's endemic
racism in the Northern Territory Police force. That's something that the top brass denied. What are we now learning from Aboriginal police officers themselves who have brought this claim to the Human Rights Commission.
We're learning that from the point of view of the Aboriginal police themselves that these claims are completely true and have been for years. So here we have at least twenty serving Aboriginal officers who have lodged this racial vilification claim in the Human Rights Commission, alleging this racist culture in which they're constantly being called lazing and useless.
In or around twenty ten, and Akpo regularly witnessed officers in Alice Springs making comments to the effect that akpos were not doing their jobs because they were not picking up drunks in Alice Springs effectively, and that slack pos do nothing and that was why there was so much work.
These cops who they perform all the normal functions of police. They allowed to arrest people, they're allowed to investigate, they're allowed to carry guns, but they're treated as second class police. They're paid less. If you're an Aboriginal police officer in the Northern Territory, you get six thousand dollars less a year than a white constable. It's pretty outrageous.
Towards the end of her training to become an auxiliary, a sergeant delivering a lecture referred to a service helping to return Indigenous people stuck in Darwin to their home country and commented that he would like to return them to their country in a box. Miss Birkenhagen made a complaint against the sergeant, which resulted in conciliation. Miss Bergenhagen was advised that she would have to have thicker skin as she might hear much worse as a police officer.
I mean, some of this stuff is just extraordinary rissie.
When you went to the police into the newly elected Northern Territory government, what are they say. Are they denying that there's this disparity in pay, for example.
They're not specifically denying the disparity in pay. The Chief Minister is saying this is all in the past. We don't have to worry about it now. Of course it's
not in the past. The police themselves are saying that the Police Commissioner said that he welcomed the fact that officers felt free to talk about this finally, which was a bit bizarre because on Monday or when I've gone to them to ask about these allegations of moving on our virginities, cleaning up the streets, they've totally shut down and said, nope, we're not going to say anything now because it's all before the courts.
Obviously, rise of these officers want pay parity. What else are they asking for.
We're asking for as well as that for compensation, but most of all for an apology for the way that they've been treated in the past and for the fact that they continue to be treated as second class police when it seems very clear to anybody who has spent time in the Northern Territory that these particular cops are precisely the ones who can fix some of these problems.
Stephen Rice is a senior journalist with The Australian. Thanks for joining us on the front, don't forget. Subscribers to The Australian get Australia's best journalism every day for much less than the price of a cup of coffee. Join us at the Australian dot com dot a U