Justice for David Dungay, TJ Hickey, Kumanjayi Walker
And all Other Aboriginal People Killed by Prison Guards or Police!
Racist, Rich People’s Court Whitewashes
State Killing of David Dungay
22 January 2020 – It has been over four years since the killing of 26 year-old Dunghutti Aboriginal man, David Dungay. David was killed in state custody at the “Hospital” section of Sydney’s Long Bay jail. His horrific death was captured in video footage taken by a prison guard (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lny6jqivLqc). The footage, which was finally made public two and a half years after David’s death, shows prison guards storming into David’s cell on the pretext that they needed to stop him eating his own packet of biscuits. The guard’s excuse was that since David was refusing to accept their demands to stop eating his biscuits, they needed to forcibly move David into a cell with a camera in order to monitor him out of supposed concern for the diabetic man’s blood sugar levels. The video footage shows the guards throwing David into a face down position and then cruelly shackling him. As the weight and brutal force of the five heavy-set guards bear down upon him and strangles his breathing, David repeatedly pleads, “please, I can’t breathe!” David can obviously be heard in the recording gasping desperately for breath. But the guards ignore David’s distressed pleas. They drag him to another cell and again constrict him in the prone (face down) position. Even as David continues to scream repeatedly, “I can’t breathe!” and cries out in extreme pain the sadistic guards keep on brutally shackling him with one guard even putting his knee into David’s back. Minutes later, David Dungay turns blue in the face and dies. Yet, despite this graphic evidence, the coroner’s inquest concluded two months ago recommended no criminal charges against any of the prison guards. The Coroner even refused to recommend any work disciplinary action – even the most minor (like a warning) – against any of the guards!
The Dungay family and supporters who packed the Coroner’s Court to hear the inquest findings were rightly furious at this despicable whitewash. David Dungay, who loved sports as a child and had a talent for writing poetry, was much loved by his mother and siblings and was very loyal to them. The November 22 Coroner’s findings are a severe blow against their fight for justice. However, David Dungay’s mother Leetona, his siblings, nephews and nieces and other family members and their many supporters are determined to continue the fight for justice for David. We must join them in this struggle!
The Deceptions Used by the Coroner to Protect the Killer Prison Guards
The outrageous behaviour of the prison guards was so obvious that even the Coroner had to concede that many of their actions were wrong. This is because he knew that the inquest was being closely watched by many people campaigning for justice for David. So the Coroner does admit that there was no medical necessity to move David into a cell with a camera. Indeed, David had not even been showing adverse diabetes symptoms at the time that he was attacked by the guards for “his own good.” Based on evidence from doctors and nurses, the Coroner concluded that David’s consumption of biscuits was not a pressing threat to his wellbeing. Moreover, the Coroner concluded that it was not the trained medical staff but the senior prison guard involved, “Officer F” (the inquest went to great lengths to cover up the identities of the killer guards) that decided that David be forcibly moved to a camera cell on supposed medical grounds. This “task” Officer F prescribed not to the regular guards but to the prison riot squad, the IAT (Immediate Action Team). By calling in the riot squad, Officer F greatly escalated what this senior prison guard acknowledged during the inquest was a medical issue rather than a security one. The Coroner had to make a concession here too accepting that “it was neither necessary nor appropriate for Officer F to request the attendance of the IAT….”
It was the actions of the IAT guards that directly killed David. The IAT was so brutal when they attacked that they caused David to bleed. Even a senior officer involved admitted during the inquest that David was bleeding while in his original cell. Evaluating the IAT’s conduct, the Coroner had to acknowledge that, “even leaving aside any gap in training, David’s persistent complaints of being unable to breathe, together with his audible gasping respirations should have prompted action in the form of a request for nursing or medical assessment.” When assessing the actions of an IAT officer who even after David had already been moved cells put his knee into David’s back as David lay face down gasping for breath and desperately crying out, “I can’t breathe”, the Coroner conceded, albeit with incredible understatement, that this was “not warranted.”
Given that the Coroner accepted that the actions of the prison guards was “wrong” on the critical aspects of their “response” to David’s consumption of his own packet of biscuits (!), how does the Coroner then end up justifying his refusal to recommend any action whatsoever against these same prison guards? He does so by unleashing the kind of deception that would make even Scott Morrison proud. One method that the Coroner uses is to greatly underplay the significance of the prison guards’ actions to David’s death. The Coroner does acknowledge that David not being able to breathe adequately due to being restrained for a lengthy period in the face-down “prone” position (a fairly common occurrence known as positional asphyxia which is made more likely when weight is placed on a person) – and his body hence being starved of oxygen (hypoxia/hypoxaemia) – was a “contributing factor” to his death. Yet the Coroner lists this as just one of many factors causing David’s death and, indeed, places this as one of the last of the factors on his list! Thus, in finding that David died of cardiac arrhythmia (bad heartbeat), the Coroner “explains” David’s death as follows: “David’s long-standing poorly controlled type I diabetes, hyperglycaemia, prescription of antipsychotic medication with a propensity to prolong the QT interval [a measure of the normalcy of a heartbeat], elevated body mass index, likely hypoxaemia caused by prone restraint, and extreme stress and agitation as a result of the use of force and restraint were all contributory factors to David’s death … prone restraint, and any consequent hypoxia, was a contributing factor although it is not possible to quantify the extent or significance of its contribution.” “Not possible to quantify the extent or significance” of the contribution to David’s death of the guards’ use of force against him? What kind of complete rubbish is this? The fact is that despite his diabetes, being on medication and being slightly overweight, David, who remember was just 26 years-old, was in quite decent physical health before the prison guards attacked him. Indeed, the Coroner reports that less than an hour before David was killed, a nurse who checked his blood sugar levels found that he had no acute symptoms (i.e. he was physically fine). The report also details that up to forty–five minutes before his death, David had been in the jail’s exercise yard. So it is completely obvious that the overwhelming reason for David’s death was the actions of the prison guards. Moreover, it is apparent that the Coroner is aware that he is conducting a smoke and mirrors trick by listing David’s diabetes as a key cause of David’s death (and even listing this diabetes above the guard’s use of force and restraint when “explaining” David’s death). This is because in another part of his own report – when he refutes a submission by the Dungay family’s lawyers that there was a failure to provide David with proper management of his diabetes – the Coroner categorically states that “there is no evidence to indicate that David’s diabetes (and consequently the management of it) led to the development of an acute condition proximate to his death, or was contributory to it.” So when it helps protect the prison authorities, the Coroner emphatically says that David’s diabetes did not contribute to his death but when it helps to obscure the prison guards’ role in David’s death, the Coroner lists diabetes first in his list of contributory factors to David’s death!
To see the level of deceit that the Coroner is practicing here, consider the analogy of a person who dies after being shot. Now, if a person is shot in their most vital organs like the heart they will likely die no matter how healthy they are. However, if they are shot elsewhere, say in the abdomen, then a very fit person would have a slightly higher chance of survival than a person who is, say, a bit overweight and with diabetes. Yet, imagine if a coroner reporting on the death of the latter person concludes that: “The dead person’s long-standing poorly controlled type I diabetes, hyperglycaemia, elevated body mass index and internal bleeding caused by gunshot were all contributory factors to his death … gunshot was a contributing factor although it is not possible to quantify the extent or significance of its contribution … and so no criminal charges are recommended against the shooter.” That is the kind of fraud that the Coroner is trying to sell the Dungay family, their many supporters and the broader public!
The main way that the Coroner gets the killer guards off the hook is through, while acknowledging that their key actions were “wrong,” putting this down to lack of medical knowledge, “deficiencies in training” and “misunderstanding of information.” Thus, in knocking back the Dungay family’s submission that the senior officer engaged in a reprehensible power play when he ordered that David be forcibly transferred cells just for refusing the guards’ unnecessary orders for David to stop eating his own biscuits, the Coroner stated that: “the rationale given by Officer F as to his decision-making process was that it was based on medical grounds. Whilst the evidence demonstrates that there was no medical basis to support such a rationale, this was not known to Officer F at the time.” So here the Coroner grants the senior officer the excuse of lack of medical knowledge. Yet there were plenty of nurses around the prison as well as doctors who could be contacted who did have medical knowledge. The senior guard, knowing that he did not have medical training, chose to bypass these trained medical officers and have David forcibly moved cells on supposed medical grounds. Indeed, this senior guard did not even inform the nurse present of his decision to have David forcibly transferred on medical grounds. If the senior officer was really concerned about David’s health wouldn’t he have called the nurses or the doctors to check David out rather than call in the brute force of IAT riot squad; knowing that force would inevitably be used by the riot squad which would put a person who he supposedly feared for the health of in still greater danger? It is apparent that the only real reason for the senior officer to want to order David to be forcibly transferred cells is, indeed, because of a repugnant power play. And this was not simply a power play but no doubt a racist power play; you can bet that as far as the senior guard saw it, David was not simply a prisoner refusing to obey guards (to stop eating his own biscuits of all things) but a “cheeky black ….” being disobedient. That’s why he unleashed the riot squad against a person just for eating their own biscuits!
The biggest of all the whitewashes by the Coroner is when he excuses the murderously cruel actions of the IAT guards as being due to “systemic deficiencies in training.” Yet, how much training does one need to know that when a person you are roughly handling and putting your weight on is repeatedly screaming out “I can’t breathe!” and is obviously gasping for breath you should release your hold and check on their condition? Even eight-year old children fighting in a playground would release their hold on another child if their adversary was crying out “I can’t breathe” and obviously struggling to breathe! Indeed, David was so plainly in a dire condition after the IAT riot squad attacked him that when they were transferring him to the new cell he collapsed to the ground. Yet the guards continued to forcibly restrain him, continued to exert great force upon him and continued to refuse to check on his medical condition. In ignoring David’s repeated pleas, the IAT guards and the senior officer overseeing them acted all the more criminally because this person pleading, “please, I can’t breathe!” was someone that they were supposedly concerned about the health of and who they were supposedly moving solely in order to protect the health of. That’s not “deficiencies in training”! It’s not lack of medical knowledge! That’s racist brutality! That’s manslaughter! And the guards whose actions killed David Dungay must be jailed for this crime!
There is an additional technique that the Coroner used to get the prison guards off the hook. The one bit of action he recommends against any prison employee is not against any of the killer guards but against one of the nurses. This was the nurse that administered the sedative Midazalom after David had been moved to the new cell. The Coroner recommends that the professional conduct of this nurse be referred for review for his failure to examine David’s breathing and circulation when giving this injection, especially given that he had heard David scream out, “I can’t breathe.” Such action and much more against this nurse is certainly warranted. However, his responsibility is far less than that of the prison guards whose actions directly killed David and who, what is more, ordered the nurse to leave David’s new cell immediately after giving the injection. It is obvious that the Coroner hopes that the minor action he recommended against a nurse will help get the heat off the killer guards. As a close relative of David insightfully shouted out soon after the Coroner delivered his report: “They throw a medic under the bus to save the guards!”
If people want to consider just how unfair the whitewash of David’s killing is let us envisage a scenario where the person killed is not an Aboriginal prisoner from a low-income background but a rich white big business owner. However, it is almost impossible to imagine a situation where such a corporate bigwig would be in prison at all given that such tycoons are largely above the law in capitalist Australia. So let us envisage a more realistic scenario where the young millionaire, who is slightly overweight and has diabetes, checks into a luxury hotel and goes to the hotel bar for several glasses of chardonnay. He later sees at the bar an Aboriginal woman as well as a Chinese couple and a group of Sudanese youth. Incensed that non-white people are in such an exclusive venue, the bigoted young capitalist makes a racist jibe at the Aboriginal woman. However, he does not realise that six of her friends are also at the bar. These Aboriginal men come to her defence. The most senior person among these friends tells the other five to forcibly remove the white tycoon from the hotel premises. He tells the young white man that this is for his own welfare because if he continues with making racist insults he may get severely bashed by other non-white patrons. The five heavy-set black guys tackle the rich man to the ground and roughly shackle him putting great force on him. The Aboriginal men are angry with this man’s racist behaviour. The white guy starts screaming out repeatedly, “please, I can’t breathe.” However, the Aboriginal men ignore his pleas. Before hotel security can arrive on the scene, the Aboriginal men frog march the young capitalist out of the hotel. Outside the hotel they again roughly tackle him to the ground and one of them puts his knee in the rich white man’s back. They ignore his continued cries of “I can’t breathe” and the fact that he is obviously gasping desperately for breath. Within a minute or two he turns blue in the face and dies. The whole incident is captured by the hotel’s various CCTV cameras. Unlike the case of David Dungay who was merely eating his own biscuits in his own cell, in this scenario the young white tycoon who makes a racist jibe certainly deserved to be confronted. However, unlike with the inquest into David’s death you can bet that any Australian coroner heading this inquest would have zero sympathy for the people perpetrating the physical attack. There is no way that a coroner in today’s Australia would rule that the white millionaire’s “long-standing poorly controlled type I diabetes, hyperglycaemia, elevated body mass index, likely hypoxaemia caused by prone restraint, and extreme stress and agitation as a result of the use of force and restraint were all contributory factors to the man’s death … prone restraint, and any consequent hypoxia, was a contributing factor although it is not possible to quantify the extent or significance of its contribution … the Aboriginal men were wrong to ignore the man’s gasping for breathe … but they were not trained in the dangers of positional asphyxia and so no charges are recommended against any of the Aboriginal men.” There is absolutely zero chance this would happen! Instead, any coroner in today’s Australia would not hesitate to recommend that the Aboriginal people involved be charged with the murder or manslaughter of the white corporate bigwig.
Cover Ups and the Cover Up of the Cover Ups
During the coroner’s inquest, it became apparent that the guards themselves knew that they had engaged in serious wrongdoing. That is why the testimony that they gave was so dishonest. For example, the guards tried to blame the nurses for causing the cell transfer of David. Yet, in their actual incident reports written on the day of David’s death, none of these same officers stated then that it was the nurses who requested the transfer. Moreover, the key nurse who some of the guards claimed had said that the biscuits needed to be removed from David, was adamant that he never uttered any such thing let alone called for David to be forcibly moved. This was confirmed by the fact that the nurse had not filled out the required certificate needed to request a cell transfer on medical grounds. As their claims became exposed during the inquest, the key officers changed their testimony. One guard who had claimed that it was a nurse who suggested that the biscuits needed to be removed later conceded that she had actually independently come to that position. The other two officers involved in the decision to forcibly transfer David moved from being sure that it was a nurse who had raised a concern about David eating biscuits to, in one case saying that it could have been another officer who expressed that, and in the other case now saying that he could not properly recall.
It also became apparent during the inquest that the guards’ cover up attempts actually began well before the inquest started. For one, a prison officer ordered that the cell that David had been moved from be cleaned of David’s blood even though it was obvious that there would need to be an investigation into the incident. Furthermore, it was revealed that one guard who had made no mention about any conversation with a nurse in her initial incident report, then claimed, for the first time, in a statement made a whole six months after David’s death that a nurse had said to her that they needed to get the biscuits out of David’s cell. Very dodgy! Even more dodgy was the erasing of crucial video evidence by Corrective Services NSW staff. After the police detective investigating David’s death requested all prison CCTV footage relating to the incident, he was only sent the footage beginning from when the IAT arrived to storm David’s cell. The detective was told by Corrective Services that earlier footage showing the period leading up to the IAT being called and showing David’s movement for the whole day had been written over!
Perhaps the most blatant attempt to cover up responsibility for David’s death was conducted by the IAT guards involved. They each claimed that David was not gasping for breath after they moved in against him! Instead, they stated that David was only breathing heavily from exertion. This is despite David being heard unmistakably gasping for breath in the video footage of the IAT attack on him.
So how did the Coroner deal with all these cover up attempts? On the IAT guards’ attempt to deny that David was gasping for breath, the Coroner downplays the dishonesty of such statements by merely calling them “incorrect.” Similarly, he describes the guards’ devious attempts to blame the nurses for their decision to forcibly move David as being merely caused by “misinterpreting” the nurses’ concerns. In particular, the Coroner grossly understates the dishonesty of the senior guard’s testimony, stating only that “the quality of Officer F’s evidence was deficient in some regards” and then further watering down this mildest of criticisms by adding that, “however, an appropriate concession was ultimately made by Officer F ….” When it came to addressing how an officer ordered a nurse to wipe David’s blood away from his cell before an investigation could take place, the Coroner merely described this as being not “prudent” and insisted that “evidence does not rise so high as to suggest that the actions … were motivated by malicious intent.” Meanwhile, the Coroner’s conclusion about the erasure of crucial CCTV footage was the benign statement that “it is not possible to understand precisely why the entirety of the relevant footage was not retained ….” In summary, it is apparent that the Coroner conducted the whole inquest based on the premise – and with the intention of concluding – that any “incorrect” actions by the prison guards were done without malicious intent. And not surprisingly then, that was his ultimate conclusion too!
Indeed, the key issue of the inquest, whether the guards acted with malicious intent or not, the Coroner buries in a mass of talk about procedures and training. Thus, the very most crucial specific question of the inquest, whether the IAT guards acted with malicious intent in using excessive force while restraining David and in failing to cease restraint and address David’s desperate cries that he couldn’t breathe, the Coroner dismissed with one solitary sentence! And that in a 98 page report!
If we look as a whole at what happened in Long Bay Prison Hospital on that fateful day of 29 December 2015 and strip away all the fancy medical terms and other smoke thrown into the Coroner’s report about procedures and training, the incident is quite simple: A physically quite healthy young Aboriginal man who is eating his own packet of biscuits in his own cell defies an unwarranted demand from prison guards to stop eating those biscuits (supposedly for his own good). Upset at being defied, the guards on a power trip – no doubt boosted by a huge dose of racism – call the prison riot You have to make an order to online pharmacy, the levitra 10mg will reach to you ion a shortest period of time. Most men are interested in enlarging their penis size Erectile dysfunction affects one-third of men best prices on levitra irrespective of age or race. The literature points to a broad range of backgrounds for teachers; some with a high school education and little or no idea about BSOD, it is a STOP error screen with a blue background adorned with white text codes explaining icks.org levitra sale error details. Hard, huge, lasting, let a man confidence to multiply, give female greatly satisfy! Largo Enlargement Cream can make penile erectile quality buy cialis Click Here adequately expand so it can enhance barrenness, lessen, for example, sexual brokenness impact, and can make the man nauseated, weak and dizzy. squad in on David. These IAT guards use excess force in restraining David, causing him to even bleed. Then, as the five heavy-set officers shackle David for lengthy periods in the dangerous, face down position, putting much force and weight on him, David pleads repeatedly, “please, I can’t breathe!” and can obviously be heard gasping for breath. The guards continue to ignore David’s repeated and constant pleas over a period of some six minutes and maintain their severe hold on him, including a knee in his back. This causes David to turn blue in the face and die. We repeat: This is not “deficiencies in training.” It’s not lack of medical knowledge! This is racist brutality! This is manslaughter! And the guards whose actions killed David Dungay must be thrown behind bars for an extended period!
What about the Recommendations from the Coroner
about Improving Safeguards in Prisons?
It is obvious that the court wanted to make the inquest one about procedures in the prison rather than about the criminal conduct of the guards. In of themselves, the recommendations made by the Coroner about increased training of guards on the dangers of positional asphyxia, more use of Aboriginal Inmate Delegates during interactions between guards and Aboriginal inmates, greater emphasis on de-escalation techniques etc could be helpful. The problem is that any positive effect of all these recommendations is dwarfed by the terribly harmful effect of the most significant recommendation – or rather non-recommendation: that no charges or even work disciplinary action be taken against any of the prison guards. Racist prison guards and police hearing of this will conclude that if in the future they brutalise an Aboriginal prisoner so badly that it kills the prisoner they will not be sacked for such murderous crimes – let alone jailed. Even if their actions are caught on camera! In other words, this whitewash coronial inquiry will be a green light for further racist state terror. With nearly 500 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people having been killed in state custody over the last three decades, this is a terrifying prospect.
The effect of this coronial inquest could turn out to be like that of the 1991 Royal Commission into black deaths in custody. That Royal Commission also had some positive recommendations, ones which would have reduced the rate of Aboriginal imprisonment, for example, had they been implemented. However, those recommendations were all greatly outweighed by the most significant aspect of that inquiry’s findings: that it whitewashed all the cases where state enforcement personnel murdered Aboriginal prisoners. The 1991 Royal Commission refused to recommend charges against a single cop or prison guard over the killing of an Aboriginal person. As a result, racist state personnel took it as a green light to undertake yet more violence against Aboriginal detainees. In the 28 years since that inquiry was held, 424 indigenous people have died in state custody – a more than 50% higher rate than before the inquiry.
Where recommendations about improved custody procedures would make a really major difference would be if we were in a system where the prison guards and police were sincerely committed to treating black people in custody and others imprisoned, fairly. However this is definitely not the case in Australia. The reason so many Aboriginal people have been killed in state custody is not mainly because of bad procedures and inadequate training but because of the racist brutality of the state enforcement personnel and their contempt for those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. This flows from the whole function and history of the police, prisons and other repressive organs of the Australian state. After colonial invasion, these bodies were built up to enforce the dispossession of Aboriginal people from the land that they belonged to and to enforce the exploitation of working class people by the capitalist business owners. Since then, these repressive institutions have been replenished to maintain this purpose. Their political character as the bully boys of the big end of town is reinforced every time that they are unleashed against working class struggles (like strikes and picket lines) or against staunch Aboriginal rights struggles (like tent embassy occupations or the 2004 Redfern and Palm Island militant resistance struggles). Naturally, this imbues the cops and prison guards with hostility to both Aboriginal people and to those who stand up for the rights of the working class masses. Therefore, even when police and prison officers are not undertaking action directly connected to their primary political function they still do their work coloured by their own racist and anti-poor people’s prejudice. The Aboriginal people killed by the actions of police or prison guards – John Pat, Eddie Murray, David Gundy, Daniel Yock, TJ Hickey, Mulrunji Doomadgee, Kwementyaye (Terrance) Briscoe, Julieka Dhu, David Dungay, Kumanjayi Walker and so many more – is testament to this horrific reality.
The racist, anti-working class character of Australia’s repressive organs does not fundamentally change whether it is the Liberals, the ALP or the Greens who are in government. However, while the basic character of state enforcement personnel will remain until the existing capitalist state is overturned, the behaviour of these authorities is affected to some degree by prevailing political winds. The heightening racism in Australian society, the growth of violent, white supremacist groups and the rise of hard-right, racist governments (from Trump’s America to Bolsonaro’s Brazil to Orban’s Hungary to Modi’s India to the racist-infested Morrison government here) throughout the world is encouraging the most extreme racist tendencies within the “justice system”.
Mobilise Mass Action Backed By Our Unions to
Win Justice for Black Victims of Racist State Violence
Like the police, the prisons, the military and the spy agencies, the courts form part of Australia’s racist rich people’s state. And although some judges and more liberal members of the capitalist ruling class may sometimes be embarrassed by the naked racism of many of their cops and prison guards, they still always stand by these cops and screws because they are grateful to their physical enforcers for defending their dominant social position. Meanwhile, the courts are united with the police and prisons by a common purpose to enforce racist, capitalist rule. Hence, these state organs act to protect each other whenever any one of them is challenged by the oppressed. That is why not a single police officer or prison guard has ever been convicted over the killing of an Aboriginal person. The terrible reality is that the whitewash of David Dungay’s killing is the norm in Australia.
The only way that justice can be won for David Dungay, TJ Hickey and the dozens of other Aboriginal people killed by racist police or prison guards (and the many other Aboriginal people who have died in highly suspicious circumstances in state custody like Rebecca Maher, Eric Whittaker and Nathan Reynolds) is through powerful, mass protest action that forces the racist legal system to grant concessions to the demands for justice. It was spirited nationwide protests across the country that finally compelled the authorities to charge the officer who shot dead 19 year-old Aboriginal man, Kumanjayi Walker, in the NT’s Yuendumu last month. Prior to these mass protest actions, the initial police response to the killing of Walker was to cover-up the killing as an act of self-defence.
Even now there is a great danger that the trial of the officer charged with Kumanjayi’s death will be a whitewash that will acquit the charged cop. That is why it is important that the mass actions demanding justice for Kumanjayi Walker continue right up to – and during – the trial. The judge who will instruct any jury in the case – and the many corporate high-fliers, politicians, high-up bureaucrats and other judges who will no doubt be in his ear over this high-profile case that has major political implications – need to be shown that the usual biased outcome will not be tolerated. In this, it is worth looking back at the lessons of the fight for justice for Aboriginal man, Mulrunji Doomadgee, who was bashed to death by the racist cop, Chris Hurley, in Queensland’s Palm Island in November 2004. As a result of the political impact of the militant resistance action by hundreds of Palm Island residents that responded to Mulrunji’s murder and subsequent street protests throughout the country, the killer cop was eventually charged with manslaughter. However, once Hurley was charged, most activists who had worked hard to fight for justice for Mulrunji then stopped their street protests believing that the best way to ensure justice was to now leave the justice system “to follow its course.” However, this allowed the courts to simply follow their well-trodden, biased course by letting the cop who killed the Aboriginal man go free.
That is why those fighting for justice for people killed by Australian regime enforcement personnel need to be careful to ensure that any slogans raised by us do not end up inadvertently breeding illusions in the fairness or “independence” of any court proceeding, coroner’s hearing or other inquiry conducted by Australia’s state institutions. For example, rather than calling for an “independent inquiry” in the fight to win justice for David Dungay, those involved in the struggle should now simply demand that the prison guards who killed David be jailed for their crimes. This is especially because the video footage makes it clear to any serious person that it was the guards’ cruel actions that killed David. To be sure, if the movement demanding justice for, say, David Dungay or TJ Hickey becomes powerful enough to make the ruling authorities consider making a back down they would seek to do it through their own “processes”, which may well involve them calling a new inquiry or coroner’s inquest. So be it. However, those campaigning for justice must ensure that we do not make out that any such inquiry would be “independent.” If we do that – for example, by calling for an “independent inquiry” – we will mislead activists into thinking that should the capitalist regime respond to demands for justice by deciding to hold a new inquiry/inquest, activists should just sit back and let the “independent” inquiry/inquest “run its course”, when what would actually be needed then is the very opposite: for opponents of racist state oppression to urgently intensify street actions demanding justice, which alone can have a chance of compelling those in the biased legal system to actually conduct such a proceeding fairly.
In the end, the judges, magistrates and coroners heading Australia’s racist, rich people’s legal system are not going to punish the perpetrators of state terror against Aboriginal people unless they (and others in the ruling class elite who would, no doubt, be in their ears whenever they have to adjudicate on high-profile cases) fear the movement demanding justice for the victims; and, in particular, fear the damage that such a movement could do to the authority of the legal system should they make their usual biased decisions. The regime will fear far, far more a movement that mobilises people on the basis that Australia’s “justice system” is a racist, rich people’s system that needs to be forced against its will to concede justice than it will fear a movement that instead says that the “justice system is basically fair and independent but needs to deal with particular excesses by its enforcement personnel.”
What would most make the racist authorities recoil in the face of movements demanding justice for deaths in custody victims is if we are able to threaten the profits of the big business owning elite whom the Australian regime ultimately serves. In other words, if we are able to organise protest workers’ industrial action. Such actions are possible because it is in the very interests of the workers movement to stand behind deaths in custody victims. For one, the same capitalist state that commits brutal terror against Aboriginal people is the very same one that persecutes militant trade unionists, attacks the picket lines of striking workers and storms the protest actions of working class movements fighting for public housing. Moreover, only by positively standing with Aboriginal first peoples and other victims of racist oppression can the union movement build the inter-racial unity so vital to its struggle for workers rights.
The potential for mobilising union action in the fight for justice for deaths in custody victims was shown by the presence of trade union representatives – from the Maritime Union of Australia – bearing union flags at a December 2016 protest demonstration held to mark the first anniversary of David Dungay’s killing. This recalled the Sydney Branch of the MUA’s brave stand some twelve years ago in support of the Aboriginal Palm Island hero Lex Wotton. A union stopwork in November 2008 on the very day of Lex’s sentencing sent a powerful message to the powers that be that staunch sections of the Australian workers’ movement would not stand by and let the inspirational Aboriginal leader be hung out to dry with a long prison sentence. Lex had been accused of leading the Palm Island resistance, whose 100% justified actions in the wake of Mulrunji’s horrific death in custody saw the killer cop Chris Hurley’s house along with the very institutions of brutal capitalist state oppression on Palm Island – namely, the much hated police station and courthouse – poignantly go up in flames. Unfortunately, more recently, union participation in the campaign for justice for David Dungay has dwindled. To mobilise trade union power behind these campaigns, we need to remove the obstacles blocking this power from being brought to bear. One of these obstacles is the presence of prison guards and police in our union federations – like Unions NSW. It is obvious that when the very people whom action is to be taken against are part of our trade union federations it becomes very difficult to mobilise these union federations – and their affiliated unions – behind the struggle for justice for those killed by state enforcement personnel. Police and prison guards have no place in our workers unions. They are not real workers but rather exist to repress working class resistance in the service of the ultra-rich big end of town. Although they do jail actual criminals as well, it is their function as the suppressors of working class resistance and the enforcers of the dispossession of Aboriginal people that is their main purpose. That is why both the struggle to defend Aboriginal victims of state brutality and the struggle for workers rights demands that our workers unions be divorced completely from any police and prison guard associations.
The overall hurdle that we face in seeking to bring working class power behind the fight against racist state brutality is that the current leadership of the workers movement – and, indeed, the current thinking of most workers – is dominated by the social democratic ideology of the ALP. This ideology promotes nationalist pride in Australia as it currently is and sells workers the lie that the police, prisons, courts and other state enforcement agencies are neutral bodies under “democratic” control. Thus, any struggle to mobilise union power in support of death in custody victims requires a simultaneous struggle against the conservative, nationalist influence of Laborism. Fortunately, even now there are pockets of workers who do not buy all the lies that they are told by the ruling class – and its Laborite protectors – about “our wonderful law enforcement personnel.” Moreover, what makes it possible to break the ideological chains that tie the working class masses to the capitalist state and to the ruling class’ “national interest” is that these chains are as harmful to the struggle for workers rights as they are to the struggle for Aboriginal people’s liberation.
Today, we are in a period leading up to planned celebrations by the Morrison government of the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s arrival on this country’s shores. The commemorations of Cook’s landing will hail an event that opened the path for the British colonial invasion that so devastated Aboriginal people. The nationalist jingoism that will mark the commemoration will add to the thinly veiled, white supremacist attitudes that dominate mainstream society. Especially when combined with the chilling message that the whitewash of David Dungay’s videotaped racist killing sends out, this is yet more bad news for most Aboriginal people. Yet there is another dynamic going on in this country. Many people of different ethnicities are outraged at the planned, grotesque celebration of Cook’s landing. They realise that while this country may not be exactly the same as it was in the first hundred or two hundred years after Cook arrogantly claimed this land for the British Empire, in many aspects things have not fundamentally changed. Aboriginal people are still killed with impunity by racist state personnel, Aboriginal children continue to be taken from their families under the guise of “protection” and Aboriginal people in some parts of the country continue to have their payments compulsorily “managed” on the racist “basis” that Aboriginal people supposedly can’t handle their own money. Meanwhile, the last few years has seen a determined and knowledgeable layer of feisty, young Aboriginal women and men that have burst onto the scene to complement the struggles of longer-time warriors. The non-Aboriginal masses must now urgently throw their weight behind Aboriginal people’s struggle for liberation. This is not only the duty of the masses but it is in their very own interests. Although working class people from non-Aboriginal backgrounds are often relatively privileged when compared with most Aboriginal people, in that they do not face the extreme racist discrimination and inter-generational trauma faced by Aboriginal people, they are still exploited and bullied by the very same capitalist system that so severely subjugates their Aboriginal sisters and brothers. So the working class movement, other oppressed groups in society – including unemployed workers and people from embattled Muslim, African, Chinese and other Asian communities – and all opponents of racism and tyranny: in this 250th year of an event that led to such a catastrophe for Australia’s first peoples let us mobilise in mass action against all forms of oppression faced by Aboriginal people. Let us especially oppose the most naked form of this subjugation – the continued racist killing of Aboriginal people by police and prison guards. Let’s work extra hard to mobilise mass action, backed by union power, to win justice for David Dungay, TJ Hickey, Kumanjayi Walker, Rebecca Maher, Eric Whittaker, Nathan Reynolds and all other victims of black deaths in custody now!
