Justice

Adjunct Professor Phillip Mills of the Kulkalgal Nation, explores the importance of prioritising sovereignty over equity for Indigenous peoples’ survival.

Arrernte writer Celeste Liddle speaks up about the racism, targeted and racialised bullying she has endured, concluding that Australia has little hope of ever eradicating the extreme racism of fascists.

In NSW the Coroner is crucial in determining cause of death whenever there is a sudden, unexpected or unnatural death in the community, including when the police are involved. A recent inquiry into this system has revealed an unwillingness on behalf of government to implement changes that could save countless Aboriginal families needless grief and suffering, Lindsay McCabe explains.

Cheryl Axleby, Co-Chair of Change the Record writes of the crisis of the overrepresentation of First Nations children in incarceration. We need to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

The coverage on the Rolfe trial could make a reader question who is the one really being judged – the deceased or the police officer standing trial?

Social media has allowed community to tell their stories their way, but non-mob must recognise cultural growth and adaption as well as tradition

Mililma May, Larrakia/Tiwi woman and co-founder of Uprising of the People writes about rest as resistance during a global pandemic and rise of white supremacists anti-vax groups.

Our children’s innocence is stolen, and the system presents them with a life in and out of prison

In our communities, we all know someone that has been impacted by the criminal justice system in a harmful (often devastating) way.

This is not a numbers game. These are people, Aboriginal people, whose lives have been snuffed out in the ongoing machinery of colonisation and the carceral State.

If we collectively support the families’ calls and call on governments to act, we can end this injustice once and for all. We cannot, and must not, wait another generation for change.

Wiyi Yani U Thangani – Securing Our Rights, Securing Our Future Report 2020 marks new beginnings for our First Nations women and girls, and for…

On the 22nd September Victorian State Coroner Judge John Cain released a practice note outlining changes in the conduct of coronial investigations into Aboriginal deaths in custody in Victoria.

It is not so radical to say we need to defund police and pour much needed funds and resources into areas that improve social issues such as housing, health, education and employment. These, in turn, reduce the incarceration rates of Aboriginal people and reduces the over-reliance of degrading and dehumanising punitive measures such as prisons.

We spent 14 days in court hearing evidence outline the indifference of police and the mistreatment of our mum.

The years of assimilation are slowly coming undone with the resurgence of our cultural identities and a returning to our traditional ways after generations of beatings by the hands of state-sanctioned violence.

With many Aboriginal people in detention having underlying health issues, COVID-19 will almost certainly lead to more Aboriginal deaths in custody.

The struggle for self-determination in justice must move beyond platitudes and develop mechanisms which translate principle into practice. Self-determination can be achieved at all levels of justice.