Indigenous police officers file human rights complaint against police commissioner, government

Sydney-based Levitt Robinson lawyers managing partner Stewart Levitt said in a statement that the complaint lodged with the AHRC shows systemic racism, with officers having faced racial vilification, derision and unequal pay for more than twenty years in their positions as Aboriginal community police officers.

“This is the first time that police have openly shown the courage and conviction, while still serving, to take collective action against the Territory and the commissioner. I am not aware of similar action being taken in any other state or territory of Australia,” Mr Levitt said.

“If the matter is not successfully conciliated, my firm will take the case to the Federal Court, claiming damages for racial discrimination in respect of pay, conditions, as well as compensation for their pain and suffering, which they allege has been caused by systemic racism in the Northern Territory Police Service.”

Partner Dana Levitt, who has the day-to-day carriage of the matter, said having Aboriginal community police officers with lower pay and worse conditions to police Aboriginal people was inherently racist, particularly when one-third of the population is Indigenous and the work of policing disproportionately affected Indigenous Territorians.

“A consistent theme amongst ACPOs is that they joined the force to help their community and have been frequently deployed by their white superiors in ways which they believe harm their community,” Ms Levitt said.

Commissioner Michael Murphy said in a statement that it would be inappropriate to comment on the specifics of the case considering a complaint had been filed with the AHRC.

“What I can say is that it is a positive step for NT Police that members have the confidence to speak up about issues such as racism,” Mr Murphy said.

“We are invested in cultural reform, and continuing to make progress for a safe workplace and investment in leadership and pathways for our all our employees, for a safer Territory.”

Mr Murphy made a sweeping public apology to Indigenous Territorians at the Garma Festival on August 3 for “past harms and injustices” inflicted on them over the past 150 years at the hands of the NT Police, while committing to “eliminating racism” in the force under his command.

He also pledged to deliver a personal apology to the people of Yuendumu at a later date, which pre-empted the findings of an ongoing coronial inquest and ICAC investigation into alleged widespread racism in the police force.

The ACPOs have also have expressed dissatisfaction with Mr Murphy’s apology, saying they found it offensive as it insinuated their complicity in the racist system.

They argue that they should not have been included among those members of the NT Police for whom the apology was made.

“The commissioner should have been apologising to us, too,” the ACPOs had instructed Levitt Robinson to say on their behalf.

Mr Murphy admitted in June to the coronial inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker that he was effectively “gaslighting” Indigenous Territorians when he claimed earlier this year that he was not aware of racism in the police force.

In early July, Mr Murphy appointed Leanne Liddle as the executive director of the NT Police’s Community Resilience and Engagement Command and tasked her with designing the agency’s anti-racism strategy, developing cultural reform activities and leading the agency’s effort to increase its rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees to 30 per cent.

But the police commissioner has not stood down senior officers who are subject of the ICAC investigation into racism and who provided statuary declarations to the coroner in the Walker inquest, incorrectly claiming annual Territory Response Group’s awards, which included one that was colloquially known as the ‘coon of the year award’, did not have any racial significance.

Late in the coronial, Mr Murphy admitted under oath that he was made aware of the racist awards last August but took no action, later misleading the public when he said at a February press conference that he had no knowledge of them.

Mr Murphy first said he was too busy to take any action on the racism he was made aware of, but later said it was “regrettable” that he had not taken action.

In a statement, NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the claims were from the past and they would dealt with by the AHRC.

“My focus for the NT Police force is on its future and making sure our hard-working force has the support, resources and powers it needs to keep Territorians safe.”

In May Peppimenarti community founder and Wilson family matriarch Regina Pilawuk Wilson lodged Federal Court action on behalf of herself and members of the extended Wilson family against the Lawler Labor Government, three ministers, and the NT Police Commissioner for alleged breaches of the Racial Discrimination Act by failing to provide policing in their community comparable to the level provided to non-Indigenous NT residents.

The originating application, lodged on April 26 and seen by the NT Independent, states that since 2019, the Jovi Boys gang have consistently violently attacked and menaced Wilson clan members and their properties, and that despite hundreds of complaints to police by the Wilsons and Deewin Kirim Aboriginal Corporation chief executive officer Ray Whear, police had taken no action, or no adequate action, in response to those complaints of actual or impending violence.