UN asks Australia about Aboriginal custody death

The West Australian has revealed the UN is seeking information about how an Aboriginal elder died from heatstroke in a prison van in remote WA last year. The UN representative on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment and Punishment is seeking information on the death of “Ribs” Ward, who collapsed while being taken 360km from Laverton to Kalgoorlie in 42C heat in January 2008 to face charges of drink driving. The UN made the enquiry to the Australian federal government last September. The WA Corrective Services department told the paper yesterday that Canberra had passed on the UN enquiry to the WA Government.

The 46 year old Ward (his family does not want his first name published for cultural reasons) was a resident of the remote settlement of Warburton, 1,500km northeast of Perth. He was an interpreter for local police, an advocate and educator for children of the Gibson Desert, and an international ambassador for the Ngaanyatjarra peoples. He called himself “professor of the bush”. On Australia Day, 26 January 2008, Ward was drinking heavily while on a visit to Laverton. Police stopped him in a random traffic check and arrested him for drink-driving after he blew 0.22 (four times the blood alcohol legal limit). He was put in the Laverton lock-up for the night.

Police then gave the job of transporting him to Kalgoorlie to a British private contracting firm, Global Solutions Ltd (GSL). GSL (which has recently changed its name to G4S) is profiting from the increasing privatisation of prison services in Britain, South Africa and Australia. In 2004 the company was fined $500,000 for its mistreatment of asylum-seekers when the company transported five detainees from Melbourne to Baxter Immigration Facility in remote South Australia.

In WA, GSL has a $25 million contract until October for court security and transporting prisoners across the state using Corrective Services facilities. However the facilities used to transport Ward were far from adequate. GSL was forced transport him in the back of a defective police van through the desert in mid-summer. For four hours, the journey passed by with no air conditioning, no checks for well-being and with only one 600ml bottle of water. The air temperature in the back of the van reached temperatures of over 50C and Ward was slowly cooked to death. On arrival in Kalgoorlie, the man was found dead with third-degree burns on his abdomen from contact with the hot metal floor.

The inquest into his death in March 2009 showed incompetence was rife in both GSL and the Corrective Services Department. GSL officers in Kalgoorlie complained constantly about the poor state of the vehicles but did not get a replacement until after Ward's death. And even then the replacement vehicle was substandard. Meanwhile GSL failed to ensure staff were trained to look after prisoners properly. The two guards that drove Ward to his death testified there were no procedures on how many breaks prisoners should have on a journey, how much food and water they should be given, or if the air-conditioning should be checked. A senior GSL employee accused the two of lying and said the pair had not followed company procedures which they were both aware of.

Despite the public internal disagreement GSL did not sack either driver and they are still both transporting prisoners across the state. Freelance journalist Michael Winkler spoke to Ward’s cousin Daisy Ward after the inquest who was stunned to hear the pair were still driving prisoners. “They (GSL) should be really ashamed of themselves,” she said. “What is this company doing to us families? What are they thinking when we have tears in our eyes listening to everything said about my cousin? Were they ashamed of themselves for what they did? Or what?”

At a community meeting held in the wake of the inquest, the Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee organised a rally to be held this month to protest Ward’s shameful treatment. At the meeting, Noongar elder Ben Taylor-Ciuermara contrasted the media-manufactured outrage over the March 12 acquittal of three men accused of assaulting police, with the disregard paid by the media and politicians to the deaths in custody of Aboriginal people.

But it should come as little surprise the deaths of Ward and others receive so little attention. Indigenous people are 2 percent of the population of Australia and are among the country’s lowest income earners. In other words, they are not treated as a mainstream media audience worth cultivating. As I heard Aboriginal journalist Kerry Klimm say yesterday, “we don’t rank in the ratings”.

Here’s hoping the UN shames WA into action. Privatising the prison service for profit is badly flawed and morally indefensible. It needs to be taken back inhouse as a matter of urgency. It may not stop incidents such as Ward's but at least will ensure that governments cannot spread the blame when things go wrong. My thanks to Lauredhel's post at Hoyden About Town for alerting me to this important story.

WA police raid on Sunday Times leaves politicians ducking for cover

In a move that defies credibility, Western Australian Treasurer Eric Ripper denied government involvement in the police raid on a Perth newspaper last week. Yesterday Ripper said he told WA parliament he made one phone call to report a concern that Cabinet confidentiality may have been breached. He then claimed he had no further involvement until told the raid had taken place. Ripper was at the centre of an article in the Sunday Times which suggested he was using taxpayer funds for party advertising.

Ripper’s claim does not explain why a massive force of sixteen police officers raided the newsroom of the Murdoch-owned weekly Wednesday. Major Fraud Squad (MFS) officers were there on behalf of the fraud squad which was trying to find who leaked information about a government decision to spend $16 million. Police say that five officers initially went to the Sunday Times but more were sent when the paper’s management initially refused to co-operate.

Police removed documents, blocked exits at the newspaper's building and searched staff. The search lasted four hours and the paper’s editor Sam Weir was interviewed for over an hour. Story writer Paul Lampathakis was not in the Sunday Times building at the time of the police raid but police removed several items and notes from his desk. Detective Senior Sergeant Dom Blackshaw said documents had been seized during the search as part of an investigation into "potential breaches of the secrecy provisions of the criminal code".

In February the Sunday Times published an article by Lampathakis which said WA’s Treasurer, Eric Ripper in his role as head of the cabinet communication sub-committee, "urgently" asked the expenditure review committee for $5.25 million for the first half of the year and a further $10.75 million to July next year. Lampathakis’s story quoted “government sources” who said the money was to be spent on a strategic advertising campaign to help Labour's bid for re-election later this year.

The government was more offended by the unauthorised disclosure than the misuse of public funds and immediately launched a witch-hunt to identify the culprit. They referred the matter to the Corruption and Crime Commission (CCC). The government dusted down Section 28 of the 2003 CCC Act which read that "certain officers" are obliged to report misconduct. The CCC claims it did not act on the referral because it already has more complaints than it can handle. They in turn referred the matter to the police where it ended up in the hands of the Major Fraud Squad.

While it is possible that the MFS conducted the raid without informing the government, it seems unlikely police senior management would have approved so public a move without some political consultation. Ripper’s claim of non-involvement in Wednesday’s events also flies in the face of a statement released by his boss. The day after the raid, the office of the Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter (himself a former journalist) admitted it had made the complaint that led to the raid. A department spokesman said they referred allegations of the unauthorised disclosure of a confidential document to the WA police and the CCC.

The Sunday Times editor, Sam Weir was outraged by the raid on his newspaper. He said it was the second time in a month the paper had been raided by police over a Lampathakis story. The earlier Lampathakis story concerned the dumping of computers from Royal Perth Hospital that still contained private medical details of patients. Journalist union MEAA local secretary Michael Sinclair-Jones said the latest search was outrageous. "It's an attack on free speech," he said, "an outrageous attempt to stifle free speech and impede the press.”

Media coalition Australia's Right to Know chief and News Ltd CEO John Hartigan said the raid was a farcical and transparent attempt to punish journalists and whistleblowers. Cowan University journalism lecturer Kayt Davies told Crikey the police have learned an embarrassing lesson from the raid. He said he hopes the MFS now knows “that the media yowls like a pack of angry watchdogs if you squeeze it and so it’s best to use whatever discretion you have up your sleeve and to leave it alone.”

The raid was captured by the Sunday Times website Perth Now's own cameras and posted on Youtube. There is an excellent spot of editing in the piece when a scene showing a policeman claiming the search will not be “intrusive” is immediately followed by a shot of another putting on what looks like surgical gloves!