WENDELL HUSSEY | Cadet | CONTACT
Police around the country have today been urged to take the same level of due diligence they’ve shown the nation’s statues, to indigenous people who come into their custody.
This follows huge numbers of police standing guard around notable statues and busts of historical figures to prevent vandals spraying a bit of paint on them.
Despite effectively no action being taken on the issues that activists have been working tirelessly on and over 500,000 people protested about, a few of our nation’s political leaders are doing everything they can to stop some statues from getting defaced.
“We are serious about this,” explained Prime Minister Morrison this weekend.
“Not the 437 indigenous deaths in custody since 1991 without a charge, or the horrifyingly disproportionate rate of indigenous incarceration, or the systemic racism that runs through the various state and territory police forces around the country,” he said.
“I’m talking about the protection of statues,” he said, referring to the bronze lumps that are seemingly worth the protection of countless police officers.
In the wake of that mammoth effort, activists have since asked the police to introduce that level of protocol whenever they have to take people into custody, or work their way through a nothing situation with a teenager who is mouthing off a bit.
“Maybe they could introduce that into training modules?” suggested community lawyer Quentin Roberts from the Betoota Legal Centre today.
“If we can get them to treat statue lives as a preciously as Indigenous lives, then we might be able to progress as a nation.”
“And also actually do something about the recommendations that are set to be handed down in the Closing The Gap targets on justice, rather than just pay lip service to them and let them disappear out of the news cycle.”
