A shameful death after a supermarket scuffle shines a light on Australia's unfinished business

The Guardian

31-05-2025

In the middle of Reconciliation Week a young, disabled Warlpiri man died following a scuffle in a Coles supermarket in Alice Springs after he was 'placed' on the floor by two plain-clothed policemen.
People are not 'placed' on the floor – that is what you do with bags, boxes and rubbish. But that was the word used by the Northern Territory police to describe the sequence of events to the media. Tragically, painfully, I think it says a lot.
I try to imagine a similar scene at my local Coles, where many people who have not been winners in life's lottery also shop for little items to keep hunger at bay, but no image comes to mind. I think the situation would most likely have been quietly defused, no one would have been 'placed' on the floor and died, the shop would not have become a crime scene.
On the same day in Western Australia, the state government decided to provide $85,000 to those remaining stolen people who had spent their lives wondering and suffering because of cruel policies that removed children from their families. A measly lump sum from a state treasury grown fat from mineral resources, many from native title lands.
First Nations people have a life expectancy decades lower than others, so the numbers are much smaller than they were. Delay is the most effective way of maintaining the status quo – people die, responsibility is diminished, the mistake no longer has a human face.
The WA announcement came, inexcusably, nearly three decades after the profoundly revealing and moving Bringing Them Home report. It landed in the national consciousness and triggered a heartfelt realisation of the long-term consequences of bad policy for those who paid attention; people marched across bridges, signed petitions and wept watching Rabbit-Proof Fence.
It also provided a pretext for a cruel and cynical, politically led culture war that has put Australia in aspic for decades.
Then prime minister John Howard's rejection of the recommendations of that report was crystallised as a refusal to say sorry. This was the headline and the source of his global humiliation when Midnight Oil, their jumpsuits stamped with the unmissable word 'sorry', sang and danced in front of him on the stage of the Sydney Olympics closing ceremony.
Saying sorry then gave Howard's successor Kevin Rudd his greatest political triumph. But saying sorry is not enough – actions must follow to fix the foundational flaw.
Behind the moral dilemma about where responsibility ended was a crass calculation. Among that report's many, and largely still not acted on, recommendations, was that compensation be given for the thousands of lives that had been deliberately upended with tragic and traumatic consequences for generations.
It was this recommendation that galvanised Howard and his minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, John Herron. Compensation for individuals was out of the question and would be impossible to calculate anyway, they declared.
That gave way when Ken Wyatt was the minister for Indigenous Australians in the Morrison government, and with little fanfare, compensation of $75,000 was allocated to stolen children survivors in the territories.
Pat Turner, a long-term Indigenous public servant, told Dan Bourchier on The Elders that an appropriate amount in 1997 would have been a million dollars each, enough then to buy a house and provide families that had been deliberately destroyed with some ongoing intergenerational security.
Queensland has yet to provide redress, and is now, as it has done for more than a century, locking up another generation of children. What bit of this don't they understand? Crime is not innate, it is mostly caused by circumstances – such as poverty, family dysfunction and trauma – that can be addressed. Locking people up hasn't worked in the past, and it won't now.
There is unfinished business in this country, and there can be no excuses for not knowing or understanding. We need to change direction and remove the burden from the most vulnerable.
Endless consultations have been conducted, reports have been written, deep studies of the intergenerational impact of trauma have become part of everyday language. The thing that has not been tried is to listen, and act, on the advice and wisdom of those closest to the problems. To really listen, deeply and seriously to the elders and those who have been working on the ground for years to restore hope. The evidence shows this works – top-down solutions don't.
Almost a million more people voted yes in the referendum than voted for the Labor party in the recent election. The combined Liberal National party vote was about half the no vote. While the majority rejected the voice proposal because they didn't know, didn't care or thought it was unfair, this cannot be mapped on to the political snapshot that the election provided. The referendum was not a proxy election. The door to meaningful, symbolic and practical recognition can and must be opened again.
I have written here before that this government has an historic opportunity at a time of crisis. It needs to work with the states to grasp it in relation to First Peoples so they can be relieved of trauma, live fulfilled and meaningful lives, so that children are not taken away and locked up, and the whole nation can achieve its potential.
In a land of home improvers surely the principle of fixing the foundations first if you want to really close the gaps is obvious.
Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636
Julianne Schultz is the author of The Idea of Australia, the co-editor of First Things First (Griffith Review) and the librettist of the multi-award winning opera Black River