Almost one year after a young man died following a police chase in Redfern, Sydney, the Aboriginal community is still waiting for justice. Green Left Weekly's Graham Matthews spoke to Indigenous Social Justice Association (ISJA) president and Socialist Alliance member Ray Jackson about his response.
No charges have been laid over the death of the boy (whose name is withheld at the request of his family), who was impaled on a metal fence after being chased by a police car on his bicycle.
"The community is both frustrated and angry at the case that was set up that was nothing but a whitewash", Jackson said. "No justice has yet come to the Hickey family." The ISJA is organising a public meeting at 7pm on February 8, at the Redfern Town Hall "to discuss with the people and the family what we can do about it". There will also be a march on February 13. On February 15, petitions calling for the reopening of the coronial inquest will be handed to NSW attorney-general Bob Debus.
The death in custody on Palm Island on November 19 highlighted that the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody are not being fulfilled. "Quite simply what we've been calling for since the royal commission recommendations were handed down is their proper implementation", said Jackson. "The police unfortunately do not recognise the recommendations in any way; they do not believe that it has anything to do with them, and they just carry on in their own manner.
"Without the recommendations, there is no protection for Aboriginal people within the custodial system. Unless those recommendations are put into place, the deaths are just going to continue."
Jackson is also critical of the NSW Labor government's plans to demolish public housing in the Redfern/Waterloo area. Responding to Premier Bob Carr's claims that this will be a gain for the residents, Jackson said "That's double-speak. There is no way in the world that the Carr government, and governments that came before him and governments that will come after him, want the 'Aboriginal problem' as they see it, to continue, and they certainly don't want all this valuable land held up by Department of Housing tenants.
"They want to sweep the area, get all of us out, get together with their mates — the developers — and then make squillions. Somebody once said that if we can get rid of the blacks out of Redfern, our land values will rise by at least 30%. That's all it is — it's a land grab."
Warren Mundine and some other Indigenous leaders have argued that Aboriginal community land should be made saleable. They claim that this will unlock the way to the enrichment of at least some people in the Aboriginal community. Jackson, however, disagrees: "I'm disgusted that Warren and apparently others on the National Indigenous Council have backed Howard's call for this. The land is part of our culture. The land is part of rehabilitating our youth, which we need to do. It is such an important thing. We cannot do it without the land.
"The culture is in the land, on the land, within the land. Let's face it, if we sell it, it won't be selling it to ourselves, or our own people — we'll be selling it to mining industries, the pastoralists; we'll be selling it to whites. And once our land is gone, it's gone forever. What this country needs to learn is that through history, the white governments have taken a hell of a lot of our land. The little bits and pieces that are left — please allow us to keep it, so we can utilise it for our cultural reasons."
From Green Left Weekly, January 26, 2005.
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