Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to pay tribute and respect to a young Western Australian woman whose life was tragically cut short at the age of 22. On August 4 of this year, a young woman, aged 22, died in the Pilbara. Any death at such a young age is tragic—a young person, a life cut short—but this death more so, because this young woman died at the hands of the state. The state failed in its duty of care to protect this young woman and to take responsibility for her health and wellbeing. After just three days in police custody, this young woman, aged 22, was dead.

I say this young woman died, because she was an Aboriginal woman and those charged with her safety failed to take the same care and responsibility that would have been afforded to a non-Aboriginal person. I say this, because whatever offence this young woman committed, the magistrate or the judge at the hearing deemed it to be a relatively minor offence—an offence attracting a fine, not a custodial sentence. Yet this woman ends up in custody over this offence and dies at the hands of the state.

Miss D, as I will refer to her, died just short of the 31st anniversary of the death in custody of John Pat. The parallels between Miss D and John Pat are eerie to say the least. Both John Pat and Miss D died in police lockups and both died in the Pilbara in Western Australia. So horrendous was John Pat's death—an unacceptable death, a boy at just 16—that he became the catalyst for the establishment of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, a heart-wrenching royal commission of four years with more than 300 recommendations.

And where are we in Western Australia in 2014? Most recommendations lay unimplemented in the now dusty royal commission report. This is unacceptable and should be unacceptable for every parliamentarian in this place and every politician in the state of Western Australia.

But Miss D's death is not new and, sadly, it is not isolated. It is a far too common occurrence in Western Australia. Towards the end of 2012, a 44-year-old woman died again in a police lockup in Broome. She was arrested for drunkenness and died in the night in an unknown way in a police cell. The local Catholic priest, Matt Digges, who knew this woman all of her adult life, describes her as an intelligent, resourceful and talented artist.

A coronial inquest has been held but has been unable to report after almost two years, because it is still waiting for a mandatory police report. Her family and friends are still waiting for answers, still waiting to find out almost two years after her death what happened on that night in that police cell that caused her to die. I find this completely unacceptable and I urge all parties who have any responsibility in this matter to publish the coronial report as a matter of priority and give some comfort, some answers, to this woman's family.

Last year the WA parliament conducted a specific inquiry into police lockups. It paints a sad and sorry story; in fact, it paints a disgraceful story. Despite WA developing guidelines in line with the royal commission's recommendations, many of WA's 145 lockups do not comply. Many significantly lack vital items such as alarms and resuscitation equipment. They are dirty. Their average age is 45, and police often lack the resources to staff them in a manner acceptable to the committee that conducted the inquiry. There is no independent oversight of WA police lockups.

The government has reported back to the committee on its recommendations, and many have been accepted—some of which, if implemented, may well have prevented the death of Miss D, this young 22-year-old woman in the prime of her life. If the royal commission's recommendations, now many years old, had been implemented, perhaps the death of the woman in Broome and the tragic case of Mr Ward would not have happened.

How many more deaths before Aboriginal people in Western Australia have justice and the confidence that they are not going to die, because the state neglects them? It is a basic human right to be treated fairly with dignity and respect, regardless of who you are and where you are. It is a basic human right that, if you are incarcerated, you do not die as a result of that incarceration.

How long will Miss D and her family have to wait for justice? Surely, not the two years that the family of the woman who died in custody in Broome have been waiting. There are many unanswered questions. Why a police lockup and not a jail? Why does WA continue with warrants of commitment and make them mandatory? Miss D was there, because she had not paid a fine and she was working out that fine by being in jail, despite the judge or the magistrate at the time of her offence deeming it not to be a custodial sentence.

Why did her pleas for help go unanswered? Why, when she was taken to hospital, was she released twice without medication and why was she issued with a certificate deeming her fit to continue her sentence? Was she seen by a doctor? How long did Miss D sit and wait in hospital? Was she shunted to the back of the queue because she was an Aboriginal woman in custody? Why is it that in Western Australia and not in other states, such as New South Wales, people can serve time to reduce their fines with these so-called warrants of commitment? And why in Western Australia do they continue to be mandatory? Why was Miss D arrested and put in jail for four days?

In Miss D's case it was mandatory incarceration. She did not have a choice—despite the Western Australian courts ruling in the first instance that whatever her crime was it did not warrant incarceration. Why are Aboriginal people continuing to be well and truly overrepresented in prisons in Western Australia? What a statistic to lead the country on—to have the highest levels of incarceration of Aboriginal people in Western Australia.

There is currently a police inquiry underway. We need to ensure that Miss D's family have absolute confidence in that process—that they are kept informed, that they are treated with respect, and that the process is transparent. But, quite frankly, I doubt that that will happen. Miss D will be yet another statistic of Aboriginal people in the state of Western Australia who, quite frankly, no-one cares about. This is a disgrace, and we are all culpable as politicians and parliamentarians if we allow this death to go unacknowledged, unreported and uninvestigated.