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The Forum > Article Comments > 'Something is rotten in the state of Queensland' > Comments

'Something is rotten in the state of Queensland' : Comments

By John Tomlinson, published 31/10/2008

Queensland has had a long history of police killings of Aborigines: we need a further Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.

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Hurley couldn't be found guilty because the one crown witness who was there at the time of the incident was dead by the time of the trial. Bramwell's evidence was dismissed out of hand as the evidence of a 'drunken aboriginal man' meanwhile hurley was painted as a saint for even bothering to work in indigenous communities, a 'good police officer' who would never have lifted a hand in anger, blah blah. meanwhile hurley's evidence had changed more times than bramwell's ever did, but don't mind that... what pig-headed arrogance.

We'll never know if he did do it but he certainly had the opportunity and motive, and what's more, the opportunity to cover it up. extreme arrogance and a closed-ranks culture are part and parcel of what the police do. 'an all white jury' was encouraged to indulge in all the myths and stereotypes of aboriginal people as drunken, lying, violent deviants who need to be locked up for their own good by a lone white police officer who was just trying to bring peace and order to the otherwise out-of-control world of Palm Island.

wake up, people. this is townsville, where many white people refer to aborigines as 'parkies' and openly admit to being racist. that's reality, not some fantasy about 'due process' and 'impartiality' and the white sheriff bringing justice and the rule of law to the savages.

What a load of codswallop about police being brave and doing a tough job. they were dropped into the fray on Palm Island for the purposes of suppressing local resistance to police brutality. they were obviously arrogant and stupid enough to think they were doing the 'right thing'. if these people really have PTSD and all that, they need counselling, not a tin-foil star for their chest.
Posted by dirtchild, Friday, 31 October 2008 2:58:39 PM
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examinator

‘There is an attitude of belligerent conservatism [in Queensland] that still believes that the state is a squattocracy of rugged individualism and therefore ENTITLED to do what they want and to hell with others …’

This kind of toxic cultural generalizing of the population of an entire state belongs on the same spectrum of ignorant prejudice as that levelled against the entire population of Aboriginal Australia.

Your quips about baby boomer consumerism, resentment over land clearing legislation, redneck distrust of the left wing and mass hysteria over pedophilia are not specific to Queensland. They are all political and social phenomena that can be easily translated into any Australian state.

As for your somewhat unoriginal quip about daylight saving, this issue has always been a matter of latitude and longitude, not attitude – which is why, worldwide, the practice has never caught on among populations living below 30 degrees or above 50 degrees North or South, or among populations living to the west of their timezone meridian. (On both counts, Qld comes up trumps.)

Dr Tomlinson stresses in the earlier part of the essay that the events surrounding the Mulrungi/Hurley case are not peculiar to Queensland. Historically, all the states have shameful records in their treatment of indigenous people and of police brutality. They only differ slightly in degree.

Indeed, I seriously wonder whether the ‘… something rotten in the state of Queensland’ wording in the heading was an editorial decision not of the author’s making.
Posted by SJF, Friday, 31 October 2008 5:57:23 PM
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Timming is everything[regardless of the merrit of over 20 ARMED police against unarmed citizenry]made angry by effectivly a legal murder,by those charged to keep the peace.

ok murder isnt the reality[but livers dont just fall appart,so clearly some force was used
as the victim had a history it is unusual for one policer to be doing the arrest /booking etc, and the death of the'only'witness is a thing that dosnt help the prima facia.

having had personal experience with good and bad police in this police state,i have earned the right to complain about officious missdeeds[my teeth were mutilated by the govt dentist as a deliberated act[under the cover of cleaning the teeth he etched the enamil from my teeth between each tooth and at the gum line using a 'new'cleaning'tool']cops refuse to file it as a crime

but qld is different[we dont have proper][constitutionally legal ]govt[the house of reps voted itself out of egsistance[also unconstitutional

[but hey this is qld[even the courts are a law to themselves

[anything goes when law is a lie

[noting beatie rewrote the constitution into an act[act 70 of 2002]also unconstitutional.

that govt gave away for its mates half a billion[on a gladstone magnesia'project' for the boys club][howard gave half a billion as well
[noting the current GG was gg of qld when beatie edited the qld con-stitution all the good stuff got put into the addendum's]

but who gives a flying fig right

[10 people bother to turn up at any parlementry sitting to witness their crimes ,no politition ever goes into our privatised jail's

[and the loss of the other news papers[and limited political coverage from the media ENSUREs govt/police and courts do as they chose

[citizenry KNOW their jury duty because no one is allowed to tell them they are REQUIRED to judge the law as well as the crime.
#
further ANY crime needs a victim
[for legal standing]no standing[no victim ] no crime

[unless you live in a criminal state]of rule via policing over just US just-ice
which is not found in these various british colonised nation states
Posted by one under god, Friday, 31 October 2008 7:33:20 PM
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SJF
Thank you for your observations and on one level most are valid.
I think you maybe a little too close, my intention weren’t clear enough or most likely a combination of both.

In my defence the seed article was about Queensland and therefore my response focus.
My point was that these factor and many others contribute to the events on Palm Island. I acknowledge that to some degree they apply to other places but the issue is "are they present in Qld and can they be seen as contributive factors?" Yes.

I do think you took my piece out of context my conclusion clearly stated my belief that nothing just happens there are many contributive factors.

Specifically ‘the pre-emptive land clearing of marginal land’ and its justification are based on dubious self interest and curmudgeonly attitudes towards others. Much of this land is poor and not really suited to cattle.
the common farmer argument for selling to developers rather than other farmers comes down to “a RIGHT to superannuation”($20million?) is dubious at the extreme.when even polis have to contribute.
i.e. development V needed arable land/natural environment.
Even the Traviston Dam is being largely fought on the interest of a few rather than the many.

All things bucolic and their working hours are in sync with sidereal time rather than EST. Therefore what’s in a digit?
Centralized business (SE) isn’t so tied, rather it’s tied to other Eastern State’s trading hours. Given a vast majority of Queenslander live below the Topic of Capricorn so where is the logical relevance of the Northern argument.

Townsville has its ‘freedom scouts’ hiding guns "to defend Australian democracy from southern socialism". The Hanson redneckism started and was always biggest in Qld.

True most of these factors are in other states…a generic situation (and unacceptable). But it can be argued Qld is a matter of degree. Before you ask the obvious I am also aware of my family’s failings too but being aware doesn’t interpolate into wanting to dump them either. Aware is simply fore-armed.

BTW I did cite “not all BB.”
Posted by examinator, Saturday, 1 November 2008 12:37:35 PM
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John fails to mention that in the early days of the Royal Commission, consultant criminologist David Biles discovered that Indigenous people were no more likely than whites to die in custody, measured on a per capita basis. Most deaths were from natural causes, and reflect the generally low health status of indigenous prisoners.

A Queensland Aboriginal Coordination Committee submission to the Commission claimed that Aboriginal people from some communities (I think Palm Island was one) were safer in custody than at home, due to the extreme levels violence in these places.

Following Bile's work, and with little if any evidence of race based murder, the Commission became focussed on the reasons for Aboriginal over-representation in the justice system. However, the commission did not consider in any depth the possibility that very high rates of offending in some communities (as a consequence of disadvantage, faimiy dislocation, drugs and alcohol and whatever else) may be a more important reason than systematic discrimination in the justice system.

Blaming the racism in the police and the justice system entirely for Aboriginal overrepresentation is a kick in the guts for the mainly Aboringal victims of Aboriginal offending, in particular the women and children, who have every right for such protection as can be afforded by the law.
Posted by Dr Duck, Sunday, 2 November 2008 10:54:06 AM
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examinator

'In my defence the seed article was about Queensland and therefore my response focus.'

Fair enough. And I concede that I took some things you said out of context.

While Qlders of principle are right in trying to accept responsibility for their legal system's spectacular failure to deliver justice for Mulrungi and his family, it is unhelpful and self-defeating to reduce this failure to generalisations about rednecks of the deep north or corruption in the tropics. The sheer outrage and volume of criticism that the Qld population has levelled at the justice system's inadequacy - even by the former Premier himself - indicates that the Mulrungi case is not a typical Qld phenomenon.

Having said that, there is much more of a metropolitan-regional balance in Qld than any other state - with Brisbane having only 47% of the total state population, compared to 60-80% for all the other state capital cities. This can often make Qld appear more conservative or rural dominated. However, having lived in other states where metropolitan values often dominate the political and social agenda by the force of their superior population numbers, I actually believe Qld's more balanced demographic distribution to be its greatest strength.
Posted by SJF, Sunday, 2 November 2008 5:45:19 PM
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