Aboriginal Law Bulletin --- "Border Riot Case could Challenge White Man's Law" [1987] AboriginalLawB 8; (1987) 1(24) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 12

• Border Riot Case Could Challenge White Man’s Law

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Border Riot Case could Challenge White Man’s Law

The Boggabilla court house is about the size of the average living room.

Yesterday, nearly 100 Aborigines crowded in to hear a case which could became a fundamental challenge to the power of white law over Aborigines.

After extra chairs had been found to seat the defendants, some of whom ended up sitting on each other's laps, proceedings began on pp application for the extradition of. 17 Aborigines charged over the race riot last month in the Queensland border town of Goondiwindi.

The defendants had come from the Toomelah Mission to the tiny and remote court house at Boggabilla, the nearest NSW settlement to Goondiwindi.

While other Aborigines hung through the windows or tried to hear putting their ears to the weatherboard walls, four lawyers representing the Aborigines opposed extradition on the grounds that Queensland was a racist State and that a fair trial there would be impossible.

y also claimed Aborigines had never consented to federation; and were therefore not subject to extradition procedures.

Interrupted occasionally by the din of trucks thundering past on the nearby Newell Highway, Mr Paul Coe said Aborigines had not been consulted when Captain Cook and King George III claimed Australia for England.

later, they had been excluded from -consultation about Federation. Mr Coe said his clients' ancestors had belonged to the Gumerai Aboriginal nation, but that Here had been no treaty or consultation between this nation and white settlers.

Since the 1800s, his clients had lived in a self-governing, isolated community [the Toomelah Mission].

Their families had a history of resistance to white colonisation, and had not even been recognised as citizens at the time of Federation.

The circuit magistrate, Mr Chris Bone, said: "These are really the sort of issues to be heard by the High Court, by High Court judges, not by me in the Boggabilla Circuit Court."

Mr Coe: "It may come to that, your worship. These questions have never been properly settled."

Mr Coe is also the chairman of the National Aboriginal and Islander Legal Service.

Mr Bruce Miles, also for the defendants, said Queensland community leaders, including the Premier, Sir Job Bjelke-Petersen, had made public comments which were prejudicial to the trial, and showed hostility to his clients and to Aborigines in general.

These comments had made it clear to potential jurors what verdict the State Government and local government officials wanted in any trial of his clients.

"It is very rare that a call for blood comes across the border as clearly as the call for blood has come from Queensland," Mr Miles said.

The police prosecutor, Sergeant Wyn Probart, opposed the hearing of evidence on racist and constitutional matters, saying political argument should not be considered by the court, and that a person's race should not affect his standing before the law.

The case was adjourned to the next sitting of the Boggabilla Circuit Court, on 6 April. Bail was extended on the defendants' own undertaking.

(Sydney Morning Herald, 19 February 1987 )