South Australia Police

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:30): On this quite auspicious day, which was the inaugural First Nations State Voice address to this parliament, I rise to speak about my concerns and touch on a topic which was raised in the address today, and that is racism and SAPOL. It was reflected upon this morning that while Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up approximately 2.5 per cent of the community, they are almost 25 per cent of those incarcerated. They are more likely to come into contact with the justice system, and children are still being removed at rates that are simply unacceptable.

What was truly unacceptable was the vision that many South Australians, and indeed people right across globe, saw in the Davenport community just over a week ago, of the assault of an Aboriginal man in that Davenport community, an Aboriginal Lands Trust community, where that Aboriginal man was shoved against a wall by a police officer, dragged across a footpath, seemingly unconscious. That vision was shared tens of thousands of times. It sparked outrage, and quite rightly so.

I raised with the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Attorney-General yesterday my concerns that what has not yet been reported is that that man, when he was taken into custody by the police, was taken to the hospital briefly and found to have a broken rib and a fractured skull. He was then taken from the hospital to the police station and charged with two of what is often called part of the trifecta: hindering and assault police.

He was not able to be returned to the hospital. He was not returned to medical care. He was, in fact, made to walk back to the Davenport community, a walk of almost an hour from that police station. Many questions have been raised by the people in the community, by family and friends of this man and, indeed, no doubt in the courts we will see unfolding some more information. But what we do know, in the words of Andrew Carpenter, who is an Adelaide-based lawyer, is that the vision was of an officer shoving a male who does not appear to be identifying as any threat, especially when there were other officers around who could have clearly de-escalated the situation.

Indeed, our own Aboriginal affairs minister, Kyam Maher, who has spoken to members of the local community, has stated:

I have been contacted by a number of Aboriginal community leaders and members over the last 24 hours concerned about the footage. I understand those concerns.

I echo the words of the Attorney-General, and I question whether or not there is racism in SAPOL and whether or not the workings of the declared public precinct in Port Augusta are feeding and fuelling that racism, and that changed expectations around civil liberties and human rights.

We know that there was sexism in SAPOL. There may well still be, but we know because the equal opportunity commissioner in this state did a three-year inquiry with three annual reports that found sexism in SAPOL and created measures to address that. For a long time the Greens have called for a similar inquiry to be undertaken into SAPOL.

Then we see footage like this, of an Aboriginal man, who was not even the person the police were there to talk to, being shoved into a wall and dragged, seemingly unconscious and suffering from a broken rib and a fractured skull, and having no charges against him laid other than two of the trifecta, which we know often are what Aboriginal people are charged with: hinder and assault police. Certainly, that was not on the footage, and if that footage does exist from the body cam operations I certainly look forward to SAPOL releasing it. But what I look forward to more is SAPOL taking a closer look at itself and whether or not it has racism in its ranks.