Sitting amid a backdrop of stringy bark forest, Warlpiri Elder Uncle Ned Hargraves has travelled from the red centre to Northeast Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory with a message for the NT Government.
Surrounded by the sacred grounds known to the Yolŋu people as Gulkula, Mr Hargraves reflects on the failures of the NT justice system, failures he has endured firsthand.
“Right now we are living in fear; all our children are living in fear,” the senior Warlpiri man told NITV.
“We want to live with our children, with our generations to come.”
His words carry the weight of personal experience: the deaths in custody of two of his jaja – Warlpiri for grandson.
In 2019, Warlpiri Luritja teenager Kumanjayi Walker died during an attempted arrest in his home community of Yuendumu by then Constable Zachary Rolfe who has since been acquitted of all related charges.
Mr Walker was 19 years old, and was shot three times at close range under circumstances where there were no emergency health services present in Yuendumu.
The NT Government and NT Police are yet to commit to any of the 32 recommendations handed down in the findings of the coronial inquest into Kumanjayi Walker's death.
The pain of that event was brought horrifically back in May this year, after 24-year-old Kumanjayi White passed away while being detained by two undercover officers at a supermarket in Alice Springs.
Mr White, who had a disability on was a guardianship order, was living in Alice Springs because he needed a level of care not available on Country in Yuendumu.
Mr Hargraves and the Warlpiri community have maintained calls for the CCTV vision of the incident to be released and for the investigation into his passing to be independent of police.
Despite his calls being echoed across the nation, and even reiterated by the federal Minister for Indigenous Australians, it has fallen on deaf ears.
“The community is not happy,” Mr Hargraves said.
“We are feeling very, very angry of what is not [being] done."
‘Shame on you Northern Territory Government’
This week the Northern Territory government introduced a sweeping youth justice overhaul, reviving the use of the formerly banned spithoods, and abolishing the principle that detention be a last resort.
It builds on a “tough on crime” policy agenda including the tightening of bail laws they say are now the “toughest in the country” and becoming the first jurisdiction in the country to lower the age of criminal responsibility to 10 two years after the NT Labor government legislated raising it to 14.
“Shame on you Northern Territory Government, shame on you,” Mr Hargraves said.
In the Northern Territory around 99 per cent of incarcerated youth and more than 80 per cent of incarcerated adults are Indigenous.
Since coming to power in August last year the NT Government has seen 20 per cent increase to the overall prison population, around 50 per cent of those are on remand awaiting sentencing.
The Productivity Commission's latest report into the Closing the Gap measures revealed steadily worsening rates of Ingenous youth incarceration in the NT over several years.
In a statement today the NT Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby said the “government’s strong reforms are working” before referencing worsening remand rates.
Those include over 3300 people refused bail, with remand numbers up 40 per cent.
The average wait time on remand is down by 7 per cent from last year, now averaging 136 days.
Mr Hargraves appeared frustrated by the latest NT Government legislation and the apparent boasting about a justice system in crisis.
His message for the NT Government is clear.
“You have to change your attitude, change the way you do things,” Mr Hargraves said.
“It’s unfair for us, for Yapa (Indigenous people) to live like this.”
“The only think that I’d see is why they are doing it is because Blackfullas, we are going to suffer.”
“We are not animals or savages. We want to live in a freedom.”
A message of hope from the Garma Festival
Myatili Marika is a Yolngu woman based in North East Arnhem Land and a Traditional Owner of the Rirratjingu clan.
In a powerful address to the Garma forum, Myatili Marika spoke of the hope her communities hold despite the continued hurt.
“Every day we deal with death and trauma and the overwhelming grief that comes with it,” Ms Marika said while addressing the forum on Saturday morning.
“The relentlessness of these forces in our communities are something that few people can imagine, let alone understand.”
“And yet we remain strong, determined, hopeful, patient in the that things will be better now and for future generations.”
