
‘Missing in action’ – Albo accused
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been accused of going ‘missing in action’ over calls for an Independent inquiry into deaths in custody.
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services has called for the Commonwealth to urgently convene a national cabinet meeting over Indigenous deaths in custody and high incarceration rates.
The move comes after the deaths of two Indigenous men in the Northern Territory recently.
Kumanjayi White, 24, a Warlpiri man who lived with a disability, died in police custody after he was restrained by plain-clothed officers on the floor of a Coles supermarket in Alice Springs.
And another Indigenous man died at Royal Darwin Hospital while in the custody on Saturday, a week after he was detained at Darwin Airport.
“We absolutely need the Federal government to be making sure that mass incarceration — not only in the Northern Territory, but right around the country — and justice for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is placed onto the agenda of national cabinet,” NATSILS chair and Palawa lawyer Karly Warner said.
“At the moment the prime minister is missing in action.”
The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency has also called for an “emergency intervention” into the territory’s justice system.
The Prime Minister said no government had “done well enough on any of these areas” in a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
Mr Albanese said the Voice referendum result showed that “we need to find different ways of engaging respectfully and listening”.