By Kaylene Allan
HOBART — At a recent conference aimed at a joint Aboriginal/government response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Tasmania was the only state not represented by government.
Tasmanian Aborigines are imprisoned up to 10 times more often than whites. At 1% of the total population, Aborigines are 6-9% of the prison population.
The incidence of Aboriginal youth suicide is alarmingly high. Six youths have taken their lives in the last two years. Tasmanian Aborigines have a school retention rate one quarter that of non-Aboriginal people and face a 60% unemployment rate.
One Aborigine has died in Tasmanian prisons since the royal commission presented its findings. A report on the death in custody of Glenn Clark revealed that the attitudes and procedures of government, police and the courts allowed his death to occur.
Michael Mansell, legal officer for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC), states that these circumstances remain today; police have not altered their practices with respect to Aborigines. He states, "Aboriginal people have consistently complained of physical and mental abuse by police".
In fact little has changed since the report of the royal commission noted, "a most disturbing feature revealed by this inquiry has been what is apparently utter indifference on the part of Tasmanian police to the occurrence of deaths in custody, to a point where the police force displays
no interest whatever in learning from deaths so that steps may be taken to avoid deaths in future".
The current Tasmanian Police Offences Act breaches the recommendations of the royal commission. The act gives police wide discretion in making arrests and criminalises minor offences such as drunkenness and abusive language. Its implementation can easily reflect racist attitudes held by police.
In April the Liberal government passed the Police Offences Amendments Bill, described by lawyers as the most repressive such law in the country. It increases police powers of arrest and the scope of trespass laws. This law is open to wide interpretation and could be used against Aboriginal people occupying land in pursuit of land rights claims.
Since taking office the Groom government has rejected the findings of the royal commission in that it has:
- failed to implement any of the recommendations, particularly action to reduce Aboriginal imprisonment and loss of life in custody;
- failed to fulfil a joint funding agreement between the Commonwealth and Tasmanian government for provision of $150,000 for the TAC's Aboriginal Youth Project. The funding was agreed to in 1989 as a response to the Interim Report of the royal commission;
- rejected land rights on the basis that land rights, and indeed any action towards justice for Aboriginal people, is contrary to its policy to treat all people equally;
- withheld funds to Aboriginal organisations, (including the Aboriginal Land Council) earmarked by the Field Labor government;
- closed down the Office of Aboriginal Affairs, which provided the only official link with the Aboriginal community;
- denied the Cape Barren Island Aboriginal community the right to carry on unhindered traditional fishing practices in and around the island by rejecting a reserved fishing zone;
- failed to confront racist actions such as the desecration of a plaque and markers for the Aboriginal burial sites at Wybalena on Flinders Island;
- failed to provide adequate maintenance for housing for Aboriginal people;
- displayed pathetically racist and ignorant attitudes towards Aborigines, such as claims that land rights are appropriate only for "tribal" Aborigines and labelling as apartheid proposals to address injustices to Aboriginal people.
Michael Mansell comments, "The Groom government is trying to commit bureaucratic genocide as a mopping up exercise for the failure of British attempts to kill us off last century. They are putting race relations in Tasmania back 100 years."
In June the Aboriginal community gave the Groom government until September 30 to detail how it intends to overcome the disadvantaged position of Aboriginal people. The community will then take its case to the United Nations. Under the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, to which Australia is a signatory, individuals may take action against breaches of human rights by government. Grounds for action include the right to carry on culture unhindered (Aboriginal hunting for seafood and game is currently prohibited unless licensed by the government), the right to life
(denied to Aboriginal people who die in custody because of government neglect) and equality before the law.