“Queensland has had a long history of police killings of Aborigines.”

Now there’s a straight-up attention getter! It’s a pity the fact that aboriginal police would have been the ones doing most of the killing wasn’t worked into the same sentence. (They were brought in from other areas, of course).

The author uses references, and there is no need to question the veracity of his information; history is littered with cases of awful acts against aborigines. But, in the quote from ‘Skinner’ there is no mention of who did the killing in the Juandah massacre; was it black police, or white officers. After all, the indigines spent much of their time killing each other before and after white settlers arrived. The policemen would have been recruited from groups different from the ones to be wiped out, so they would have no trouble in doing the job.

Note also, that Dr. Tomlinson mentions Professor Henry Reynolds who has had serious questions raised about his ‘facts’ in another area concerning black deaths.

The author moves away from the killing of aborigines (by whom we are not sure) to the ‘bad treatment’ of aborigines in the ‘60s and ‘70s. He claims to have witnessed shocking treatment by police of a woman. I’m not saying that Dr. Tomlinson did not see such a thing, but we do only have his word for it, and rogue police have been accused of doing the same thing to white drunks. I’m surprised that he did not persist with his complaint. Was the old woman not worth it? When Dr. Tomlinson experienced charges being dropped against a prison warder after an aboriginal death in custody in 1983, he wrote a play about it.

The claimed incident, anyway, is a long way from the author’s harsh first sentence and, a giant leap from 1861 when atrocities by both whites and black did occur.

Continued...

…continued

The police at Roebourne were acquitted; deaths in custody have no connection to the author’s eye-catching opening sentence; Sergeant Hurley was acquitted, and we all saw the shocking rioting and arson taking place on Palm Island. In fact, none of the instances and accusations against Queensland police and particularly the scurrilous claim that Queensland police have a “long history” of “killings of Aborigines” has anything to do with the theme.

Dr. Tomlinson knew full that many people would do as he wanted them to do: connect his inflammatory claim of some instances in the past with the current Queensland police force.

Modern police officers would have every right to feel aggrieved by the outrageous claim that: “Queensland has had a long history of police killings of Aborigines.”

What a load of claptrap. While I don't deny the injustices dealt out to aboriginal people in the past under government policies, you've picked a bad case to illustrate your point on this occasion.

Cameron Doomadgee didn't "suggest" the PLO was betraying his people, he abused him for it. Police and those assisting them have the right to perform their duties without being subjected to drunken abuse by passers-by.

Christine Clement's published decision was one of the most one-sided hatchet jobs I've ever read. She ignored any evidence that did not fit her agenda and drew a long bow to include any that did. The fact that the DPP declined to prosecute demonstrated how tenuous Clement's conclusions were.

Then that ignoble backflipping machine, self confessed media tart Peter Beattie, lacked the courage of his convictions and jackbooted the Doctrine of Separation of Powers in the best traditions of Sir Joh and went shopping interstate for a legal opinion that allowed him to prosecute Hurley.

You raise the point of an all-white jury. Perhaps you think it would have been less biased with an all-black jury or is it just that you think that blacks would be more capable of being impartial in this instance. Don't make me laugh.

So the jury threw it out in due course. After reading Clement's decision, I saw absolutely no chance of the charge being proved beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law so their verdict was unsurprising to me for that reason. That's not to say Hurley wasn't right for it, he may or may not have been, but the evidence to support a conviction just wasn't there on any fair assessment.

The timing of the Commissioner's decision to award bravery medals was curious, coming as it did before Wooton was sentenced, but long overdue in any case and it's reasonable to assume that his trial was the primary reason for the delay. I'll spell it out for you. The bravery awards are for police actions in the riot and make no judgement on the rights or wrongs of Hurley's actions. They are thoroughly deserved in my opinion, and too easily dismissed by those with a political agenda.

About the riots and Lex Wooten. Ilearnt a lesson in the late '50's. I was a spectator at the riot in Sydney when P.M. Harold HOLT had his car rocked by apparently Angry University students protesting about the Vietnam War.They set up a chorus of "MURDERERS" and other anti Vietnam involvement slogans, and when I saw it on T.V. later, it looked very dangerous for the P.M.I realised then that T.V. Programms, like Newspapers can be edited in such a way to change the real truth.My presence there was because I had joined a group of drinkers in a Kings Cross Pub who said "Come on , Let's go and stir up the kids!" not knowing they were going as Commo Painters and Dockers to incite the Uni. students, while keeping out of the action.It worked but was done as a lot of fun by happy Uni students who had been to a pub too.Lex spoke at a gathering I attended and he seemed a far gentler person than I saw on the T.V.

Yep there sure is something is rotten in the state of Qld. It starts the Queensland’s attitudinal ‘cultural separateness' the “we’re different up here” (i.e. attitudes to daylight saving). There is an attitude of belligerent conservatism 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 (i.e. rationale for massive pre-emptive clearing of marginal land.)

Attitudes towards the indigenous seem to have an underlying superiority which interpolates as they consider themselves first and aboriginees, the disadvantaged and poor encumbrances/petty obstacles. Who are either lazy miscreants or envy politics driven left wing hypocrites who should either get jobs and/or simply get out of the way of the real (heroes) people.

Then there’s those decaying baby boomers having sold their soles for money & consumerism are now trying to deny change from their hay days. Not all BBs mind you.

All this results in a belief that laws are primarily for property protection and those that aren’t almost optional. Consider the hysteria surrounding Denis Ferguson. People including the police woman who lived 14 k away becoming unofficial spokespersons for mob rule.

Consequently those honourable law enforcers are usually over stretched, often lowly regarded and demoralized.

The others have turned indifference into an art form, more interested in their comfort than sensible enforcement (i.e. police attitudes to bashing minor street criminals, the unwarranted strip searching of a woman simply because she knew her rights. The apparent paranoid siege mentality ‘us against them’ and the resulting “Code silence” doesn’t help. In the ideal situation many of these substandard police wouldn’t be so employed. But beggars can’t be too choosey.

Palm Island was an inevitable manifestation of this public up attitudinal rot.

Again not all police etc are bad but there are sufficient to damage both the public’s perceptions and confidence.
In short the state of the law and enforcement in Queensland is a function of the Public’s attitudes. Simply put the public get the politicians, government, law and enforcement it deserves.