Systemic cruelty against First Nations children not confined to history

CONTENT WARNING:
This article contains the names of Indigenous people who have died
It also discusses violence

With states jostling to prove their tough-on-crime credentials by introducing racist laws, will the Yoorroock Justice Commission's recommendations spark urgent reform? Managing editor Michelle Pini reports.

THE Yoorrook Justice Commission Report into Victoria’s systemic injustices perpetrated against First Peoples was released this week, including 100 recommendations for urgent change and, as expected, it makes for uncomfortable reading.

The Report documents systemic racism, discrimination and injustices against First Peoples and recognises genocide. 

 It states:

‘For First Peoples, the child protection and criminal justice systems have long been sites of systemic injustice.’

But it is clear that not much has changed and the problems covered in the Yoorroock Report are not confined to the State of Victoria. Nationwide systemic dispossession is ongoing. And the question is not whether Australia discriminates against its Indigenous population, but when and how this may ever be addressed.

In the months since the Voice Referendum trampled First Nations' voices, the never-ending gap lurking beneath Australia's White privilege has widened into a giant crevasse.

In the absence of a Federal Voice to Parliament or definitive steps towards a national Treaty, deaths in custody are continuing, racially fuelled violence goes on and racist laws – even against children – are being reintroduced as individual states jostle to prove their “tough on crime” credentials, lest they attract the media’s condemnation.

'Tough on crime' ... by targeting First Nations children

In New South Wales, the family of two Aboriginal boys is taking NSW Police to the Human Rights Commission for racial discrimination. The brothers, aged 11 and 13 with no significant criminal history, were subjected to more than 150 police checks in less than two years, while they were on bail for minor offences. This is targeted harassment.

Their mother told ABC:

’Officers would turn up to their house at "all hours of the night" and the ordeal had left them fearful of police."They are targeting young Aboriginal boys, which they shouldn't be”.’

The Justice and Equity Centre, which is representing the family in its complaint against NSW Police, commissioned a report based on figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics (BOCSAR).

Unsurprisingly, the report indicates:

‘Aboriginal youth were almost 12 per cent more likely to be checked by police than non-Aboriginal youth and, when checked, Aboriginal youths were then subjected to 42 per cent more checks than non-Indigenous young people.’

In 2023, a 16-year-old Indigenous boy, Cleveland Dodd, became the first child to die in custody in Western Australia. The inquest into his death is concluding this week in WA and it is hoped the outcome may lead to much-needed reforms.

Western Australia has the highest rate of First Nations deaths in custody.

In the Northern Territory, the recently elected Country Liberal Government has reversed reforms made after the deplorable Don Dale episode and the resulting Royal Commission into the territory’s mistreatment of children in detention, back in 2017.

Despite the Territory's reprehensible torture of a young boy, which sparked the said royal commission and its grossly disproportionate per-capita ratio of Indigenous deaths in custody, the Northern Territory Government has decided to lower the age of criminal responsibility to ten years and reintroduce the use of barbaric spit hoods and strip searches — to be used on children. 

Queensland, meanwhile, incarcerates more Indigenous children than any other state. Around 70 per cent of the state's youth prison population is Indigenous.

Nonetheless, like its Northern Territory neighbour, the Queensland LNP Government is proceeding with its "Adult Crime, Adult Time" laws, which have been slammed by Amnesty International and other human rights advocates.

Amnesty International Australia's Kacey Teerman said the new laws are:

'...Openly racist, brazenly cruel and will only compound the trauma that leads children to offend in the first place.'

Racial violence

In Western Australia, the murderers of a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy were sentenced to life in prison this week. Cassius Turvey was "hunted" down and beaten to death by a gang of men in 2022 while he was walking home from school in Perth’s eastern suburbs.

After the verdict, his mother said:

"I will never see him grow older, never hear his voice again, never feel the comfort of his embrace … no parent should have to visit the grave of an innocent 15-year-old child who did nothing wrong."

Imagine the level of uproar if an Indigenous gang of men had committed this horrific crime against a non-Indigenous child. 

Treaty, reparations and reform

Queensland's retrograde Crisafulli Government is also scrapping the Path to Treaty Act, fast-tracking the legislation without a consultation process and prioritising this on its to-do list shortly after coming to power.

It is not all bad news, however. South Australia led the way two years ago by implementing its own First Nations Voice, which is also prioritising addressing incarceration rates in 2025.

And in Victoria, Labor Premier Jacinta Allan this week indicated she would support making the First Peoples' Assembly, which was formed in 2018 to represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, a permanent advisory body. 

The Victorian Government is also expected to introduce a bill to legislate the advisory body and continue its path to Treaty discussions later this year.

The future

Among other injustices, First Nations children and young people are imprisoned at 26 times the rate of their non-Indigenous counterparts.  

According to the Human Rights Law Centre:

'Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment and losing their lives at the hands of the criminal legal system. They are segregated from society and excluded from their communities and culture.'

First Nations children continue to be dispossessed and subjected to ongoing trauma, often leading to their deaths.

This situation is simply abhorrent.

Australia is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

We should all be doing everything in our power to ensure we fulfil our responsibilities under this vital convention. 

If you would like to speak to someone about issues raised in this article, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander crisis support line 13YARN on 13 92 76.

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