EDITORIAL OPINION

There must be independent mechanisms to deal with complaints about police conduct and investigations, including those concerning missing and murdered Indigenous women and children.

After two years of public hearings a Senate committee inquiry into missing and murdered First Nations women and children has made 10 recommendations after handing down its final report.

They include a recommendation to review policing practices in each jurisdiction across Australia to ensure interactions with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are “consistent and of a high standard”.

The committee also recommended those State and Territory reviews consider what each has learned and aim to “harmonise best police practices” by December 31, 2025.

“For there to be confidence and trust in the justice system, police forces should not be solely responsible for handling complaints about, and conducting reviews into, their own mistakes and alleged misconduct, with no external oversight,” the committee said.

Senator Dorinda Cox is quite right to ask that the inquiry must go further.  There should be outrage that people are losing loved ones in this way in Australia.

“People were and are still suffering losses of loved ones without support from the institutions that are supposed to, in fact, help people when they are in need,” she said.

To paraphrase Senator Cox: There is a moral and legal duty for people in Parliament who make the laws, to make institutions work for everyone the way they’re supposed to.