MEDIA RELEASE: SENATE CANDIDATES WA GROUP “U” CALL FOR A COMMONWEALTH PARLIAMENTARY INQUIRY INTO DEATHS IN CUSTODY
$3.2 million will financially assist the family of the late Warburton Elder Mr Ward. It will not bring him back. There was a shuffling of blame and abrogation of responsibilities by WA Labor and Liberals over the death of Warburton Elder Mr Ward.
WA Attorney-General Christian Porter is correct that the death occurred during the Labor Party’s watch. However the shadow government which tends to make up close to half the parliament was on that watch. For two and half years the ‘State’ let down the Ward family.
I am appalled at the political point scoring by Shadow Attorney-General John Quigley arguing that the payment was about $600,000 less than the ‘minimum’. What price is there on a human life?
Some financial compensation has been meted out to the family, and about time, thanks to the Aboriginal Legal Services and the Deaths In Custody Watch Committee. However the transport company G4S are liable for compensation and their overdue unabridged apology.
I respect Christian Porter’s apology and acknowledgments and his matter of fact statement that when the prisoner transport tender is up for review that G4S’s disgraceful record will be brought up. I would have preferred the G4S contract was ripped up at the time of the Coroner’s Findings.
Most Australians do not realise the number of deaths in custody and presume they are several per year. There have been hundreds of deaths in custody during this last decade. In some years they are as high as 69 deaths. Most are actually white deaths in custody with Aboriginal deaths in custody at disproportionately much higher rates. Porter and Quigley and all our parliamentarians could lead the way by addressing the issues that culminate in these high levels of deaths in custody, and that is by eliminating systemic racism, discrimination, maltreatment, and by improving existing checks, policies and laws.
Proportionately more Aboriginal deaths in custody occur in Australia than did all deaths in custody during the peak of South African Apartheid! Let us stop all deaths in custody and in the process educate us all to a more civil and just society.
The Commonwealth must act.
Media Contact:
Gerry Georgatos, Lead Senate Candidate (WA) for Group “U”
Leader of the Ecological, Social Justice, Aboriginal Party
0430 657 309, gerry_georgatos@yahoo.com.au
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