#GeorgeFloyd: A Timely Reminder for Aussies

The #GeorgeFloyd issue is deeply felt in Australia especially – and protests have being held across the country. 

But these demonstrations are more than about expressing solidarity – equally important, they help to draw Australian attention on the alarming numbers of Aboriginal deaths in custody. 

In 1987, the Committee to Defend Black Rights found that one indigenous person was dying in custody every eleven days. That spurred a royal commission, completed in 1991, which investigated the incarceration of Aboriginal people and the circumstances of 99 deaths. 

The inquiry made more than 300 recommendations, but most were NOT implemented! Meaning, almost three decades on, nothing much has changed. 

At least 432 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have died in custody since the said inquiry, according to data by the Guardian. 

It appears Australia’s situation vis-à-vis its indigenous people is even worse. Massively. 

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, they are less than 3% of the national population – but they comprise almost 30% of the Australian prison population. This is about four times higher than the proportion of African-Americans jailed in the US! 

There have been other stark reminders. A committee heard last year that every child in detention in the Northern Territory was indigenous. According to another analysis, indigenous Australians are the most incarcerated people in the world – although to be fair, its authors had cautioned that much global data was not available. 

And some recent Aboriginal deaths in custody have sparked protests. High-profile cases have included:

Nineteen-year-old Kumanjayi Walker was shot dead last November after being arrested by officers at a house in a remote community; 55-year-old Tanya Day suffered a fatal injury in custody in 2017 after being arrested for being drunk and asleep on a train; 26-year-old David Dungay died after being restrained by five prison officers in a Sydney cell in 2015, despite crying out repeatedly "I can't breathe"(!); and 22-year-old Ms Dhu succumbed to septicaemia and pneumonia in 2014 while in police custody, in what a coroner later ruled had followed "inhumane" treatment by officers. 

Protests were held in cities such as Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.

Senior Federal Government Minister Mathias Cormann couldn't keep his mouth shut and he took aim at Australian Black Lives Matter protesters, dubbing their actions “selfish”, “self-indulgent” and “reckless” amid the deadly coronavirus pandemic. 

Labor’s spokesperson for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney (left) had rightly retorted that Senator Cormann should be listening to the “visceral cries” of people speaking out against inequality. 

She said his home state of Western Australia had some of the highest levels of incarceration of Aboriginal people, including two deaths in custody in recent years. 

And Deputy Opposition Leader Richard Marles (right) had labelled Cormann’s comments as tone deaf. 

“I felt uncomfortable about the mass gathering but I’m not about to engage in that kind of judgement of those who did it”, he explained. 

“We’ve got a major issue in this country [and] to suggest that this is something which is imported, is patently ridiculous. And to say to those who are standing up against it and to do something about it, that this is an act of selfishness and indulgence, is wrong”. 

In Malaysia, we have an issue with custodial deaths too. Yet, most times, we remain silent.

And don't forget, racism as well. And yet, nobody's talking about it. I suppose, we are not ready to confront the issue.