An Indigenous teenager whose arrest resulted in a NSW Police officer being charged with assault has told a Sydney court he fell unconscious after being “tripped” and was spitting blood because his face hit the ground.
Key points:
Constable Ryan Barlow has pleaded not guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm
His barrister said there would be “an element of self-defence” in the matter
The hearing, before Magistrate Rami Attia, has been set down for three days
Constable Ryan Barlow, 30, was with two junior colleagues in Ward Park in Surry Hills when they stopped three teenagers in June 2020.
Part of the interaction was filmed on a mobile phone, showing one of the teenagers, then 16, speaking to Constable Barlow before saying he would “crack” the officer in the jaw.
The video shows Constable Barlow then used a technique known as a leg sweep, in which he kicked the complainant’s feet out from underneath him while holding his arms from behind, causing him to fall forwards.
Constable Barlow has pleaded not guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
The teenager told Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court he remembered being “spun around” by the officer before being “tripped” and denied doing anything to resist.
Doctors attend to the boy at St Vincent’s Hospital.(Facebook: Justice for Buddy, Lewis Kelly Jnr)
He recalled his knee hitting the ground first, followed by his shoulder and the cheek area of his face.
In the video, he can be heard making a high-pitched moaning sound while on the ground.
He told the court he was unconscious after he fell and has no memory of what happened until he was sat up, when he recalled spitting blood.
“I don’t even remember making those noises,” he said.
The teenager said he recalled “going off my head” while sitting.
“I just lost it. Got angry, I guess.”
He said Constable Barlow was holding him at the back part of his neck and he told him to stop “squeezing” it, but the officer didn’t.
“He pulled out capsicum spray and told my friends to go away.”
The teenager said he made the comment about cracking the officer in the jaw out of “frustration”, after hearing one of his friends defend himself.
“What were you frustrated about?” Crown Prosecutor Darren Robinson asked.
“That I can’t, you know, go to my own park [without being] harassed by police.”
Mr Robinson earlier told the court an expert in the use of force is expected to testify that the leg sweep technique is not the methodology taught to NSW Police Force officers, however it is not prohibited.
“The prosecution says the force used by the accused was not reasonably necessary in the circumstances,” he said.
Mr Robinson said Constable Barlow gave a version of the incident during an interview which “contradicted” the video, including that the complainant “tensed” his body and attempted to break free.
The court was told the complainant’s injuries included cuts and abrasions to his leg and chin, soreness and pain to his neck, a chipped tooth and bleeding from an injury to the mouth.
Constable Barlow’s barrister, Brent Haverfield, said there would be “an element of self-defence” in the matter.
The hearing, before Magistrate Rami Attia, has been set down for three days.
Under cross-examination, the teenager accepted he was told he was under arrest shortly before the leg sweep.
He also accepted the video showed that while Constable Barlow was behind him, his right leg moved backwards, but denied this was an attempt to kick the officer.
“I don’t accept I was trying to hurt anyone,” he said.
To legally buy alcohol from this Queensland pub you must blow in the bag – and you must blow zero.
Key points:
Queensland government measures prohibited all alcohol in Kowanyama since 2008
In 2014 the community’s canteen reopened, serving restricted amounts of alcohol
Takeaway sales are now allowed in the community, with each person allowed 12 mid-strength drinks per evening, four nights a week
Kowanyama, a remote town on western Cape York, was one of seven Indigenous communities in Queensland where prohibition was introduced in 2008.
In 2014, the local canteen reopened serving restricted amounts of alcohol.
This year the community has gained more freedom regarding alcohol, successfully applying for a takeaway license.
But that freedom is restricted.
Each person is limited to buying 12 mid-strength drinks per evening, and only from Wednesday to Saturday between 5pm and 11pm.
To enter the canteen patrons you must sign in, take a breathalyser test, and return a zero blood alcohol reading—even to buy takeaways.
Some Kowanyama residents register their homes as ‘dry places’, with penalties for anyone who brings alcohol in.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby )
They can then, for example, have four drinks at the bar and take eight home.
Producing a members or visitors card at the bar allows staff to keep tabs on how many drinks people have had, while customers are kept informed of their limit by a flashing digital display on the cash register.
A similar canteen has this month opened on the opposite side of Cape York, at Lockhart River — another of the seven communities where prohibition was introduced in 2008.
Venues on Mornington Island and at Pormpuraaw, on western Cape York, are also in the process of applying for extensions of their existing liquor licences.
‘Hardly anyone here’
Many in Kowanyama gathered for the annual Rodeo Ball this month, hosted at the canteen.
Thomas Hudson, President of the Kowanyama Sport and Recreation Association which runs the canteen, said the aim of the ball was to bring the community together.
Kowanyama Sport and Recreation Association president Thomas Hudson spearheads the annual Rodeo Ball.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
“For people to dress up and be proud of themselves because we don’t do that every day here in our community,” Mr Hudson said.
Attendance at this year’s event, the first since its inception where takeaway alcohol has been available, was down on previous years.
The steady stream of people buying from the canteen takeaway counter before its 8pm closure confirmed what ball attendee Clive ‘Smokey’ Gilbert suspected – that many were choosing to drink at home.
“There’s hardly anyone in the canteen here,” Smokey said.
“When no takeaways were on this pub used to be crowded but you don’t see that now, they’re always going home now.”
Clive ‘Smokey’ Gilbert (L) and Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Mayor Robbie Sands (R) attended this year’s Rodeo Ball.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
Fellow Kowanyama resident Gwendolyn Dick said despite the below average attendance, the ball did succeed in bringing the community together during an extended period of sorry business.
“We had four deaths just recently, and another one in the last week or so,” Ms Dick said.
“It’s good to see all the families from in the community come together all in one because we often can’t during the sorry business and the funeral.”
Return of rights and responsibilities
Most in Kowanyama welcome the return of the canteen and of takeaway alcohol sales, including the community’s women’s support group.
Security providers and canteen customers said the increase in takeaway sales had resulted in a reduction in fights and anti-social behavior at the pub.
“It’s something good for the community,” Smokey said.
“It keeps them out of trouble and people enjoy their beers at home watching the football.”
Rodeo Ball attendance was down in 2022, with takeaway sales meaning more people are choosing to drink at home instead.(ABC Far North: Mark Rigby)
For Michael Yam, a former mayor of the Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire Council the resumption of takeaway alcohol sales at the community’s canteen is a return of the rights and responsibilities of the townspeople.
“It’s about time they gave us something back,” he said.
“It’ll probably minimize the sly grogging because, as we know, in our community there’s always opportunists that are going to do it.”
And he said there were benefits to people choosing to drink at home, rather than at the canteen.
“Some families take their drinks home so that they can be home with their kids instead of drinking in the club all the time, away from their little ones.”
Lockhart River Aboriginal Shire Major Wayne Butcher said that community’s newly opened canteen had been “14 years in the making.”
“It’s created 10 new jobs in the community overnight so it’s great to see a lot of young people working as crowd controllers, security or people serving alcohol behind the bar and preparing food,” he said.
“That’s the other side of the coin that we don’t get to look at too much or focus on.”
Every time Palawa woman Nala Mansell walks past the statue of former Tasmanian premier William Crowther, she says, it is “a reminder of the atrocities committed to William Lanne.”
Key points:
William Crowther, a 19th-century naturalist, surgeon and politician, cut off and stole the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne after he died
Earlier this month, a council committee unanimously agreed that Crowther should no longer be commemorated.
The full council will vote tonight on whether the bronze statue will be removed or partially removed, with a report identifying the potential for an alternative
However, Ms Mansell might not be walking past it for much longer, as Hobart City Council tonight considers a motion to remove the controversial statue from where it stands in Franklin Square.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that this story contains references and images of deceased persons and content which may cause distress.
Crowther — a 19th-century naturalist, surgeon and politician — cut off and stole the skull of Aboriginal man William Lanne after he died in 1869.
Then Crowther replaced the skull with that of another man in an attempt to conceal the act.
As campaign coordinator for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Ms Mansell said it was upsetting that the statue of Crowther was still standing.
“It’s so hard to comprehend how people cannot understand the offensiveness of glorifying a man who is responsible for mutilating a human being simply because of their race,” she said.
“To Aboriginal people, William Lanne represents our struggles, our treatment, our dispossession and everything we fought for over 220 years.”
Dr Maddison said the removal of the Crowther statue could be the first of its kind in Australia. (Supplied: Sarah Maddison.)
University of Melbourne Australian Center director Sarah Maddison said the conversation in Australia around controversial monuments is a growing one.
“There’s certainly been ongoing pressure and campaigning to either remove or dismantle statues celebrating Australia’s most famous colonisers, [such as] Governor Macquarie in New South Wales.”
A growing movement
Campaigning has been boosted in recent years in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in line with a resurgence in the Black Lives Matter movement.
It saw a series of Confederate statues taken down and, in England, the statue of a Bristol slaver was thrown into the bay.
Dr Maddison said she believed the removal of the Crowther statue could be the first of its kind in Australia.
While a statue of Captain Cook was removed in Cairns, it was his pose that was deemed offensive.
Now, it’s a focus on the man himself, and Dr Maddison said it could set a precedent for conversations around other controversial monuments.
“History is never just one-sided. Statues make it seem as though it is, and we need to engage far more critically with the way we commemorate aspects of Australia’s past,” Dr Maddison said.
“Public statues commemorating men who have committed crimes against First Nations people is a continued source of pain.
“It’s hard to imagine what it would be like walking past the statue of a man who had removed the skull of one of your ancestors.”
Crowther’s statue, erected in 1889, stands in the heart of Hobart.(ABC News: Andy Cunningham)
Statue should serve as ‘conversation starter’
Earlier this month, a council committee unanimously agreed Crowther should no longer be commemorated.
The full council will vote tonight on whether the bronze statue will be removed or partially removed, with a report identifying the potential for an alternative sculpture in its place.
“Now is a great opportunity for the Hobart City Council to acknowledge the wrongs of the past, and the hurt and trauma that it has caused,” Ms Mansell said.
“If the Hobart City Council are not ready to acknowledge those things, it will be a sign to the state, the nation and the rest of the world that racist attitudes still exist to this day.”
Alderman Simon Behrakis said he would like the statue to serve as a conversation starter about Tasmania’s history.
“If the full story hasn’t been told with William Crowther, then we tell the full story, but I don’t think removing his statue and removing mention of him is the way to do that,” he said.
“Our history isn’t just the parts of our story we have good fond memories of. It needs to be the darker parts of our history because they’re the ones that we learn from.
“Put a plaque up there, put something up there that tells the story, but I think removing the statue is the same as burning books.”
Councilor Simon Behrakis said he did not think removing the statue was necessarily the best way forward.(ABC News: Maren Preuss)
A dark chapter of history
Historian Paul Turnbull said the statue was an affront to many and what happened was a dark chapter in Australia’s colonial history.
“If you look at the case of the mutilation of the body of William Lanne, even at the time it was said there was nothing more loathsome than what actually happened,” he said.
“There was a ‘rather obscene’ competition between Crowther and the Royal Society of Tasmania (RST) for the remains. Crowther wanted to send them to London’s Royal College of Surgeons, RST wanted them for the Hobart museum.”
When Crowther was denied access to Lanne’s body, he and his son broke into the hospital where Lanne was being kept. Crowther then cut and peeled back Lanne’s skin and stole his skull from him, replacing it with one from a nearby corpse.
It is then believed that another surgeon cut off Lanne’s hands and feet to prevent Crowther from returning and stealing the full skeleton.
Mr Turnbull said Crowther’s actions horrified Hobartians.(ABC News: David Sciasci)
“This caused a range of responses, but generally many people in Hobart were horrified by what happened,” Mr Turnbull said.
“I can’t think of any other statues where we are talking about people who were actively involved in plundering of Aboriginal graves or theft of Aboriginal heritage.”
Lanne’s grave was later robbed, and parts of his remains have not been located.
It is believed Lanne’s skull was taken to the Royal College of Science when Crowther’s son moved to London to study.
Crowther’s collection of Aboriginal remains was donated to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery when he died, many from unknown sources. TMAG returned all remains to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community in the 1970s.
RST council president Jocelyn McPhee told Hobart City Council that the organization acknowledged past involvement in trading remains of Aboriginal people and supported the statue’s removal.
“There was interest from a scientific point of view, and most of our members would have regarded the Aboriginal community as primitive,” she said.
“The society failed to challenge prevailing attitudes [about] Aboriginal people that were destructive.
“The position we have now is a new one.”
Statue’s presence ‘untenable’
Julie Gough with her Breathing Space art project.(Supplied: Andrew Wilson Photography)
Last year, the Hobart City Council launched a Crowther Reinterpreted art project, in which four local Aboriginal artists transformed the statue in various ways to reflect an alternative message.
Renowned Aboriginal artist Julie Gough, who participated in the project, said its continued presence “in the main public square in Nipaluna/Hobart is untenable.”
“WL Crowther was premier for only 313 days in 1878-79. His good work was not remarkable nor worthy of a permanent statue,” she said.
“The suffering of Aboriginal people, who have not forgotten, needs to be addressed by the removal of this monument to a disgraced man.”
Allan Mansell’s artwork temporarily transformed William Crowther into a memorial for William Lane.(ABC News: Maren Preuss)
Some members of council are not convinced removing the statue is the best way forward.
Dr Maddison said there were ways to continue the conversation while removing the statue.
“Taking down those statues, or relocating them to museums where that type of behavior can become part of proper education and debate about the truth of Australia’s colonial history, I think would be a really good step to improving Indigenous-settler relations,” she said .
“Removing the statues is a step, but it can’t be the last of the conversation.
“It needs to be the basis for opening up the conversations about reparations, about compensations and about treaty and agreements.”
An ancient native nut once eaten by dinosaurs has huge potential to be part of the booming Indigenous bush food industry, according to new research led by the University of Queensland.
Brazilian-born scientist Jacqueline Moura Nadolny was aware of walking a sensitive line between examining new uses for bunya nuts without exploiting First Nations’ knowledge and food sovereignty.
Each heavy Bunya cone contains dozens of edible nuts.(Supplied: Jacqueline Moura Nadolny)
The PhD candidate said the bunya nut was not only nutritious and tasty, rich in protein, a healthy resistant starch, amino acids, minerals, omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids but undervalued by non-Indigenous Australians.
Ms Moura Nadolny studied seeds from the bunya nut’s football-sized spiky cones, struck by similarities to the Pinhao pine nut in southern Brazil.
Beware of falling nuts as bunya trees in Queensland drop record amount of knobs. February 6, 2015.(Rural ABC: Marty McCarthy)
South Americans eat the smaller, red-skinned pine nut boiled, roasted and salted as a snack, ground into gluten-free flour and brewed into beer.
“I found out that they were actually from the same family, just a different species,” Ms Moura Nadolny said.
“The name of the family is Araucariaceae and there are 21 species around the world but only three of them are edible by humans.”
culture and cuisine
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For thousands of years Aboriginal nation groups journeyed to Queensland’s Bunya Mountains and Blackall Range, gathering when the large cones weighing up to 10 kilograms, dropped from an ancient species of pine tree towering up to 50 meters high.
Each cone can contain up to 100 nuts. the Araucaria bidwillii tree dates back to the Jurassic period, at least 145 million years ago.
Pre-COVID, modern bunya nut festivals held on the Sunshine Coast revived ancient traditions that were severely disrupted by European settlement.
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Aboriginal festival celebrates harvest of bunyas(ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinning)
“[Traditionally] there were very big festivals that used to get held every couple of years when there was a bumper crop of bunya nuts,” Indigenous academic Odette Best said.
“They were festivals that went for sometimes weeks at a time, marriages were struck, ceremony would be done, feasts would be prepared and a lot of cultural business would occur.”
The professor in nursing at the University of Southern Queensland, who has a keen interest in food sovereignty and researches First Nations history, provided guidance to Ms Moura Nadolny about her people’s ancient food.
Odette Best with Jacqueline Moura Nadolny on a visit to the Bunya Mountains.(Supplied: Jacqueline Moura Nadolny)
“For her and for me there was a real interest around how I could be on one continent and her people are on another continent and yet there’s an incredible similarity between the nuts [and the traditions around them].”
Professor Best’s favorite way of eating bunya nuts is cooked in coals until the tough husk pops. She also makes a “really beautiful” emu and bunya nut stir fry.
“Odette helped me to collect the bunya nuts and told me about the way they prepared it, the history, which was amazing,” Ms Moura Nadolny said.
“And she has been helping me to write as well because I don’t want to just put my results in a paper and publish.”
“I want to have this Indigenous knowledge on the paper and show how important they are to Indigenous communities.”
Traditional Indigenous dances are performed at the Bunya Dreaming gathering in 2019.(ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinning)
Her PhD project with UQ’s School of Chemical Engineering and the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation’s Center for Nutrition and Food Sciences, compared roasted bunya nuts to boiled bunya nuts — benchmarking them against the sweeter chestnut.
A team of panelists investigated their aroma, flavor and texture.
“Chestnuts are much more sweet, bunya nuts are more savory and a little more bland,” Ms Moura Nadolny said.
Cakes made with Bunya flour on display at the Bunya Dreaming gathering.(ABC Sunshine Coast: Megan Kinning)
Boiling bunya nuts made them softer and more moist while roasting made them drier. Flour, beer, cakes, bread, curries, snacks and stir fries are all potential uses. Frozen, they last at least two years.
Ms Moura Nadolny’s goal is to make bunya nuts more accessible by working with Aboriginal communities.
“If you could find in the supermarket, as we find chestnuts, it would be amazing,” Ms Moura Nadolny said.
Scientist Jacqueline Moura Nadolny at the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation.(Submitted: Jacqueline Moura Nadolny)
While praising the research, Professor Best was cautious about the next step.
“We just don’t want non-Indigenous people exploiting Indigenous foods and making an industry out of it because you can’t walk into a supermarket these days without Indigenous food flavorings being utilized in absolutely everything, and the reality is very little of that kickback goes to Indigenous communities,” she said.
“There’s a sense of hesitancy amongst a lot of Indigenous people about ‘Oh this is just the next wave of colonization and taking of knowledge and being utilized by non-Indigenous people and being made into products that can be sold and a lot of money made from them’.
“Jacqueline’s not exploitative, she wants and she understands that hopefully we can get Indigenous involvement into this … that actually sees stuff being done or created that’s Indigenous owned and run.”
A rural fire brigade captain was driving through a forest in northern New South Wales when a flash of color caught his eye.
He was compelled to investigate and was thrilled to discover it was a vintage Bedford fire truck.
The 1960s vehicle had belonged to the remote Bellbrook Rural Fire Brigade, west of Kempsey on the Mid North Coast, and was used by what is believed to be Australia’s first all-Indigenous Rural Fire Service crew.
Bellbrook Brigade captain Adam Hall said it was an exciting find.
Bellbrook captain Adam Hall is thrilled to have the old truck back.(ABC Mid North Coast: Emma Siossian)
“Captain of the Newee Creek Brigade in the Nambucca Shire was driving through the Tamban State Forest,” Mr Hall said.
“Through some trees he noticed a little flash of red and saw an old fire truck and as firefighters tend to do, he got a bit excited, and he went and had a look and as he got closer, he saw Bellbrook was emblazoned on the side.”
The Bellbrook Brigade launched a public fundraiser so it could purchase the vehicle from the collector who had acquired it- the truck has now been moved from that property back to Bellbrook, with big plans for its restoration.
Gerard “Chunk” Wade served on the old truck in the 1980s.(ABC Mid North Coast: Emma Siossian)
Mr Hall said the truck was supplied to Bellbrook in the 1970s and became the primary truck used by an all-Indigenous branch based at the local Thungutti Aboriginal community in the early 1990s.
“We have a very rich history of Indigenous participation in the brigade here and the truck ended up as the truck that was used by the first all-Indigenous fire crew,” he said.
“We believe it was the first all-Indigenous fire crew in the country… so rebuilding it is very important for the community, for our Thungutti people here as well, and helping to bring some pride into our little village.”
Special memories of Indigenous crew
Ray Quinn remembers his dad serving in the original Indigenous crew.(Supplied: Bellbrook Rural Fire Brigade)
The truck held special memories for Bellbrook Rural Fire Brigade member Ray Quinlan. His late father Eric was part of the original Indigenous crew.
Eric Quinlan was part of the all-Indigenous brigade at Bellbrook.(Supplied: Adam Hall)
In the early 1990s, the truck was used at the local Bellbrook Aboriginal community.(Supplied: Adam Hall)
“It means a lot, my old man used to be out all the time in the fire brigade… I just used to always say, ‘I want to come’,” he said.
“I just want to keep following his footsteps.
“Looking at all the old photos of him back in the day in his fire brigade suit, it just makes me real proud of him and I want to make him proud of me.”
Bellbrook Brigade member Elwyn Toby also remembered seeing the truck in action at the Thungutti community.
“It was great to see our Indigenous leaders step up and have a go,” he said.
“It inspired me as a child, watching our uncles and aunties jump on the truck and become firefighters.”
A different era of firefighting
The truck at the Bellbrook centenary parade in 1992.(Supplied: Adam Hall)
Bellbrook Rural Fire Brigade deputy captain Gerard ‘Chunk’ Wade recalled serving on the truck in the 1980s.
“I remember standing in the back, and there’s not a lot of creature comforts of safety. You had a bar to hang on to and off you went into the fire,” he said.
“It was just a blast from the past just to see it come back to Bellbrook. It’s just a piece of history, I think that it’s just gold.”
Gerard Wade remembers heading into fire events standing on the back of the old truck.(ABC Mid North Coast: Emma Siossian)
Big restoration plans
It’s expected to take a couple of years for the truck to be fully restored.(ABC Mid North Coast: Emma Siossian)
Thanks to social media, there have been offers from around the country to help with the truck’s restoration.
“I expect it will take two to three years to get it somewhere near its former glory, at which point we hope to be able to go to schools and to shows and rusty iron rallies, that sort of thing and just show it off and put Bellbrook on the map,” Captain Hall said.
“We are only a very small, fairly isolated village here and it’s nice to be able to show the rest of the world who we are.”
Offers to help with the truck’s restoration have flowed in from around the country.(Supplied: Adam Hall)
The old Bellbrook sign on the side of the truck caught the eye of a local fire captain.(ABC Mid North Coast: Emma Siossian)
Bringing community together
Bellbrook’s current truck now also has ties to the region’s Indigenous heritage, featuring an artwork created by Mr Toby, who works as a local cultural arts teacher.
Elwyn Toby (right) has created an Indigenous artwork for the current Bellbrook fire truck.(ABC Mid North Coast: Emma Siossian)
“The artwork is recognized for our local Indigenous population in Bellbrook and the wider community,” he said.
“In the blue you have the fire truck, then water around the truck… the symbols in the yellow are people.
“It’s about coming together in the fires.”
It’s hoped the old and new trucks at Bellbrook will eventually be displayed side-by-side.(ABC Mid North Coast: Emma Siossian)
An Aboriginal man has died in a Melbourne prison just hours after returning from hospital.
Key points:
The man in his early 30s died in the medical unit at the high-security Port Phillip Prison
The coroner and Corrections Victoria will investigate the incident
The First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria is calling for urgent systemic reform
The ABC understands the 32-year-old man was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital on Wednesday morning for treatment.
He was then brought back to the maximum-security Port Phillip prison, where he died in the medical unit on Wednesday night.
A spokesperson from the Department of Justice and Community confirmed the man died on Wednesday.
“It is with great sorrow that Corrections Victoria acknowledges the passing of a prisoner at Port Phillip Prison,” the spokesperson said.
“As with all deaths in custody, the matter has been referred to the coroner, who will formally determine the cause of death.”
Premier Daniel Andrews said both the coroner and Corrections Victoria would conduct a full review into death.
A statement was posted to the Corrections Victoria website late on Friday afternoon, saying: “We recognize that all deaths in custody have impacts on family members, friends, victims and the broader Aboriginal community, and we’re working to ensure they are provided with the support they need.”
Victoria’s corrections system was heavily criticized during a recent inquest into the death of Aboriginal woman Veronica Nelson, who died alone in her cell despite repeatedly calling out for help.
A St Vincent’s spokesperson offered the hospital’s condolences and said it would comply with the coronial inquest.
Push for uniform services across Australia
Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus told ABC Radio Melbourne he wanted all states to adopt uniform custody notification services.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus says all corrections centers are run by Australia’s states and territories.(AAP: Mick Tsikas)
He said national implementation of the support services would enable Aboriginal people in custody to speak to lawyers, family members and support services.
“We’ve made a commitment in the election to assist families with coronial inquiries with the hope that if these deaths in custody are examined, we will learn more about how they can be prevented,” he said.
In 1991, Australia’s Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody warned the arrest of Aboriginal people should be a last resort and that prison staff should be trained to recognize the signs of deteriorating health.
There have been more than 500 deaths in custody since the commission.
Co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria Marcus Stewart said the figure showed that changes were long overdue.
“[It’s] 500 too many. I have no confidence that the system is working,” he said.
“I think the system is rotted and corroded to its core and we need systematic reform, structural reform.”
Marcus Stewart says the First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria is calling for a truth-telling process to address deaths in custody.(Supplied)
He said mechanisms such as the Yoorrook Justice Commission, a truth-telling process, needed to be put in place so treaty could deliver reforms.
Mr Stewart said he was in favor of Mr Dreyfus’ suggestions of national custody notification services.
“It’s a bottom line responsibility that the government should be doing as a normal practice, and it’s kind of disgraceful … that in 2022 we’re talking about that being introduced,” he said.
“We see you, we hear you and we notice the inaction you’re taking on Aboriginal deaths in custody.
After moving accommodation five times in five months, Nyangbal and Dunghutti woman Teresa Anderson has had enough.
Key points:
Flooding in the Northern Rivers displaced many Indigenous communities
Elders say a disproportionate number of First Nations people are still homeless almost six months on
They say the many in the community are suffering because of it
The elder’s Cabbage Tree Island home, nestled on a flood plain of cane fields in northern New South Wales, was deemed uninhabitable after the February floods.
She has been homeless since.
“I’ve been moved around five times,” she told the ABC.
“We were at the Ramada[hotel] then we went to Brisbane. Then we had to go outside of town.
“It’s taken a toll on my health. I couldn’t even cope, I couldn’t go to work. It just got me really emotional.”
Teresa in front of her grandmother’s house, which is unsafe for occupancy.(ABC NewsEmma Rennie )
Teresa Anderson was in good health before the floods.
But she believes a series of new health issues have been a direct result of the grief and stress of being displaced.
“YO‘I’m struggling,” she said.
As floods devastated Lismore and surrounding towns earlier this year, a sludge of sewage-contaminated water raged down the Richmond River, destroying every home in the Aboriginal community.
Floodwater damage at Cabbage Tree Island. (ABC News: Rani Hayman)
There are 23 homes on the island — with some housing up to 12 people — and at the time every single resident of the 180-strong community was left homeless.
Today, every house is still uninhabitable.
According to the Jali Local Aboriginal Land Council, today, almost six months after the disaster, about 500 of the 1,296 northern New South Wales residents who are still homeless are First Nations people.
“That tells me clearly that we’re disproportionate again in relation to the numbers of people who are homeless,” Widjabul man and Jali Land Council chief executive Chris Binge told the ABC.
Mr Binge said a disproportionate number of the Indigenous community remains homeless.(ABC News: Rani Hayman)
According to Ms Anderson, Indigenous flood victims have been pushed to the back of the line when it came to finding permanent accommodation.
“They are homeless and staying in tents in front of their homes,” she said.
“It’s hard for us to try to get accommodation like rental houses, because once they know it’s an Aboriginal family, they just say, ‘no, I’m sorry, it’s not available.”
Temporary housing plan
The NSW Department of Communities and Justice, the organization responsible for helping flood victims into emergency accommodation, told the ABC in a statement it did not collect data on Indigenous status.
But it said it had assisted “10,676 people into emergency accommodation across the Northern Rivers” since February.
The federal and state governments have promised $70 million for Aboriginal housing solutions for communities across the Northern Rivers.
There are plans for Cabbage Tree Island residents to move to a temporary housing site at the nearby Wardell Recreation Ground.
But according to Resilience NSW the “persistent wet weather has significantly impacted the progress of earthworks”.
Some residents have been told it could be three months before the project is finished, but Resilience NSW have not provided a specific time frame.
The temporary housing site at the nearby Wardell Recreation Ground, which is still in development. (ABC NewsEmma Rennie)
As members of the Cabbage Tree Island communities wait for news on when and if they’ll be able to return home, there are concerns the health and wellbeing of elders is deteriorating.
Nyangbal woman Delia Rhodes, also from Cabbage Tree Island, said not knowing when or if she’ll be able to return home to the country has severely impacted her mental health.
Delia Rhodes just wants to get back to her community.(ABC NewsEmma Rennie)
“I can understand the wider community has been affected, too,” she said.
“But it’s a slow process for us to get us back into housing, into a permanent home. It’s hard work.
Almost 200,000 Australians are often forced to drink water containing unsafe levels of uranium, arsenic, nitrates, fluoride and E.coli, according to the peak body for water suppliers.
Key points:
Almost 200,000 people in remote Australia don’t have access to drinking water that consistently meets health guidelines
40 per cent of locations affected are remote Indigenous communities
Researchers say too many bureaucratic layers allow for blame shifting and inaction
A further 400,000 people across Australia regularly drink water that fails aesthetic standards, a new Water Services Association of Australia report has found.
Researchers discovered unsafe drinking water in 115 locations, while hundreds more had water that failed aesthetic standards.
Towns and communities in the Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia returned the worst water quality results, with remote Indigenous communities found to be the most affected by unsafe drinking water.
Jackie Mahoney and Pam Corbett, who live in Alpurrurulam, 500 kilometers north-east of Alice Springs on the NT-Queensland border, say poor water quality causes a wide range of illnesses and problems.
“It makes you itchy … and causes kidney problems and makes you sick in the stomach,” Mr Mahoney said.
“People with sensitive skin were treated for scabies, but it wasn’t scabies. Children’s scalps were dry and itching, and lots of calcium on the taps and clogged pipes caused problems.”
Hard water in remote areas causes plumbing problems and contributes to chronic health issues. (ABC Alice Springs: Steven Schubert)
The community recently installed a filtration system which, they said, had helped to improve the water quality, but it did not remove everything and many people still suffered health issues because they had been forced to drinkpoor quality water for years.
“Before that it was worse,” Ms Corbett said.
“We didn’t know we were drinking no-good water. It made our stomach sick, and… our kids.”
Ms Corbett said she and her partner had approached governments, the Central Land Council and other funding bodies for a new water bore for the community but progress had been slow.
“I’m worried because of our kids, their future, the next generation. We need to fix this. We need new water soon, ASAP,” Mr Mahoney said.
“It’s our homeland. We’re there for life and we should have good water.”
600,000 rely on poor quality drinking water
The Water Services Association of Australia report shows 115 locations across remote Australia exceeded safe guidelines at least once in 2018-19, while 408 locations did not meet aesthetic standards, affecting more than 600,000 people.
More than 40 per cent of all locations surveyed were remote Indigenous communities, the report said.
Many remote Indigenous communities struggle with drinking water access, including Yuelamu north-west of Alice Springs. (Supplied: Adam Lovell)
But association executive director Adam Lovell said the number of locations and breaches of the guidelines actually could be much higher because there was not enough testing being done.
“There’s hardly any data to understand what the water quality looks like,” he said.
“When we talk about closing the gap, we don’t know what that gap actually looks like right now.”
Unacceptably high levels of elements like uranium or arsenic could result in long-term chronic health issues, Mr Lovell said, but the most common risk was E.coli.
“It’s immediate. If a water supply is not being disinfected properly then there’ll be gastrointestinal problems in the house,” he said.
“Over the longer term you’ll see that the chemical impacts build up and build up and build up and they’re the chronic impacts, which are much harder to see immediately and then much harder to treat.”
Adam Lovell tests drinking water in Yuendumu, NT. (Supplied: Adam Lovell)
‘Blame shifting’ over water quality
Mr Lovell said in Australia’s major cities there were usually hundreds of water samples taken a day, testing for microbial contaminants like E.coli and chemicals.
“Australian drinking water guidelines should preferably be legislated and regulated across all states and territories, which currently it is not,” he said.
Report author Eric Vanweydeveld said there were too many government departments and other organizations involved in service provision for remote communities, which led to blame shifting and inaction.
Eric Vanweydeveld and Adam Lovell say there’s too much bureaucracy in managing water in remote Indigenous communities. (Supplied: Adam Lovell)
“If there is a water leak in the street, and you are a member of a remote community and you try to understand ‘who do I need to talk to fix this leak?’, you will deal with probably seven or 10 different departments ,” he said.
The report has recommended that the federal government spend $30 million to establish a national water monitoring program.
“That will help us understand what closing the gap looks like,” Mr Lovell said.
Steven Porter, from the Northern Territory Power and Water Corporation, said it had been working with the Central Land Council to secure $5.2 million from the National Indigenous Affairs Association to bring two new bores online but there was still a $1 million shortfall.
“In doing that we can access better sources of water and improve the quality of water for the local community,” he said.
Indigenous people from America and Australia have gathered in the Red Center with the collective goal of saving their languages from extinction.
Native American language experts are sharing their secrets of success in a four-day conference attended by more than 100 people from communities across Australia.
From north-western California, Julian Lang firsthand witnessed the revival of his own native tongue—the Karuk language.
“One person teaches another person and that person becomes a seed for so many more,” Mr Lang explained.
“We wanted to create five new speakers in five years, and three years later we have five new speakers.”
No books needed to revive languages
Twelve Native American revivalists will be sharing the “master-apprentice program” their ancestors developed more than three decades ago.
The program does away with books, pen and paper, and doesn’t rely on a curriculum.
Instead, they speak about everyday things, slowly acquiring words and context.
Indigenous Australians and Native Americans have gathered at the Red Center to learn from each other about how to revive their languages.(ABC News: Xavier Martin)
Julian Lang is one of the founders of the program and said it takes dedication and time — he estimates about three years and 900 hours.
Once an apprentice, now he is teaching Tori McConnell to reconnect more fully with her Karuk culture.
“They used to pick up young native kids and take them to school and strip them of their culture and their language and their identity,” the 22-year-old explained.
“We are reconnecting with who we are in those pieces that the schools and the churches kind of stripped away.”
“We were told never to speak our language again”
This story of language extinction is universal.
Australian government policies actively sought to extinguish Indigenous languages up until the 1970s — like Pertame, also known as Southern Arrernte, originally spoken around the Finke River south of Alice Springs.
Pertame woman, Aunty Kathleen Bradshaw-Swan, recalled how they would yarn in secret when they were children.
Pertame woman Aunty Kathleen Bradshaw-Swan was told at school to never speak her language.(ABC News: Stephanie Boltje)
“At school, we were told not to speak that lingo and we were told never to speak our language again,” Aunty Kathleen said.
“My sister Christobel was saying, sometimes she got hit by the headmaster for speaking the language.”
They are two of about 20 people who fluently speak Pertame.
The latest census found 167 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages are still spoken in homes across Australia.
But as many as 110 languages are severely or critically endangered.
“I am sad about our language being taken away in the past but with these people coming there are new beginnings for us,” Aunty Kathleen Bradshaw-Swan told The Drum.
The immersion technique
The UN has declared this next 10 years as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages.
In 2019 Aunty Kathleen and her granddaughter traveled to New York to hear about techniques that could fast-track the learning process, and they liked what they heard about the Master-Apprentice Program.
This one-on-one, or breath-to-breath, immersion technique is being shared at community-led The Pertame School in Alice Springs.
Samantha Penangka Armstrong is helping to run the conference with The Batchelor Institute and is also one of the apprentices.
“It’s reverting back to our old ways where we just only spoke language with our elders,” she said.
Samantha Penangka Armstrong is learning Pertame using the Master-Apprentice method developed by Native American language revivalists.(ABC News: Stephanie Boltje)
“It could be asking about a certain plant, what it’s used for, when it’s in season, if animals eat it or if humans eat it, getting the kids up for school — it’s learning Pertame [by speaking] Allow me.”
Through this conference, it’s hoped the next generation across Australia will benefit from the Native American experience.
“It’s really important for them to learn and get their language back,” Samanatha Penangka Armstrong told The Drum.
“It is not only just for their identity, but really ties into connection to country.”
“You can’t go onto country unless you actually speak to country in your own language.”
Native trees like the paperbark are central to the culture of the traditional owners of K’Gari (Fraser Island).
“These species are living stories,” says Matilda Davis, who works with the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation as a biosecurity and climate change officer on the World Heritage-listed island.
Matilda Davis has been checking the health of trees after wild fires on K’gari (Fraser Island).(Supplied: Matilda Davis)
Apart from many being edible or medicinal, these trees have ancestral and spiritual connections, and are key to the health of Butchulla country, she says.
For example, the paperbark (Melaleuca quinquenervia)—called “deebing“ by the Butchulla people — can let them know when it’s safe to sustainably harvest certain foods.
“When the deebing flowers, it’s a seasonal indicator for particular kinds of seafood,” Ms Davis says.
Paperbark and other tea-trees belong to a large family known as Myrtaceae, which also include eucalypts, lilly pillies, bottlebrushes and guavas.
But a pandemic of an invasive fungal disease is making it harder for some Myrtaceae species to bounce back after intense bushfires.
Myrtle rust (Austropuccinia psidii), which can appear as a bloom of golden spots on leaves, can suck the life out of new growth.
The disease, which was first detected on K’gari in 2013, is a real worry for the Butchulla, Ms Davis says.
“Myrtle rust is threatening our ability to practice culture.”
The ‘other pandemic’: the spread of myrtle rust
Myrtle rust originally comes from South America, where the native Myrtaceae species have co-evolved a natural resistance to it.
But, the plant fungus has jumped from the wild — not unlike the virus that causes COVID-19 — and become a “pandemic strain”, causing disease across the globe.
The pandemic strain (see pink) is the most wide-spread strain of myrtle rust.(Supplied: Alistair McTaggart)
Its tiny spores have hitched a ride on the wind or on people’s clothes, with globalization playing a key role in the spread.
The disease has proven devastating to many “naïve” species of Myrtaceae that did not evolve with fungus.
Since it landed in Australia in 2010, it has infected forests in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and most recently Western Australia.
Tiny myrtle rust spores, which are so light they can spread on the wind, as seen under the microscope.(Supplied: Geoff Pegg)
Fungus targets growing tips of plant
When the fungus lands on species susceptible to infection it can robthe plant’s cells of nutrients, and kills off the growing tips — the new leaves, stems, flowers and fruit.
The plant is forced to put more energy into new growth, but if the plant cannot fight off the fungus, it becomes re-infected.
Midyim berry fruits are being attacked by the fungus before they can even mature.(Supplied: Matilda Davis)
“So you get this repeated cycle of growth and dieback and eventually the plant runs out of reserves and declines,” says forest pathologist Geoff Pegg of the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Dr Pegg has been working to document the impacts of myrtle rust on trees impacted by fire, including on K’Gari where he is collaborating with Ms Davis and the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation.
A shrub called midyim berry (Austromyrtus dulcis) is among the Myrtaceae species affected on K’Gari.
The plant is important for the health of the country, Ms Davis says.
She says many animals depend on the berry, which is “sweet with a distinct aftertaste.”
But myrtle rust affects the formation of the flowers and tasty berries in plants growing in areas recovering from bushfire.
‘Unprecedented’ extinction event of rainforest species likely
A recent survey of rainforests in Eastern Australia predicted a “plant extinction event of unprecedented magnitude” due to myrtle rust.
“Sixteen speciesare doomed with extinction within a generation,” says co-author of the survey, Rod Fensham, a plant ecologist from the University of Queensland.
Among the most at risk were the thready-bark myrtle (Gossia inophloia) and native guava (Rhodomyrtus psidioides).
And a further 20 species could be at risk.
“It’s an extraordinary example of a disease phenomenon,” he says.
“It’s a pretty profound event.”
Native guava (Rhodomyrtus psidioides) is at risk of going extinct thanks to myrtle rust.(Supplied: Glenn Leiper)
Dr Pegg has also seen the devastating effects of myrtle rust on the east coast, and not just in rainforests.
“There are thousands of dead trees in some sites that we’ve looked at.”
He points to one forest at Tullebudgera not far from the Gold Coast, where there were 3,400 dead trees per hectare.
When he started the study in 2014, the high-rainfall forest was dominated by Myrtaceae species such as eucalypts and silky myrtle (Decaspermum humile).
Now most of seedlings that are surviving are non-Myrtaceae natives, and weeds like lantana and camphor laurel.
All mature silky myrtle trees (Decaspermum humile) are now dead at the Tallebudgera study site, Dr Pegg says.(Supplied: Geoff Pegg)
fire and rust
While Dr Fensham doesn’t count paperbarks among the worst affected trees, others like Dr Pegg emphasize they are still at risk, especially after bushfires.
“We’ve seen quite significant impacts in some sites,” Dr Pegg says.
Bob Makinson of the Australian Network for Plant Conservation is also worried about paperbarks from a biodiversity perspective.
Paperbark trees (Melaleuca quinquenervia) vary in their susceptibility to myrtle rust.(Supplied: Glenn Leiper)
Even without sending paperbarks extinct, he says, the impact of myrtle rust on such species could have broader implications for the ecology.
“The paperbark is such an important tree for wetlands and riverbanks where there are not many other trees that can tolerate the water-logging conditions there,” Mr Makinson, a conservation botanist, says.
“This species is important for providing shade on the water, for reducing erosion and for keeping freshwater wetlands running.”
Paperbark forests play an important ecological role.(Supplied: Glenn Leiper)
And, he adds, insects, birds and flying foxes rely on the paperbark’s flowers.
“We don’t know what the knock-on effects will be of reduced flowering in those populations that are severely affected by myrtle rust,” Mr Makinson says.
Some individual trees in a species are more resistant to myrtle rust — just as some of us appear to be naturally more resistant to COVID-19.
But Dr Pegg says only 15 to 35 per cent of paperbark seedlings in New South Wales study sites have shown natural resistance to the fungus.
Ms Davis says another species on K’Gari that’s being “smashed” by fire and rust is the the Satinay (Syncarpia hilli).(Supplied: Matilda Davis)
What about eucalypts?
During the 1970s, myrtle rust decimated eucalypts in Brazil, where they were planted as an exotic tree.
Thankfully, testing so far has showneucalypts growing natively in Australia have promising levels of resistance, although there is some concern about a few eucalypt species.
And just as we’ve had to worry about the rise of more infectious strains of COVID-19, new strains of myrtle rust may be on the way.
This Plunkett mallee (Eucalyptus curtisii) is one eucalypt that could be at risk from myrtle rust.(Supplied: Glenn Leiper)
In fact, last year, Brazilian scientists reported the evolution of a new “highly aggressive” fungus that was attacking eucalypt plantations in that country, which had been bred to be resistant.
“An introduction of a new strain like that to Australia could actually increase the risk to our eucalypts,” Dr Pegg says.
Stopping the spread to save species
To stop the spread of the disease to new areas, quarantine is essential – as is monitoring.
When the fungus reached the Northern Territory in 2018, this kicked off a monitoring program which subsequently picked up myrtle rust in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Symptoms of myrtle rust can appear variable and are sometimes hard to identify the disease unless the plants are dripping with what some have described as a “yellow sludge” of spores.
Botanic gardens and others are using every tool in the book to identify plants with natural resistance to myrtle rust.
The idea is to preserve seed or other biological material which could be crucial in saving species.
And, it wouldn’t be a pandemic without a vaccine in the wings — Australian scientists hope to use RNA-interference vaccines to get the fungus to self-destruct.
Another tree at risk of extinction is the thready bark myrtle (Gossia inophloia), which has edible fruit.(Supplied: Glenn Leiper)
But you can also help by washing your clothes (including hat!) if you’ve been in the bush in affected states, and by following quarantine rules.
And think about planting threatened species in your backyard.
Dr Fensham suggests that native guavas can make a nice addition to the home garden.
“We need more people committed to growing these things and trying to get them to reproduce,” he says.
Avoiding ‘upside-down country’
Meanwhile, back on K’Gari, Ms Davis hopes to collect seeds from paperbarks and other affected trees in an effort to conserve genetic diversity, which will be key to their survival.
And she wants to see a shift away from “bad fires” with high flames that leads to a reverse in the color scheme of forests—resulting in brown burnt treetops and green new growth below.
“That is a good indicator for us that that country is stressed,” she says.
“We call it upside-down country.”
After an intense hot fire the colour-scheme of forests can be reversed.(Supplied: Matilda Davis)
She says evidence links cooler, less-intense fires with lower impacts from myrtle rust infection.
So she’d like to see a move towards traditional “Galangoor gira” — or “good fire” — practices, something Dr Pegg agrees could be explored in the future.
Ms Davis says the “positive and respectful” partnership with scientists like Dr Pegg is allowing for a two-way learning, placing traditional custodians of the land at the center of the response to ecological problems like myrtle rust
“I do believe the answers are in our old people’s ways.” she says.
