“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.

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.

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.

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

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.”

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.

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.

I couldn't agree more with "Examinator" or less with "nqboy" or "MrRight". Yep, there sure is something is rotten in the state of Qld.

There always was.

I speak as a proud ex-Queenslander, born in Blackall and raised in the Granite Belt.

You've only to watch the episode of "The First Australians" shown tonight on SBS, about the case of Eddie "Koipi" Mabo to know that.

I'd like to draw people's attention to this article on the Palm Island affair: http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20081027-The-black-and-white-of-a-Palm-Island-tragedy-.html

Please note that Lex Wotton, a Palm Island community leader, was found guilty last Friday of inciting a riot: he will be sentenced this Friday (7/11) and could be facing life imprisonment.

The police officer who killed Mulrunji received compensation of $100,000 and a promotion to Inspector....

I am nooo expert in these areas but I am very passionate and moved when it comes to death in custody. I reckon we need to get to the point and clean up the mess, the police are the issue here, they need to employ more indigenous police not just liaise officers and make it a good environment for them to work in.

That’s a very disturbing article by Chris Graham. Thanks for bringing it to our attention Melba.

The police bravery awards being handed out today are just disgraceful in the extreme, given the timing and circumstances.

To start with, the officers in question shouldn’t be getting them at all. They were undertaking their duty, presumably in just the manner that they were supposed to do, with the prior knowledge that they may well be required to act in difficult and precarious situations. They were just doing their job! They don’t deserve special public commendation and awards for that…do they?

If one or two had been undertaking tasks over and beyond their call of duty, with great risk to their own wellbeing, in order to save others that were in dire risk, then yes, awards would be appropriate. But for all 22 officers that were on the island at the time to get these awards seems highly inappropriate. It’s a major dilution of the significance of such awards in my view.

So not only is the timing abysmal, but the awards are just grossly inappropriate.

And today’s ceremony is nothing short of Queensland’s biggest ever police awards ceremony.

Wow. Doesn’t the Qld police force, and the Qld government, really know how to stuff up a public relations exercise, when it is surely so important that every effort be made to mitigate the Palm Island unrest (and indigenous unrest and inequality across the country) instead of pretty brazenly provoking its continuance.

I have worked with a number of people immigrating or on 457 visas. One young man told me how in his own country (serbia would you believe) that he had watched documentaries on how terribly racist most Aussies were. When he moved to a mining town he could not believe what he observed. He was the one who copped the abuse and it was not from the whites. There has been to many self loathing whites who get Government funding to write and rewrite Australian history. Instead of finding any constructive answers they are to busy painting all whites racist despite the many who have sacrificed much in order to help the backward communities.

Another family who moved to Western Australia recently have had their homes broken into a number of times. Their kids are terrified and find it hard to sleep. In the area they live, the parents of these criminals are often drunk (the kids fortunate enough to have a mum and dad at home), the kids often miss school choosing instead to roam the streets at night. Some of these kids are 5 and 6 years old. Why would anyone want to be a Policeman in these places?

The bottom line is that 'white experts' scream when the Police do their job and scream louder when they don't. Many leaders in the aboriginal communities need to step up and take some responsibility instead of joining the long line of activist on the gravy train.

I was very cautious to venture an opinion not having been there, but it is very disturbing if all those facts on "crikey" are correct.And as I said, I saw LEX and heard him give an explanation of the events as he saw it.He had a spade in his hand in the T.V. picture, because he had been helping some visiting plumbers to find the the source of a problem they came to fix.I'd be interested to know what the plumbers saw and what they think of Lex Wooten? The spade looked like a very dangerous weapon on the T.V. and he looked a big strong man.It is not surprising that viewers could make up their minds that this was the leader of the rioters.

Runner's commments are fair enough, but let's consider why the situation is as it is.
Examinator and his allies comments are dead right and it's back to what happened that makes the current generation of Aborigines as dysfunctional as they are.
As for Hurley, by the logic of white Australians, he is worst of all. From the benefit of a more fortunate upbringing than his victims, the bloke apparently has had a reputation for relying on certain types of solutions to situations. A kicked dog will bite back out of fear, but what's the excuse for Hurley and that jury and Hurleys supporters in general.
Only one thing worse than black trash and that's white trash; is an axiom out of the deep south of the US, and the point of this article is that this applies equally in Australia's "deep north" and other pockets of its type elsewhere in our country.

Having lived in every State and Territory of this country I now reside in QLD, for the weather. I have been shocked by how parochial and racist this State is. I heard about it and read about it but assumed it was just like everywhere else. It isn't.

I lived in the Alice and Darwin and those towns are nowhere near as racist as this State. Outside Brisbane it's basically open slather. No hiding it at all.

In regard to Hurley and the riot there is no doubt of Mr Wooton's role in that. The video evidence is clear. He did incite etc and will be given a long sentence.

On the other hand he didn't do anything I wouldn't have done in similar circumstances but that does not negate the law does it?

We don't have video evidence of Hurley but we did have a witness and he was still found innocent.

No, justice has two white eyes here. Everything is black and white and it will take decades to wait out the old views of so many QLDers, who are delighted to cheer for their NRL team and SOO team which is largely aboriginal. No qualms about being two faced at all.

It's OK to be black if you are a big wheel footy player. Just don't bother otherwise.

So what's rotten here? The government of course. Has been as far back as you'd like to go, nothing has changed here regardless of time or Party. Bligh is in the big chair now but she's about to be put into a long boat and replaced. But by a Nationals/Lib govt. No change coming.

My sister in Queensland calls aboriginals a number of names that I find distasteful. She lives in an area with a high aboriginal population hence a high crime rate. She witnessed a flogging come murder in front of her house. The main problem however is that I hear aboriginals calling themselves the same names.

Last night I shared a meal with an aboriginal man who is not long out of prison. He is homeless because every time he has been given one it gets trashed by relatives or in a matter of months it is time to move on.

The title 'Queensland has a long history of killing;' is really a racial slur. We could easily come up with some more accurate slurs against the aboriginal communities. The author does more harm than good with his distorted view of history. The reasons why more aboriginals are in prison is simple. They commit far more crime. The reason they suicide at much higher rates is family dysfunction, continually changing wives, child sexual abuse, alcohol, sniffing and drugs. Until these fundamental issues are looked at millions more will be poured down the plug hole.

What's that old saying about justice not only being done, but also being seen to be done? Having lived in Townsville for a couple of decades and visited friends on Palm Island, I think that both John Tomlinson's and Chris Graham's articles only scratch the surface of the racist cesspit that survives in Queensland.

While there are many good and fair-minded people - including police - who live in Queensland, you'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to acknowledge that a large proprtion of the non-Indigenous population still cling to the racist ideologies upon which the state was built. That goes for SE Queensland, as well as the 'deep north'.

Full marks, however, to the Member for Townsville and Speaker of Parliament, Mike Reynolds. As ever, he is that rare politician - a man of principle.

CJ Morgan (and DavoP, Melba and others)

"While there are many good and fair-minded people - including police - who live in Queensland, you'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to acknowledge that a large proprtion of the non-Indigenous population still cling to the racist ideologies upon which the state was built. That goes for SE Queensland, as well as the 'deep north'."

I think you would also have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to acknowledge that racist ideology and other despicable social attitudes are alive and well in other states, too .. and that some strange national pastime exists in which Queensland as a state has to be unilaterally condemned whenever something bad happens here, rather than analysing the issue on its own terms.

When the Cronulla riots occurred, there was no kneejerk rush to claim the incident as something rotten in the state of NSW - as a rottenness specific to the state itself. Ditto, the Woomera riots as something rotten in South Australia or the 'Little Children are Sacred' report as something rotten in the Northern Territory or the Melbourne gangland wars as something rotten in Victoria.

Taking responsibility for a negative social issue is one thing. Blaming it on some occult character trait permeating through a state's ether and evolving out of its dim, dark history is something else entirely. This kind of stereotypical blame game achieves nothing more than a sense of self-righteousness in those who use it - and fulfills much the same in-group/outgroup function as other prejudices like sexism and racism.

Having lived in Townsville for 25 years and travelled widely across the country in that time, I don’t think that racist attitudes are worse here than anywhere else in Queensland or any worse in Qld than anywhere else in the country.

Despicable social attitudes are alive and well everywhere.

Ludwig, having spent 22 years somewhere north of Townsville, and half a century or so well south of there, in honesty I have to agree with you.

The old penal colony of Palm Island is a can of worms. It has disturbing similarities to Devil’s Island off French Guiana. From 1918 it was a collecting place for leprous and “difficult” Aboriginal people separated permanently from their kin.

The “difficult” residents were from a great range of unrelated people. Good, leprous, bad, were all thrown together. In the late 1930s the father of children who were my contemporaries faced threat of Palm Island: declared a troublemaker after his two children attended primary school for the first time. The children had been excluded (in conformity with then QLD law) following the objections of local parents.

It was only in 1962 that Aborigines were given the right to vote in federal elections and in 1965 in Queensland elections.The Queensland reserves became “communities”, initially under the control of a government-appointed manager or missionary with wide-ranging powers.

In 1985, the Queensland government relinquished control of Palm Island, removing much of its infrastructure, including its timber mill, wharves, houses and shops. It passed title to the Palm Island Community Council in the form of the Deed of Grant in Trust, which allowed only temporary use of land.

Then Premier Bjelke-Petersen initiated an attempt to take over the island - turn it into a tourist resort. Strangely, the residents won the right to not be kicked out from the only home they knew in their lifetimes.

I find current gratuitous actions by the Queensland premiers, and the Police Association, counterproductive to what is needed to address underlying community problems in that sad place

Fair comments, SJF and Ludwig. I wasn't intending to diminish the extent of racism in Australian society generally - rather, I was responding to the historical specificities of the case described by John Tomlinson. Certainly, very similar patterns of systematic abuse occur in every part of Australia where a significant proportion of the population is Aboriginal.

However, I think that the sheer blundering cultural stupidity of the Queensland Police Service in this instance is something that is quite unique in the recent history of 'race relations' in Australia, and also that it is perfectly consistent with Queensland's specific approach to Indigenous people since colonisation. The fact that the current ALP Premier and Police Minister have supported this incredibly stupid symbolic act is perfectly consistent with the history to which colinsett alludes.

A policeman with a documented pattern of using excessive force in the exercise of his duties has been exonerated over the very suspicious and brutal death of an Aboriginal man in his custody. Various Aboriginal people who were either witnesses to, or closely associated with the event have subsequently died. The Aborigine who has been scapegoated as the ringleader of the violent community reaction to the death in custody is awaiting sentence, and the boofheaded Police Commissioner insists on pressing ahead with an unprecedented ritual affirmation of police heroism. The Premier and Police Minister collaborate in this.

Yes, there are appaling examples of racism still extant everywhere in Australia, but nonetheless I'm grateful to John Tomlinson for addressing this one in this forum.

CJ, (Ludwig, colinsett)

Agreed overall. I really don't think I can ever forgive our Premier for allowing this insane 'in your face' award ceremony to proceed under the present circumstances. It truly defies belief. And as for its 'accidental' timing ... do they really think we're that stupid?

And regarding Qld's history of Aboriginal treatment in relation to the other states ... Although Qld and the NT historically had the harshest laws governing indigenous people (and Tasmania just got rid of them altogether), the Native Title Acts in all the states were utterly draconian until the early 60s - prompting the famous remark by Soviet President Nikita Krushev at the UN General Assembly in 1960: 'Everyone knows in what way the aboriginal population of Australia was exterminated.'

A tad hypocritical perhaps, but indicative of Australia's longstanding and shoddy international reputation on its treatment of Aboriginal people, even back then.