NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy welcomes racism complaint as ‘positive step’ for force

Commissioner Michael Murphy says a racism complaint filed by his officers is a “positive step for NT Police” on its journey of “cultural reform”.

NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy pledged to eliminate racism and improve relations between police and First Nations people at this year’s Garma Festival. Picture: Teagan Glenane / YYF

Update, September 23: Commissioner Michael Murphy says a racism complaint filed by his officers is a “positive step for NT Police” on its journey of “cultural reform”.

Class action lawyers Levitt Robinson filed the representative case with the Australian Human Rights Commission on behalf of the Aboriginal Community Police Officers last week.

They say the “landmark case” will allege two decades of “racial vilification and derision”, with Mr Murphy and the NT Government named as respondents.

“Noting that a complaint has been filed with the Australian Human Rights Commission, it would be inappropriate to comment on the specifics of this case,” the Commissioner said on Sunday.

“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.

“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.”

Aboriginal cops in human rights complaint against NT Police Commissioner

Initial, September 30: Three serving Aboriginal NT Police officers have lodged a formal complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission alleging two decades of “racial vilification and derision” in what is being hailed as “landmark case”.

In a statement released on Friday, the group’s lawyers, Levitt Robinson, said the representative complaint was understood to be the first of its kind anywhere in Australia.

“This is the first time that police (officers) have openly shown the courage and conviction, while still serving, to take collective action against the Territory (government) and the (Police) Commissioner,” managing partner Stewart Levitt said.

The firm’s Dana Levitt, who will take charge of the case, said the fact NT Police employed Aboriginal Community Police Officers “with lower pay and worse conditions, to police Aboriginal people” was “inherently racist”.

“(That is) particularly (so) where one-third of the population is Indigenous and the work of policing disproportionately affects Indigenous Territorians,” she said.

“A consistent theme among Aboriginal Community Police Officers 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.”

A racist award certificate handed out by NT Police's elite Territory Response Group tendered at an inquest into the death of Kumanjayi Walker earlier this year.

Mr Levitt said if the group was unable to successfully conciliate the dispute via the AHRC, its members were prepared to litigate the issue through the Federal Court.

“(They will be) claiming damages for racial discrimination in respect of pay (and) conditions, as well as compensation for their pain and suffering, which they allege has been caused by systemic racism in the NT Police service,” he said.

Mr Levitt said the ACPOs did not accept Commissioner Michael Murphy’s historic Garma Festival apology for “past harms and injustices, caused by members of the NT Police”, saying he “should have been apologising to us, too”.

“The ACPOs say that the apology was itself offensive, as it implied that they had been complicit in the racist system,” he said.

“They should have been excluded from those members of the NT Police on whose behalf the apology was given.”

The ACPOs say they ‘should have been excluded’ from an apology given by NT Police Commissioner Michael Murphy at Garma last month. Picture: Teagan Glenane / YYF

It comes after the NT News revealed in April that Aboriginal officers had lodged a formal, internal, anti-discrimination complaint, with one former ACPO describing assertions from senior police that there was no institutionalised racism in the force as “a joke”.

“There’s definitely institutional racism within the NT Police, it’s very open, every muster room you go into in every police station, both myself and other Aboriginal members have been subjected to it,” they said at the time.

“Don’t get me wrong, there’s good people in the NT Police but racism is alive and well throughout.”

An NT Police spokeswoman said they would not be providing comment at this stage.