INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA AT A TIME OF “BLACK LIVES MATTER”

As riots and activists became the news in the US after the death of black American George Floyd at the hands of police, the issues of Indigenous deaths in custody in Australia and the state of Indigenous welfare became a discussion point yet again. At a “virtual” function and discussion for The Sydney Institute on Wednesday 8 July 2020, Indigenous leader Warren Mundine spoke frankly about the “truths” that matter to Indigenous Australians and what government and leaders must do. Warren Mundine AM is a chairman of the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation and is also the Chairman of the Australian Indigenous Chamber of Commerce. In 2006, Mundine succeeded Barry Jones as President of the ALP, beginning his term on 28 January 2006, and became the first indigenous Australian to serve as president of an Australian political party.

INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIA AT A TIME OF “BLACK LIVES MATTER”

WARREN MUNDINE

I’m pleased to be here at The Sydney Institute to talk about Indigenous Australians in the time of Black Lives Matter. I also wish to acknowledge that we’re here on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people, a stone’s throw from where the First Fleet landed just over 230 years ago. I recognise and pay my respects to the Gadigal ancestors and elders and to my Bundjalung Gumbaynggirr, Yuin and Irish ancestors and elders as well.

Following the horrific killing of George Floyd, a black American in Minneapolis, there has been an uproar about black deaths at the hands of police officers in the United States of America. There has been rioting across the country, which has resulted in vandalism, looting, shootings, assaults, the graffiti and ripping down of statues and memorials and injuries and deaths, of both police and civilians, which has morphed into a Black Lives Matter campaign globally. And Australia has not been spared; although it has not been near the scale of the United States or the United Kingdom. After George Floyd’s death in the United States, Australian activists marched in solidarity with American activists and took the opportunity to highlight Indigenous deaths in custody. Protestors called for truth talking. So what I want to do today is actually talk truths. All of them.

Truth number one.

There have been some appalling deaths of Indigenous people in the hands of police and corrective services in Australia, intentionally, through sheer recklessness incompetence or shrouded in suspicion. I have protested and advocated on some of these matters myself. Some terrible examples include of the death of John Pat in Western Australia in Roebourne, Eddie Murray in New South Wales, and Ms Dhu in Western Australia. Mr Doomadgee who died in a police station in Palm Island with a ruptured liver and spleen. And Mr Ward, who was cooked to death after being left in a prison van for four hours with temperatures reaching something like 56 degrees Celcius.

Convictions for killings by police have also historically proved difficult, both in Australia and the United States, not only for black deaths, but white deaths and other deaths as well, generating immense anger and frustration. George Floyd’s death, too, was dreadful and I’m yet to hear anyone of any political persuasion say otherwise.

Truth number two.

Indigenous people represent 17 per cent of deaths in custody, despite being only 3 per cent of the Australian population. But Indigenous people also represent over 27 per cent of all prisoners. So when you look at the statistics, Indigenous people are less likely to die in custody than non-Indigenous people. This is in part due to the actions taken to prevent Indigenous deaths in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission.

Truth number three.

Protesters quote 432 Indigenous deaths in custody since the Royal Commission. These are deaths for any reason. It’s not as if they are all deaths that have been caused by police officers or corrective services officers. The vast majority have not. If a prisoner dies from suicide, a heart attack, cancer or other natural causes, is killed by another prisoner, or even if someone drowns while trying to escape police, it is a death in custody. As noted by the Royal Commission, Indigenous people are more likely to die in custody, because they’re more likely to be in custody. And higher incarceration rates largely come down to two things: violence and re-offending.

I chaired the Reducing Reoffending – 10 by 20 Strategic Policy Panel in South Australia in 2016. It wasn’t specifically focused on Indigenous deaths but on the entire prison system. And the data before us was consistent with the national statistics which is that most Indigenous prisoners are incarcerated for violent offences. The Prisoners in Australia data put out by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that as at December 2019 around 57 per cent of Indigenous prisoners were incarcerated for homicide, sexual assault, acts intended to cause injury, robbery, extortion or related offences, which are all offences that involve direct violence against a person. Indigenous people made up 18 per cent of all prisoners incarcerated for homicide and sexual assault, 41 per cent of all prisoners incarcerated for acts intended to cause injury and 34.5 per cent of all those incarcerated for robbery or extortion. Indigenous suicide rates are also double the non-Indigenous rates.

Truth number four.

Indigenous people are also disproportionately victims of homicide and other violent offences. There were some 951 Indigenous homicide victims, 13 per cent of all homicide victims, between 1 July 1989 and 30 June 2012. That’s up to 2012. By 2020 you could really guess that the figure would be well in thousands. A Western Australian report found Aboriginal women in Western Australia were 17 times more likely to be murdered. Indigenous women are 34 times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of domestic violence.

Black Lives Matter Protesters do not march for these lives. They focus on a selective number of 432 deaths in custody, the vast majority of which have had nothing to do with brutality or negligence by police or corrective services officers.

Truth number five.

There has never been a better time since colonisation to be an Indigenous Australian. There are no longer discriminatory laws against Indigenous people. In fact, the last laws in New South Wales were done away with in 1969 and the early 70s. Land rights and Native Title has given back to Indigenous people, more than 20 per cent of Australia’s land mass, and I predict that this will grow to over 70 per cent over the next 20 years when we look at the court cases that are going through the system at the moment.

Federal and state governments spend billions of dollars annually on improving the lives of Indigenous people. Attendance rights of Indigenous people at University in 2015 was 15,585 and by 2017 there was a record 19,237 Indigenous students at University nationally. When I was a kid, the idea of just going to University was unheard of. In fact, I remember when Charles Perkins visited us when we were in South Grafton, where I lived as a kid, my brothers and I had never heard of the word before, but we knew it was important because all our elders were talking in hushed voices about Charles Perkins, this University graduate. Indigenous Australians with a degree in 2014 numbered over 30,000. And various kinds of degrees. You’re looking at lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants, teachers, and the list just goes on.

As at 1 July 2015, the Federal government announced the Indigenous Procurement Policy. And in that policy, they set a target of 3 per cent of government contracts over 5 year going to to Indigenous owned businesses provided they could meet the standard and deliver on those contracts. As at 1 July 2015, $6.7 million worth of government contracts was going to Indigenous owned businesses. As at the end 2019 it was in excess of $2 billion worth of Federal government contracts is going to Indigenous owned businesses.

I have not met a person or a corporation who does not want to make a difference for Indigenous people – a big difference in their life. And speaking of destroying some of the myths. People think that Indigenous people are against mining but there are in excess of 6000 Indigenous people working in the mining industry, from tradies to plant operators, to working in the back office to engineers and so on. And the mining industry actually puts into Indigenous communities something like $4 billion on an annual basis.

Truth number six.

When we look at the Black Lives Matter campaign in Australia, you’re given the impression that 432 people have been brutalised by police or corrective services offices and have been murdered. That is not true. In fact, as I said earlier, the vast majority of those deaths – and it’s well in excess of 90 per cent – have had nothing to do with police or corrective services. Now as I also said earlier, that doesn’t mean that there weren’t some cases and I named a few. But most have been caused by things like natural causes such as heart attacks, suicides, deaths caused by other prisoners and alcohol and drugs.

The main reason that Indigenous deaths in custody are high is because Indigenous incarceration rates are high and, sadly, because of the higher rates of suicide. The fact that Indigenous people experience greater health problems and substance abuse issues is also a factor.

When confronted with this, particularly higher incarceration rates, the mindset of the Black Lives Matter activist will invariably blame history. They will say that Indigenous incarceration and violence all stems from the way Indigenous people have been treated in history. But these underlying causes of Indigenous deaths in custody cannot be just blamed on colonisation, segregation and racism. Indigenous incarceration rates have nearly doubled since 1991 and suicide rates begin escalating in the late 1980s. After civil rights were won – and that was in the 1960s and early 1970s when we were by law treated equally to every other Australian after the 1967 Referendum – after we won land rights, after the Mabo decision where native title was recognised and during a period when the treatment of Indigenous Australians has vastly improved.

History is not the cause of Indigenous incarceration or suicide or the poverty and other problems underpin the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health. These problems stem from chronic intergenerational welfare dependency and social breakdown which in turn has been caused by the mass transition of Indigenous people from work to welfare starting in the early 1970s.

And we will not see changes unless Indigenous kids get to school and into education and Indigenous people are working in real jobs – not just some government payout but actually working in the commercial sector, in jobs like trades or professions – and there are real economies in Indigenous communities.

Until that happens, we will always have this problem of Indigenous people living in poverty, getting caught up in violence and crime, drugs and alcohol and the numerous issues that stem from these. I’ve always argued that these problems will not change until we get all our kids attending school most of the time – in fact at least 90 per cent of the time – until we get adults moving off welfare and into the workforce as educated, skilled workers, and until we have Indigenous communities where there are businesses operating and investment from the private sector that create jobs.

* * *

The Federal government needs re-focus on those things. It has shifted from that focus in the last year or so and instead has been prioritising this Indigenous Voice to Parliament and a number of other things. In fact, I looked at some of the advice that’s coming out of what they call the Coalition of Peaks, which is a coalition of peak Indigenous organisations that has been advising on the refreshed Closing the Gap targets, and out of those fifty or so organisations, not one them is a business or business focussed. Not one is an organisation that looks at economics or is run by business people. I fear government policy is shifting back into the old days before the Coalition government came into power in 2013.

We have to get the government to focus back on schools, jobs, business creation and economics if we are going to see a real difference in the lives of Indigenous people.