Aboriginal Law Bulletin
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by Mary Edmunds
There is a tension at the heart of Aboriginal-police relations that has become very clear through the work of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. On the one hand, police operate as both the controlling arm of the State and as institutional representatives of the views of the dominant Anglo-Australian majority. This is particularly clear in the case of public order offences, which define appropriate public behaviour in ways that effectively discriminate against legitimate Aboriginal use of public space. The concept of public order offences, moreover, ignores an important aspect of Aboriginal mechanisms for social control. This is one aspect of the tension between police and Aboriginal people.
On the other hand, however, is the fact that Aboriginal methods of dealing with disorder now occur within a society far more complex than that for which they were originally developed. Such complexity means that people's own ability to deal with disorder is impaired. It also means that what was once culturally appropriate behaviour may now, in the face of new factors such as alcohol, produce unintended consequences such as uncontrolled, as opposed to controlled, violence. The consequences within communities, especially for women and children, are becoming increasingly clear (see [1990] AboriginalLB 40; 2(46)pg6, `Women's Issue’). Also clear is the fact that many communities recognise the need for access to external support in exercising social control. The need for such support very often becomes a request for intervention by police.
The tension in Aboriginal-police relations is, therefore, within the police force which acts, on the one hand as an agent for state interference and, on the other, as an agent called upon by the community to assist in dealing with problems of disorder. This tension has not been satisfactorily resolved anywhere in Australia. Important moves in such a direction are, however, evident in a number of different areas.
Central to any resolution of this tension is the notion of police accountability to the local community. Accountability includes a recognition by police and other authorities of Aboriginal communities as negotiators in the process, that is, as partners, not clients, in developing mechanisms of accountability. It is perhaps for this reason that such mechanisms are being developed more successfully in the Northern Territory than anywhere else in Australia, except perhaps for the Pitjantjatjara Lands in South Australia. In the Territory, the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976 has empowered Aboriginal people politically and economically. The Act has also provided the basis for the development of a whole range of strong, effective and independent Aboriginal organisations. The impact of these developments is just as evident in Aboriginal-police relations as in other areas.
One of the most notable developments from this point of view has been in Tennant Creek. Tennant Creek has three important local organisations: Julalikari, which focusses on the town camps; Jurnkurakurr which deals with outstations and a number of economic enterprises; and Anyinginyi Congress, which is concerned with health. Julalikari has been particularly active in working with police, principally through the local police superintendent, to improve community/police relations. There is now a protocol in place that articulates the nature of this relationship and defines areas of co-operation.
Perhaps even more importantly, for the past five years, Julalikari has maintained a program of council patrols, staffed entirely by council volunteers, both men and women. These patrols operate every night, until at least three in the morning. They help to maintain law and order by preventing or intervening in disputes, monitoring custodies and organising morning meetings to mediate and often resolve conflicts that have arisen during the night. Julalikari provides, moreover, a specific point of reference for police, who fully recognise the importance of the organisation. The two bodies have co-operated in extending the patrol program to the neighbouring communities of Elliot and Alekereynge.
The importance of the patrol program and the associated Aboriginal-police cooperation has not been apparent to other bodies outside the Tennant Creek area. It appears that ATSIC is not prepared to provide further funding support for the patrols. The superintendent, who has been a crucial player in improving relations between police and Aboriginal people, is being transferred from Tennant Creek to Alice Springs. It would appear that the mechanisms established locally to emphasise police accountability to the local community may have only limited effectiveness. The experience in Tennant Creek does show, nevertheless, that such accountability is at least partially possible and, where in operation, provides an important basis for shifting the role of the police, to some extent, from one of control to one of community service. The presence of Julalikari is essential to this shift.
It is the absence of such strong Aboriginal organisations, reflecting as they do an important change in the sub-ordinate status of Aboriginal people, that makes the situation in Western Australia different.
This is so despite attempts, especially since the Laverton Royal Commission (1975-76), to improve the interaction between police and Aboriginal people. The extraordinary levels of over-representation of Aboriginal people in police custody identified by the Royal Commission indicate that these attempts have not been particularly successful. In August 1988 in WA., Aboriginal people were 43 times more likely to be in police custody than non-Aboriginal people.[1]
There are, nevertheless, some exceptions to this generally abysmal picture.
Roebourne, the town where John Pat died, while in police custody in 1983, is one such exception. As a result of his death and the subsequent charging of the police and the police aide involved, a special Aboriginal Police Relations summit was convened in 1984 and the Special Government Committee on Aboriginal/Police and Community Relations was restructured.
One outcome was the establishment of the Roebourne Research Project, which began in December 1986 and lasted for about six months. As in Tennant Creek, the effectiveness of this project rested on a number of essential elements:
The central weakness of the project was the absence of an ongoing Aboriginal organisation able to focus the concerns of the community and provide continuity for the initiatives that emerged from the Project. Roebourne, like Tennant Creek, has a number of Aboriginal organisations. These are Ieramugadu Employment Agency, Ngurin Resource Centre, Mawarnkarra Health Service and the Pilbara Aboriginal Church. While all perform important roles in the community, they lack the independent political and economic base that is provided by land rights legislation in the Northern Territory. The Project Team, operating for the duration of the Roebourne Research Project, was drawn from representatives of these organisations. However, once the project reached its end, its members, unlike those at Julalikari, had no particular legitimacy as representatives of the community in relation to the police. This has worked to the disadvantage of both the community and the police. Although relations in the town are certainly better than they were in 1983, the mechanisms of accountability necessary to maintain this improvement are not secure. In view of the high turnover of police officers in all remote locations, it is only the local Aboriginal community that can provide the necessary continuity to such mechanisms, and ultimately, therefore, the conditions essential to resolve the tension between police as agents interfering in the community and the police as servicing the community.
The material that has come from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, has highlighted the nexus between the question of relations between Aborigines and police and the broader question of the position of Aboriginal people in Australian Society. In the Territory, and specifically in Tennant Creek, there has been a shift in this position as a result of the Aboriginal Land Rights (NT) Act 1976. Conditions have been created that enable Aboriginal people, through their own organisations, to enter as partners into negotiations with police. This assists in developing more effective mechanisms for social control.
In Roebourne, as in the rest of Western Australia, particular attempts have been made to improve relations, and these have had some success. Nevertheless, such success is only partial, and vulnerable to adverse change, because it is achieved within a context where the subordinate position of Aboriginal people has not been significantly changed. Such a change is, as in so many other areas, the key to improving relations between Aboriginal people and police.
[1] Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Research Paper No.13, National Police Custody Survey: August 1988, David MacDonald, Canberra 1990.
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AboriginalLawB/1991/19.html