I think you are all to emotional about this.

I agree this should not have happened and charges should be laid against all involved, manslaughter perhaps, definately not murder as there was clearly no intent to kill.

Look at all the facts.
1. If the crime was not committed this would not have occurred. Imagine if your child was killed on an outback road by a drunk! Wouldn't you want them off the road just in case?

Deaths in custody will only ever occurr if one is in custody in the first place. Remember that!

2. Yes we are aware the Ac was not working. Who knows, perhaps it is near on impossible to find an AC tech out there.

3. If the employees were actually doing their job properly and not just 'turning up' as is often the case perhaps this tragedy would have been avoided.

4. If we had better state governments in this country perhaps they may well would have been able to fund this service properly. To think we have come through the best growth years of my life and our states are broke is a joke.

I hate privatisation of 'basic services'. All that is cared about is CEO's saleries and shareholders profits.

Finnaly, this was a tragic 'avoidable' accident and many people, including the man himself, played a part in it. Let the courts decide.

Thankfully law courts do not make their jugements bassed on emotion. How anyone can call this murder is a prime example of an 'emotional reaction'.

R0bert,

I agree with your view on the shades of grey that you raise. My guess is that there is also a lack of capacity and backup to do the job properly. The cars cost money to maintain, the guards get tunnel vision driving the same stretch of road through the hot days and it wouldn't exactly be a fun job. So, part of the solution to this problem could be to lighten the load so there is a chance of getting someone at least half decent to do the job of ferrying prisoners.

Another issue is who is going to do the investigating of the case. As was shown in another recent 4 Corners (from memory) investigation of nursing homes, all the relevant Public Service Department did was to check whether the nursing home's policy and paperwork was in order. Forget whether or not the policy was actually carried out on the ground (which was the actual complaint), but make sure they can give the policy an elephant stamp. At the very least, the public service needs an almighty shake-up with the forced retirement of ineffective senior management the first in the gun sights.

straight up act of genocide
late of a long line
would never ever have happened
if uncle's escort was his own kind.

This is a case where the local member of Parliament in the Parliament of the Commonwealth should take a matter of privilege to the Parliament. On another post I suggested that MPs be paid at least double what they are now, because in fact they should be members of the Highest Court in Australia. The High Court of Parliament should pay its members at least the same as they pay a Federal Court Judge, for an ordinary member, and the same as a High Court Judge for a Minister.

At Present Members of Parliament make majority decisions, and then rely on public servants to carry out their orders. Instead they should accept complaints about their legislation, or under it, and deal with contempt on a regular basis. The case of Mr Ward’s death in custody is a clear case of contempt of the laws made by the Parliament of the Commonwealth that are designed to protect everyone from this kind of official abuse.

Here is what the High Court said in a Transcript on 7th December 1996. This is the “Kable Principle”.
SIR MAURICE: Your Honour, it is not really. It is clearly the assumption of the Constitution that there will be courts of a State. Now, it may be only one but what it talks about are such other courts as it invests and 77, as your Honour will remember, says "any court of a State". So obviously, the Constitution speaks to the then existing situation. There is nothing surprising about it. It could hardly speak, perhaps, to any other, although it envisages the continuance of that situation. What one is talking about here, with great respect, are institutions of government and traditionally, whether it is in England or the States, there is a separation of powers. There is no doubt about that. It is absurd, as well as wrong, to say that the Parliament is a court; it is not a court.
McHUGH J: It is said frequently, "High Court of Parliament punishes for contempt". The House of Commons is referred to as the High Court of Parliament

Here are some extracts from a transcript, of a case in the High Court on the 7th and 8th December 1995, while Paul Keating was still in power. The case is Kable V Director of Public Prosecutions, and Kable won it. To understand where I am coming from, in saying that the Parliament of the Commonwealth should accept applications for the citation of contempt, against any individual who infringes rights legislated by the Parliament of the Commonwealth, they are worth reading.
SIR MAURICE: The Parliament of New South Wales is not a court and never has been. It is a subordinate legislature.
McHUGH J: I am not sure that that is an accepted constitution of ( proposition, are) you, Sir Maurice.
McHUGH J: What about when the federal Parliament commits Fitzpatrick and Brown to prison? What do they actually do?
SIR MAURICE: Yes, but that is deriving - - -
McHUGH J: Are not they acting as a court?
DAWSON J: That what you are saying is, that a court is not a court, at least within the meaning of Chapter III, unless in the exercise of its functions, the separation of powers is observed.
GAUDRON J: But does not the federal Constitution mandate that, at least, that its constituent parts be recognised, or at least have courts recognisable as such operating under the rule of law and acting judicially?
MR GRAHAM: At the State level?
GAUDRON J: Yes.
SIR MAURICE: May it please, your Honours, can I just say something about some of the submissions, relating to the supremacy of the Parliaments of the States, and presumably the supremacy of the Parliament of the Commonwealth. Now, of course, what my learned friends were saying seem to ignore the fact that Australia is a federal State, and so no Parliament is supreme above the Constitution, and what is supreme are the constitutions to which all parliamentary powers are subordinate.

Currently, because the High Court has made Rules, preventing itself from exercising its own original jurisdiction, the Parliament of the Commonwealth should be giving a remedy, under its Rules

This case proves that courts under Ch III Constitution can strike down State and Commonwealth Acts of Parliament, but it also proved that we must, under the Constitution, continue to have courts, and that Courts, constituted by one Judge, both capitalized are as illegal as the one in issue here was illegal. Currently State Legislatures are attempting to make bikie gangs illegal. The same kind of stinkin thinking, that prompted the Kable case is at work again.

I have submitted to Kevin Rudd, that while he permits Judges and Magistrates, like the High Court in 2004, to legislate from the bench, he must permit anyone prejudiced by their unauthorized legislation, to have them cited for contempt in the Parliament of the Commonwealth, removed from office, and stripped of their pensions.

Mr Ward would never have been killed, except for the contempt, shown by Judges and Magistrates for the will of the Parliament of the Commonwealth. He should have been bailed locally by the Sergeant, and still alive today.

Because the Parliament of the Commonwealth is in fact the highest court in the land, it should exercise its supervisory sovereignty, over all Judges and Magistrates, without exception, so the Judges and Magistrates will use due process of law, to enforce the Constitution, against all State and Federal public servants, irrespective of rank or State legislated status.

I am reminded of the song, You gotta no respect, and unless the Parliament of the Commonwealth stands up and is counted, as supreme guardian of civil rights, it cannot expect to be respected by the community it represents. It has made laws, not accepted by Public servants, and it is time either to repeal or enforce them