Police Aboriginal Treatment

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (15:56): I understand that matters of interest should be used by members to raise issues of community interest or importance rather than to be used opportunistically by some members to sling mud at one another. Whilst I could use this opportunity to respond to the Hon. Kyam Maher's speech of 6 August this year, where he spent his entire five minutes taking aim at the X-Team and misrepresenting the intent of X-Team policies, I will not.

I will, however, say that if it was not the Hon. Kyam Maher's intention to deliberately distort the X-Team policy on penalty rates, then I pity him for his inability to understand matters which have been clearly explained on a number of occasions in simple terms. I could have used my own five minutes now pointing out to the Hon. Kyam Maher how flawed his argument was, as the very restaurant owner he used against the X-Team's policy on penalty rates had had a personal conversation with my staff at the beginning of last year complaining about how the government's penalty rates and payroll tax was killing their business.

Upon finding out where my staff member worked, the joint owner of Rigoni's immediately fired up about the punishing penalty rates and taxes the state government charge which did not make it worthwhile to open their restaurant more, even though they would love to do so—but I will not. I do not believe it is in the spirit of this place to use matters of interest to continually sling mud at one another. Instead, I will use this matter of interest to bring the chamber's attention to another matter.

On 28 May a young couple, who were expecting their third child, went out to dinner to celebrate the wife's birthday. After having a nice meal at their local pub they were fortunate enough to win a bit of money on the pokies before they were approached by a number of police officers. The couple were taken down to the Port Adelaide Police Station on suspicion of having committed a robbery which occurred on the same night approximately four kilometres away. The couple were charged and spent the night in custody. The husband's clothes and the winnings from the pokies were seized as evidence.

When they were released on bail the next morning their belongings were not given back to them and the husband was forced to return home in his underwear. Less than a month later, before the matter went to court, the prosecution withdrew the charges. In normal circumstances, their belongings would have been returned to them in approximately two weeks; however, it took over a month to have their clothing and money returned.

This story is bad enough; however, it seems that the only reason that the couple were suspected of committing the robbery in the first place was that they had inadvertently committed a much more heinous crime: they were an Aboriginal couple who happened to have a bit of money in their pockets.

I can assume only that it was due to racial profiling that Mr Johnno Tunkin and his wife, Ms Virginia Umala, were suspected of a robbery in Seaton when they had been enjoying dinner at Findon. To make matters worse, the couple were denied interpreters once they were at the station, despite making a request, as they did not speak English. Virginia was eight months pregnant at the time, and the delay in releasing the confiscated winnings caused considerable financial distress when their baby was born shortly after.

Johnno and Virginia are upstanding members of the community who often volunteer their time to educate children and others about Aboriginal culture. Their contribution was recognised when they were presented to Prince Charles and Camilla during their recent visit to Adelaide and demonstrated traditional Aboriginal cooking to them.

As a result of this experience with SAPOL, both Virginia and Johnno are now fearful and do not trust the police. The manner in which they have been treated is appalling, regardless of who they are, but it was made even worse by the fact that this all occurred seemingly because of the colour of their skin.