Dechlan Brennan reports for VICE News.
Despite multiple inquiries – including the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in Custody – many say that the legal system has failed to adequately incorporate the unique circumstances that impact Indigenous Australians negatively compared to other Australians. These include a lower life expectancy, a higher unemployment rate, a lower average income and a lower level of education.
With all of this in mind, the obvious questions remain: why are laws that disproportionately impact Aboriginal people implemented at all? And why are they often implemented without discussion with Indigenous groups?
In NSW, a law allowing police searches drew condemnation amid claims it was discriminatory towards Indigenous people. A Guardian Australia report revealed NSW police had conducted 1,183 strip searches on Indigenous people between 2016 and 2018. Of these, two people were 11 years-old, and one was only 10.
Recently, fines for Aboriginal people during COVID-19 restrictions highlighted the divide. Some children were charged going to and from school, receiving multiple $1000 fines in the same day.
The Redfern Legal Centre (RLC), who provide free legal services to disadvantaged people in New South Wales, told VICE in a statement “a child has as much capacity to pay a $1,000 or $5,000 fine using their pocket money as an ant has to push a boulder uphill.”
One Indigenous woman in NSW described her harassment by police for simply bringing groceries to her brother's house. She told VICE that a police officer “turned his car all the way around just to follow me.”
“He looked all over the car, taking his time, trying to pin me with something.”
“He couldn’t find anything, so he just gave me a COVID fine for $1000”
The legal advocacy group, along with the Aboriginal Legal Service (NSW/ACT) Limited and Public Interest Advocacy Centre, wrote an open letter to the NSW government in September last year that called on police to stop using fines to ensure compliance of health measures. They argued that these fines only further entrenched poverty in Indigenous communities.
They also called for all fines that were mistakenly given out to people participating in outdoor activities to be immediately overturned.
Read the full article here. (VICE, 25 March 2022)
