First Nations communities can’t wait any longer, it’s time for leadership that addresses the 200 years of systemic police violence, deaths in custody and everyday racism that has reached a crisis point.
GetUp’s First Nations Campaign DIrector Larissa Baldwin said:
“Racism, police violence and Aboriginal deaths in custody shouldn’t be on a to-do list, it must be at the top of the national agenda when National Cabinet meets tomorrow.
“Waiting seventy three years for justice would have been a national disgrace.
”In the last month millions of people around the world have made perfectly clear that we need serious reforms to end Black deaths in custody now.
“We know what serious reforms look like and they could be made today: repeal punitive bail laws, end mandatory sentencing, stop imprisoning children, put an end to police investigating police and stop putting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in solitary confinement.
“None of this is new, Scott Morrison just needs to look to the endless recommendations from countless inquiries that have set down a clear path for reforms to wind back racist policing, stop deaths in custody and end incarceration.
“Anything less isn’t a plan, it’s political cowardice.
“Black lives matter, the lives of the 437 First Nations people who have died in custody matter and they need a government that is committed to reform now."